The city of València woke up this Sunday to the rhythm of the 225,000 ‘tro de bac’ used during the popular ‘Macrodespertà’, which this year has celebrated its 20th edition, which first thing in the morning traveled along Calle de la Paz and that of San Vicente, until reaching the Town Hall square, in which some 4,500 falleros from the different commissions have participated.
The day of this first ‘super Sunday’ of Fallas began at 6:30 a.m. with a prayer to Saint Barbara, patron saint of pyrotechnics, in the church of San Juan del Hospital. At the same time, in the Parterre, the distribution of the ‘tro de bac’ for the participants in the ‘Macrodespertà’ has begun.
At 7:15 a.m. the children’s ‘despertà’ began, from the corner of Plaza de la Reina and Calle San Vicente, until reaching Plaza del Ayuntamiento. Some 1,500 girls and boys have participated in it by launching their ‘bomblets’. And 15 minutes later, at 7:30 a.m., the ‘Macrodespertà’ began, which traveled along Calle de la Paz and San Vicente to the Plaza del Ayuntamiento.
For this event, organized by the Junta Central Fallera (JCF) in collaboration with the Mossen Sorell-Corona commission and which has celebrated its 20th edition this year, 225,000 units of ‘tro de bac’ have been used, distributed in 4,500 boxes, each one of which has provided 50 of these firecrackers for each of the participants.
The production of these particular firecrackers has been carried out, for the third consecutive year, by Pirotecnia del Mediterráneo. The facilities of this company, in Vilamarxant (Valencia), were visited a few weeks ago by the greatest Fallera of València, Mª Estela Arlandis, and her court of honor, to check the process of artisanal preparation of the pyrotechnic material by the professionals who They are in charge of this work.
If last year the box that stored the ‘tro de bac’ contained a photograph of Ramon Alberola, faller of the Josep Maria Bayarri-Els Isidres commission, entitled ‘En mig del fum’, winner of the competition called by the JCF for the occasion , in this edition the image is an “abstract representation” of the explosion of the ‘tro de bac’, commissioned by the Mossen Sorell-Corona fault to the designer Ibán Ramón for the 20th anniversary of the event.
This year, the JCF has limited the number of participants to four people per Fallera commission, one less than in the previous edition. In any case, all of them must have a valid CRE or RGCRE certificate in the ‘despertà’ modality and be over 18 years of age.
At the end of the ‘Macrodespertà’, Pirotecnia Valenciana fired a ‘mascletà’ in the Town Hall square, around 8:00 a.m., and afterwards, the JCF offered a popular breakfast to the participants to “recharge their strength.”
This Sunday’s event will continue at noon with the entry of music bands (12:00 p.m.), a ‘mascletà’ in the Town Hall square (2:00 p.m.) by Gironina and will have as its main course at 8:00 p.m. the ‘Crida’ in the Torres de Serranos, the event that will announce the start of the Fallas 2024.
The event will be held this Sunday after having been suspended last weekend due to the official mourning decreed after the Campanar fire, in which ten people died.
On the other hand, this past Saturday afternoon a new edition of the Ninot Parade was held, which has filled the streets of the center of Valencia with satire, criticism, irony and also music and color.
Seven commissions will participate in the parade: Quart-Palomar, Santa Maria Micaela-Martí l’Humà, Blas Gàmez-Àngel Villena, Archduke Carles-Xiva, Doctor Gil i Morte-Doctor Vila Barberà, Humanista Mariner-Manuel Simó and Albacete-Marvà.
The parade ended with the arrival of the first piece of the municipal falla, ‘Two pigeons, one branch’, the work of Pere Baenas y Escif, to the Town Hall square.
