La Tomatina started as a small street food fight in Buñol in Valencia, Spain in the mid-1940s, but now it has become the world's biggest food fight festival. Every year, more than 50,000 travel to Buñol to attend the tomato-throwing festival.
La Tomatina is celebrated on the last Wednesday of August. Every year, thousands of people from across the world would gather in Buñol to celebrate the annual tomato-throwing festival, which marked the 70th anniversary last year. However, from 2013 the organisers made La Tomatina a ticketed festival.
So how do revellers celebrate the festival of throwing tomatoes? Check out some fun facts about the world's biggest food festival.
The origin of the festival is still unknown. While some say that the festival started with a street fight in which people began throwing tomatoes at each other, some say that the tomatoes were thrown at the city council members as a mark of protest against an unfavourable decision in the mid-1940s. The localities enjoyed throwing the tomatoes so much that they decided to turn it into an annual festival.
La Tomatina was banned in the 1960s during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. However, after his death in 1975, San Luis Bertran, the local patron of the town, started organising the events again and supplied tomatoes too. Five years later, the local council turned the event into an annual festival, which is now known as the famous La Tomatina.
Though it is a tomato throwing festival, the event does not start unless someone climbs a greased-up wooden pole in the Town Square to bring down a ham. The festival, which is just an hour's event, begins at 11 a.m. after water cannon shots are fired.
The festival is now a ticketed event and revellers need to pay a fee of â'¬10 to take part in the event. Due to increase in popularity of the event, organisers made Tomatina festival a ticketed event. Participants' capacity has been reduced to 22,000, out of which 5,000 tickets are reserved for residents for free.
How to play? To avoid injuries, revellers need to squash the tomatoes before throwing it on someone and also no other projectiles are allowed during the one-hour event. Participants will need to make way for trucks and lorries at the venue.
Parties after the festival: Not only throwing tomatoes, but tourists can also attend several parties that take place after the main event. There are also boat parties, which take place after the tomato throwing festival.
