After Holy Week, each year the calendar is marked in red with the arrival of the Seville April Fair, one of the most international and popular festivals in the Andalusian capital. The fairgrounds, the Real, once again dress up to celebrate a week full of music, gastronomy, dance and tradition.
In 2023, Seville’s April Fair officially starts on Sunday, April 23 and ends on Saturday, April 29 at midnight with a great fireworks display. Before that, on Saturday night, April 22, the traditional Pescaíto party will take place.
It should be remembered that until 2017, the April Fair took place from Monday to Sunday and not like the current festive model from Saturday to Saturday. It began with the Pescaíto dinner on the first day of the week and lasted until the fireworks on Sunday.
On the other hand, in this 2023 edition the holiday calendar makes the festive hangover of the April Fair better for its visitors. And it is that Monday, May 1 will also be a holiday as Labor Day is celebrated throughout Spain.
The ‘Alumbrao’ marks the beginning of the April Fair and takes place on Saturday, April 22 at 12 midnight. Just when the clock strikes 0:00, the façade of the fairgrounds will be illuminated with thousands of bulbs and, section by section, the entire Real de la Feria will be illuminated.
It is said that ‘Alumbrao’ is like New Year’s Eve, with the Sevillians having dinner beforehand (fried fish, sausages and cheeses, washed down with beer, manzanilla and fine wine), waiting at midnight to start the party.
This year the design of the façade of the venue, 46 meters wide by 38 meters high, is inspired by two Sevillian architectural ensembles: the Plaza de España and the Teatro Coliseo España.
The caseta is the home of the Sevillian during the April Fair, the meeting point, where family and friends are received to eat, drink, dance and sing. There are 1,502 booths; 513 relatives, 519 from entities, three municipal, six from districts and 11 from services.
Although access to the family booths is reserved for members and guests, visitors can enjoy themselves in the public booths, which are open from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. in the morning. These are the free access booths:
Below we highlight the posters that make up the April 2023 Fair in the Plaza de la Maestranza:
The first April Fair has as its historical date the year 1846 and its origin is due to a meeting of farmers and ranchers that the nobles of the time visited with their carriages. Since then 177 years have passed, but the essence of the meeting of that first trade fair has also become one of the most popular social events in Spain.
A study by the University of Seville, which has been updated every year, calculates a direct, indirect and induced effect of more than 800 million euros, an amount that had grown in the last, extended editions of the April Fair. Each additional day of the fair represented income of 90 million euros.
In general data, the wealth that its fair generated for the Andalusian capital represented 3% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), well above the 400 million of Holy Week.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
