Valencia (EFE).- Valencia lives this Wednesday the first of its five big days of the Fallas 2023 and here are the five keys to these festivities:
unrestrained failures
After the suspension of 2020 less than a week from its big days, the postponement to September of those of 2021 due to the severity of the then successive waves and the restrictions in force in those of 2022, the Fallas of 2023 arrive without a trace of anticovid measures .
The Fallas world and its satellites -hoteliers, tourists, beauty and clothing, music and services- finally breathe without a mask and as if they were the first “true” ones in a long time. Almost all the forecasts, moreover, seem favorable to them and, in fact, this year’s fallas census exceeds 103,000 people, exceeding the pre-pandemic figures.
Good time
The Fallas of 2022 were the rainiest and with the fewest hours of sunshine in its entire history, which ruined many planned plans, canceled reservations and canceled trips, damaged and knocked down monuments, overshadowed celebrations and, in general, left its members trembling and out of temper. protagonists and secondary actors.
The forecast for this year, on the other hand, fills them with joy and optimism. After a week of summer heat, the big days arrive with clear skies -at most some drizzle on Saturday-, mild temperatures, wind without dangers and, as they say around here, the typical “time of Fallas”.
Multitudes
The authorities have been warning this for weeks: these Fallas will be massive because they are the first “normal” ones since before the pandemic, due to the expected good weather, because their big days fall on the weekend and because Monday the 20th is a holiday in Madrid. It is assured that they will be “two cities in one” (and Valencia has almost 800,000 inhabitants). Hotel occupancy, almost 90% on Friday and Saturday, will improve the figures of the last five years.
The security device has been adapted to the continuous parade that will take place during these days through the most fallas and tourist areas of the city, as well as for the huge concentrations of people in, for example, the mascletaes in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, the route of the Offering and the nocturnal fireworks castles, which this year change locations and will go off next to the City of Arts and Sciences.
Inflation
Everything is more expensive due to the effects of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and that also affects the Fallas. Fritters and churros -the unofficial menu of the Fallas tourism- are worth more than last year, but also firecrackers, a paella and a hotel room. The fallas commissions have had less budget to spend, although they have had official aid to stay afloat after three years of pandemic and a lot of accounting readjustment.
This week, moreover, an official and academic report on the economic impact of the Fallas is beginning to take shape, long awaited both by the Fallas world itself and by the satellites of that festive universe. Its conclusions will serve to measure the real impact of one of the most famous popular festivals in the world but which, from within, lives in a state of permanent crisis and precarious conditions for many fallas artists.
The ninots and their fallas
The almost 800 failures – between large and childish – this year, apparently, do not reflect that crisis. Monumental sets in the nine of the Special section -the most photographed, also for its budgets (up to 255,000 euros)-, high shots that avoid gravity and, as always, a lot of irony, satire, nostalgia, fantasy, eroticism, allegory , history and color.
After the “plantà” on Wednesday, until the Cremà on Sunday, the ninots that reflect criticism of politicians -in two months there are municipal and regional elections- and celebrities and sports figures, but also the themes of the monuments, from health to human rights through nature, the Far East, music or the American West.
And as a symbol of this year, the gigantic 21-meter-high heart made of double crochet in a falla, the municipal one (out of competition), which was designed for the first time by a woman (Marina Puche) and which lights up with the sensory beats that causes the Mediterranean, a failing heart rhythm with an expiration date: eleven o’clock at night on Saint Joseph’s Day.