Category: News about the running of the bulls

Noticias sobre las fiestas de San Fermín.

Nacys Rubias

Concerts for Sanfermin 2015

Pamplona City Hall has just released the concert program for Sanfermin 2015. Among the musicians coming are Mario Vaquerizo with las Nancy Rubias, Boni, Medina Azahara La MODA (la marvillosa Orquesta del Alcohol), Miguel Campello, M-Clan, El puchero del hortelano, Siniestro Total and Play de Game (Tributo Queen).

The budget outlay for the music concerts at the Plaza of los Fueros is 200.000 euros and for the Plaza del Castillo main square the figure is 110.000 euros. This serves to confirm that, yet again this year, the Plaza of los Fueros is becoming the main venue for concerts over these past few years.

In the Plaza of los Fueros the performances from the main groups and bands are programmed to begin at 00.15 a.m. although most nights there will be supporting groups playing from 23.30 p.m. (as soon as the nightly fireworks displays finish). In addition, between 21.30 and las 22.30 p.m. there will also be music playing, either with DJs or with music groups and other music artists, as has been the case during these past years.

The Plaza del Castillo main square is programming music performances of a different style and in contrast to the shows in the Plaza de los Fueros and it includes a wide range of styles for all those who enjoy the festive nights in the main square during the Sanfermin fiestas.

Plaza del Castillo

Plaza de los Fueros

Javier Erice a la derecha y el cartel de kilikón a la izquierda. Javier le saca la burla con la mano abierta coloca en la nariz al cartel, donde un niño realiza la misma postura a Caravinagre

Kilikón, from Javier Erice, is the winning poster to announce the 2015 Sanfermin Fiestas

Javier Erice Larumbe and his poster creation, entitled Kilikón, will announce the 2015 Sanfermin fiestas. His creation received 1, 511 votes from a total of 5, 124 votes cast by the citizens of Pamplona which gave him a percentage of 29, 4% of the total votes. From the votes cast on Internet by voters from the municipal census list, Kilikón was the first option with 1, 098 votes with a margin of 362 votes over “Mogollón”, poster number 7, which was created by Carlos García López from Barcelona. The winning poster from Erice was also the first option, although with a tighter margin, from among those who cast their vote in person at the Civivox municipal premises, belonging to Pamplona City Hall, with 398 votes as compared with the 354 votes received by the poster “Mogollón”.

In the open survey carried out online by Sanfermin.com, in which it was not necessary to be on Pamplona city census list, Kilikón achieved an even higher margin over the rest of the entrants where the winning poster was given 44% of the total number of votes cast. However, outside Pamplona, the Mogollón” poster proved to be less popular and the two best runner-up posters were those of “La despedia de los Gigantes” and “8 días de blanco y rojo”.

At the press conference today, the Mayor of Pamplona, Enrique Maya, wished to underline the fact that for him personally, it was a thrill to know that the winning poster, with its image of Caravinagre, will feature as the official poster to announce the fiestas of  Sanfermin this coming July. It was equally satisfying to find that the author was a local man from Pamplona. It was also satisfying to see that the participation in the voting this year had improved on that of last year with a total of 5,124 votes cast – 47.4% more than in 2014. However, the total does not reach the 6.422 votes cast in 2012 or the 9, 782 votes cast in 2009.

Author Javier Erice, was trained in the School of Arts and Crafts. Although he has never dedicated himself full-time to working as an artist he has always kept in close contact with the world of painting and photography. Erice stressed that he chose the “paper-Mache Big-Head” figure of Caravinagre “because he felt like doing it” and that he did not take into account any fashionable trends in painting but rather worked wholly from his own criteria. He underlined the fact that by choosing Caravinagre he wished to reflect his own childhood fears and, on the other hand, with the nose-thumbing gesture of the small child, he wished to create a simple manner of dealing with those situations that can terrify us.

Se puede puede ver a Javier Erice con el cartel en la mano y su reflejo en el espejo de la sala de prensa del ayuntamiento de Pamplona
Javier Erice con su obre en la rueda de prensa de presentación del cartel ganador
Resultados de la encuesta web donde el cartel Kilikon gana con el 44% de los votos. Más de 1300.

Kilikon será el cartel de Sanfermin 2015

Según los lectores y seguidores de Sanfermin.com, “Kilikón” será el cartel de Sanfermin 2015. Tras una semana de encuestas a través de Sanfermin.com y las redes sociales de Sanfermin, “Kilikón” será el cartel ganador porque obtuvo 1.390 elecciones, el 44,1% de todas las votaciones. Le sigue con un 31% de las elecciones “La despedida de los gigantes” que ha registrado 983 votos.

Con estos datos principales podemos concluir que entre estos dos carteles está el gusto mayoritario de nuestros seguidores. El resto, como se puede ver en la tabla, le sigue a distancia aunque el orden es “8 días de rojo y blanco”, “San Fermín Pamplona Lovers”, “Mogollón”, “Estallido & recompensa” , “Urdin gorri” y “Ciudad Abierta / Hiria zabalik”.

