CONFIRMED: Valencia will hold its Fallas fire festival in September 2021

Valencia’s Falla Assembly of presidents voted that this year’s event would be held from September 1st to the 5th, with 93.3 percent of its members in favour of holding it later this year.

President of the Central Board of Fallera, Carlos Galiana, explained that holding the festival in the first week of September has its advantages. “There are school holidays, the weather has not yet worsened, it does not coincide with the town's patron saint festivals, and oxygen is given to the economy," he said. 

An earlier proposal, to change the dates of Las Fallas to July, was dismissed due to delays in the vaccination rate.

The festival is usually held in the week running up to March 19th to honour San José or Saint Joseph, and features the creation of huge sculptures made from papier-mâché.

Nit de la Cremá during Las Fallas in Valencia. Photo: JOSE JORDAN / AFP

Whimsical, satirical and fantastical, the giant sculptures are displayed across the city, before being ceremoniously burnt during the Nit de la Cremá,  usually on the night of March 19th. 

Valencia’s Las Fallas attracts over two million visitors each year and generates around €60 million in revenue for the city, meaning that cancelling it twice has been a big blow to the economy.

While most aspects of Las Fallas will take place in September such as the ofrenda offering of flowers to the Virgin outside the cathedral, the fireworks and the burning, it is not yet known whether the famous mascletà will be able to take place.

Held every afternoon during the festival in the lead-up to the Nit de la Crema, it features thousands of people packed into Valencia’s Plaza Mayor to listen to an ear-splitting display of firecrackers.

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