THE WORLD'S biggest – and probably only – salad fight was supposed to be celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2020, but like practically all fiestas this year, has been called off due to the pandemic.
Not entirely, though: Buñol town council is calling for fans of the festival all over the planet to take part in the #TomatinaChallenge – videoing themselves being hit by ripe tomatoes or hurling tomato juice over themselves, uploading the footage on social media, and emailing it to prensa@latomatina.info.
All entries will be placed into a metaphorical hat and the first 10 drawn out will earn their filmers two tickets each for next year's Tomatina, and 10 commemorative mugs.
Safety and avoiding destruction of other people's, or public, property is, obviously, paramount: If you take videos of yourself chucking tomatoes at people on the street, you'll probably be fined, and so you should be; mask-wearing, social distancing and stringent hygiene measures mean it is more crucial than ever to avoid pulling a Tomatina-style stunt in public.
But a tomatoey version of the 'ice-bucket challenge' on your own terrace or garden – as long as you're the one responsible for cleaning it up afterwards – could work instead.
It does not have to be messy, though, say local authorities: Dressing up the kids in tomato costumes, filming your tomato plants or tomato-based lunch might also fit the bill.
Videos should be horizontal, or landscape, rather than vertical or portrait, since they need to be uniform – the council wants to put them all together to make a full-length, commemorative 75th anniversary 'documentary'.
Buñol, a town of approximately 11,000 inhabitants around 20 kilometres west of Valencia off the A-3 Madrid motorway, is famous on every continent for its mucky festival, which is believed to have started after a group of youths at the weekly fruit-and-veg market became bored and started hurling tomatoes at each other.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com