Kilikon 1390 44.1%
La despedida de los gigantes 983 31.2%
8 días de rojo y blanco 324 10.3%
San Fermín Pamplona Lovers 230 7.3%
Mogollón 122 3.9%
Estallido & recompensa 50 1.6%
Urdin gorri 33 1%
Ciudad abierta / Hiria zabalik 22 0.7%

El sistema utilizado permite votar varias veces y, si bien los votos totales pueden estar inflados porque hay quienes han votado muchas veces por diferentes carteles, los porcentajes se han mantenido desde el inicio de la encuesta. Veremos el martes que viene si hemos acertado. Muchas gracias a quienes han participado.

Ilustración con un perfil de Caravinagre gigante que ocupa la parte izquierda y central del cartel. Ala derecha y abajo se amanece el perfil en sombre de un niño que se burla del kiliki.
Cartel Kilikon finalista concurso de carteles de San fermin 2015

The 2015 Feria del Toro poster features a picador on horseback and holding his lance – but it doesn’t show its stabbing metal point “so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings”

A horseback picador is the striking image on this year’s poster for the forthcoming Sanfermin 2015 Feria del Toro and today it was presented to the public at a press conference. This year the poster has been created by Madrid painter, Vicente Arnás who was chosen by the organizing committee from the Casa de Misericordia charity in Pamplona – the entity behind the organization of the bullfights – to provide the poster for this year.

Not since 1986 has a picador featured on the annual poster made to announce the Sanfermin bullfighting week. And that is precisely why Vicente Arnás chose this particular assistant of the matador to feature on the poster “in order to find a poster theme that has not been given as much protagonism as some of the other elements within the bullfights”. The artist also revealed another interesting detail when he admitted that he had purposely omitted showing the steel stabbing point of the lance which is used to weaken the bull during the bullfight. And the reason for this omission he admitted was “to avoid hurting the feelings of those people who are opposed to the element of cruelty in the bullfight”.

The Madrid painter also acknowledged that he was very pleased to have been chosen by the Casa de Misericordia committee to create the poster for this year`s bullfighting week. He revealed that he had also introduced some small details in the outfit and dress of the picador taken from earlier periods such as the frilly ruff around the neck of the picador, and he did this on purpose as this was something he had a habit of doing in his paintings in order to add some “personality to the piece”.

2015-04-09_arnas2At the press conference launching of the poster, Fernando Redón, a member of the Casa de Misericordia Bullfighting Committee, and also a fellow artist, spoke of the artistic validity found in the work of Arnás, and he outlined the career of this Madrid artist and the different exhibitions that he has had over the years. The Mayor of Pamplona, Enrique Maya, also spoke and he praised the rich variety and high quality found in the Sanfermin Bullfight posters over these past years.

This official presentation of the Feria del Toro Poster is traditionally held just a few weeks before the annual presentation of the Sanfermin Fiestas Program. And the winner of this poster competition will soon be revealed after the general public of Pamplona has cast their votes for the winning poster, using this public-voting selection method which has been in vogue for several years now.

We called ourselves Sanfermin because “I liked the image very much of a mass of people running like the devil to save their lives”

We learn from an article by Natxo Velez for eitbKultura that the Brooklyn band “San Fermín” is called this name because the group leader, Ellis Ludwig-Leone, liked the image “The image of a mass of people running like the devil to save their lives”. The “San Fermín” group is bringing out their second CD in April with the name “Jackrabbit”. Back in January, 2014 we spoke about this group at Sanfermin.com and since then the band has moved on from being “promising” to now being a reference in the pop music world. You can read the whole interview here.

From the text that eitbkultura shows us, we have taken the extract that refers to the Sanfermin fiestas:

Natxo Velez. eitbkultura.eus
First of all, I would like to ask you about the group’s name. Why “San Fermin”?
I just liked the image of a mass of people running like the devil to save their lives.

What part of the Sanfermin fiestas do you like best? Had you ever heard about the connection between the fiestas and the American writer, Ernest Hemingway?
I think I prefer the romantic version of Hemingway that the real one, which seems to be a bit confounding. In any case, I would like to check it out for myself!

Have you ever been in Pamplona during the Sanfermines fiestas? Will you take advantage of your European tour to pay a visit this time round?
No, I have never been there but I would like to visit them as soon as possible. I think this coming tour  in April we will be in London, Dublin, Amiens, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Paris and Brighton. Nothing at all in The Basque Country, unfortunately.

Running in front of the Bulls is dangerous, without any doubt, but don’t you think that bringing out a conceptual CD (‘San Fermin’, 2013) in this day and age also has its risk factor?
Luckily, it seems you have bet on a creative aspect more than on a commercial aspect…

(Laughs) I think that bringing out any kind of musical work has its risk factor. Once your work has entered the public domain, anyone can say whatever they like about it, which is a bit of a frightening thought. But, personally, I feel that the satisfaction you get from bringing out the work more than compensates for any bothersome aspects that may arise.

