Jai Day I. La Tomatina

Kukuxumusu unites two of the principal street fiestas in the world with three hundred kilos of tomatoes in this first edition of "Jai Day"

In the middle of the festive atmosphere, this morning, a special event took place in Iruñea-Pamplona with the help of 300 kilos of tomatoes especially transported from the town of Bunyol in the province of Castellón, when the first ever edition of "Jai Day" (The Day of the Fiesta) was held. With this initiative, Kukuxumusu wishes to invite each year another locality that is famous for its fiestas to Pamplona to share and pay a common homage to the concept of the international fiesta.

For this first edition of "Jai Day", Kukuxumusu chose to invite the people responsible for the Tomatina. This fiesta takes place each year in the town of Bunyol (Valencia) and some 40,000 participants take part in a tomato-throwing battle through the streets of the town. On this occasion, the tomato-throwing took place this morning in Pamplona, right in the heart of the Sanfermin fiestas. Some open ground was used in the Rochapea neighborhood of Pamplona and hundreds of people turned up. Among them a special delegation from Bunyol lead by their Mayor, Fernando Giraldós.

At exactly twelve o'clock midday, and with both representative parties from the two fiestas gathered together, the mayor of Bunyol took up a megaphone to explain to the public how the Tomatina is carried out, to ensure that the Pamplona event would be as close as possible to the event held annually during the month of August in the town in Valencia. Once the explanations were over, the Kukuxumusu blue bull, one of the icons of the Sanfermin fiestas, received the first tomato and the fiesta was declared open by the Mayor of Bunyol. In a wild scene, but in an atmosphere of goodwill and, above all, fun-loving, the three hundred kilos of tomatoes were soon leaving deep red stains on the white Sanfermin gear that most of the public were wearing. The passing public could not help but stop and stare at the colorful scene of a festival that looked familiar from news reports they had seen.

Once the event was over, Mikel Urmeneta, creative director at Kukuxumusu, expressed his satisfaction at the result and success of this symbolic act and which his company, Kukuxumusu - so united to the Sanfermin fiestas - now wants to "give people the chance to know other fun fiestas and to let them have a good time at the same time". For his part, Fernando Giraldós, Mayor of Bunyol expressed his appreciation for the effort made by Kukuxumusu in creating an initiative of this kind, which in the end, even when the fiestas are so different; the common purpose is to unite different ways for people to have some good fun.

The Kukuxumusu team responsible for this initiative are already thinking and planning for next year's event in 2010. In fact, some talks have already begun with some of these places, such as the Oktoberfest in Munich, to see if it is feasible to bring them together next year. As for this year's event, it will have its outcome in the month of August when Kukuxumusu and Sanfermin visit the town of Bunyol to discover the Bunyol fiestas live.

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