The Government Delegation in Madrid estimates that 20,000 attended the mascletà held yesterday at the Puente del Rey in Madrid Río. There are 20,000 fewer people than those who gathered last year in the Torres de Serranos in Valencia to enjoy the Crida, the Fallas proclamation that announces the start of the Fallas. The Valencia City Council, dedicated to the celebration, points out that the Madrid shot is the "preamble to the Fallas", in addition to being "an occasion for meeting and recognition between Madrid and Valencia".
La Crida on Sunday is one of the most massive events that, in recent years, has increased so much in size that the authorities are concerned about its 'lack of control'. That is why for this Sunday the City Council has decided to enable access controls to prevent alcohol consumption and try to prevent the event from becoming a "macro bottle." In recent years there have been many falleros - and non-falleros - who have gone with shopping carts full of drinks to the Towers. This is what you want to avoid.
Those who arrive at the Crida will have had a long, intense day, because the program starts at seven in the morning with a macro awakening that also has its children's version through the most central streets of Valencia. At noon there will be an entrance of bands and mascletà, the first in the plaza of these Fallas 2024.
Sunday's event will be the start of a program of non-stop celebrations, with special importance to the pyrotechnics that will be fired every day of March, from the 1st to the 19th, in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento de València. The fences are already prepared, as well as the cage that has contained, for years, its assembly. Every day more than 40,000 people watch the spectacle in what is considered the “world cathedral of pyrotechnics” and many others listen to it from nearby, on the radio, online or on television.
From Sunday onwards the city will be filled, little by little, with tents, fences, lighting installation trucks - some are already working these days - and pieces of Fallas monuments to the joy of some and the despair of others. Las Fallas officially start on March 16, but the festival has been celebrated for a long time before. This year they are also expected to be massive due to how they fall on the calendar: San José, a big festival, is a Tuesday and also a holiday in Madrid, a city just an AVE away.