You can read the complete interview here.

@ Iosu Pezonaga. 2014.

They want to attach a camera to the horn of the bull for the Sanfermin bullrunnings

A top leading foreign agency has got in touch just lately with sanfermin.com in order to ask them whom would they need to speak to in order to get permission to put a camera on the horn of one of the bulls for the Running of the Bulls event. They went on to check with us on different kinds of technical points and explained how they had wide experience in this kind of thing with similar kinds of events in different fields. Furthermore, they asked us our opinion about some other possible events that might be offered by the Sanfermin fiestas. Obviously, in the case of the Running of the Bulls, we pointed them in the direction of the City Hall authorities and we explained the rules and regulations to them as best we could. We warned them that their idea is something which had never previously been done…but that only seemed to stimulate their interest even more…we shall just have to wait and see what the final outcome will be.

It seems very likely that this agency could have learned of the initiative taken this past summer by the Asociación Bou en Corda (from Turis), in Valencia. This association supports the traditional event in that part of Spain of having a bull loose on the street, but tethered by a rope (rather like a leash on a dog). They installed a camera for the first time to study the behavior of the animal. On our cover image we have made a creation of how a bull might carry a camera on its horn in the bullrunning in Sanfermines. But this video from Turis, provided by Antena3 television also serves to gives us an idea of what the agency is thinking of doing.

This is by no means the first time that we have had requests of this nature. In fact, it is the fifth time in the last few years. Generally, the requests for information come from foreign agencies which have publicity and commercial interests in getting some attractive and unusual audiovisuals shots. Their Production Departments don’t hold back when it comes to this kind of thing. For example, there was a case in 2012, when cameras and videos were prohibited by City Hall from being used inside the Running of the Bulls course, except for the permission given by Pamplona City Hall for a spectacular piece of filming made by #BURN. In this case, there could be a loophole found, given that the owners of the Bulls are different to the people who are in charge of security and safety aspects in the streets during the bullrunning.

sanfermin.com

Esquire announces that it will broadcast live the Running of the Bulls

Esquire Network has just announced today some of their forthcoming projects for 2015 and once again they plan to broadcast the Running of the Bulls live next July. Matt Hanna, Head of Original Programs at Esquire Network, made the announcement today and he justifies his new programming for 2015 thanks to the success achieved with audience figures which increased by some 21% from the previous year. Above all, there was a big increase in their male audience of men between the ages of 18 and 40 years.

The Running of the Bulls was defined at the presentation of the new programming as the best-known cultural icon of the whole world and he stressed that the broadcasting of the event would be live. As well as the live 2014 broadcasts, he also underlined the role of John Hemingway, grandson of Ernest Hemingway in the success of the event. John was, of course, Kukuxumusu guiri del año when he was given their foreigner-of-the-year award in 2013.

Adriana Navarro. Emmy Suncoast 2014.

Journalist Adriana Navarro receives an Emmy for a report on Sanfermin 2012

Pamplona Journalist, Adriana Navarro, has been awarded an Emmy by the USA National Television, Arts and Sciences Academy for a report about Sanfermin. Navarro is currently working on the América TeVe TV Channel which broadcasts in Spanish from Lauderdale for the Miami region in Florida.

The report on Sanfermin was entitled “Toros y Fiestas en San Fermin” (Bulls and Fiestas in San Fermin) and it was shot during Sanfermin 2012. The work of Navarro was for this particular chapter, and it is part of a series which is celebrated each three years within a category of History and Culture along with eight other programs. The award went to this report from Adriana Navarro along with two other chapters. See the complete list.

The report shows Adriana Navarro reporting from several of the different classic events such as the Txupinazo opening rocket and the morning “almuerzos,” (‘brunches’) where she actively participates in one such meal even as she holds her cordless mike in her hand, and reports on the whole scene.

José Escolar and the Tajo y la Reina fighting Bulls will be first-timers for Sanfermin 2015

We have just learned the bull-ranches selected for Feria del Toro de 2015 from a press release issued by the Casa de Misericordia organizing entity. Five of the eight bull-ranches from last year will repeat again in 2015: Victoriano Del Río, which won the “Feria del Toro” and “Carriquiri” awards in 2014, as well as the customary Miura, plus the Jandilla, Fuente Ymbro and Garcigrande – Domingo Hernádez bull-ranches. Making their debut in 2015 is the José Escolar Gil, from cattle breeding method Albaserrada, and the bulls from the Tajo y la Reina bull-ranches, owned by maestro José Miguel Arroyo, “Joselito”.

Continue reading…

Hemingway by Kukuxumusu 60 aniversario del Premio Nobel de Literatutra

60 years since Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature

On this day, exactly 60 years ago, Ernest Hemingway learned, while he was residing at the Finca Vigía (CUBA), that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature by the Swedish Academy. This award ensured his eternal fame and the appreciation of his written work and, in consequence, the image of Sanfermin and the fiestas of Pamplona. We celebrate that date with this drawing from Kukuxumusu.