4th edition of Figueres Circus Festival to break participation record

Figueres (ACN). – This year’s edition of the Figueres Circus Festival will break all records. This annual festival, which is held in the city of Figueres near to Catalonia’s Costa Brava and the French border, will feature 24 previously unseen performances in Europe by more than 80 artists from 17 different countries, thanks to the incorporation of new countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Uzbekistan. Another novelty is the inclusion of air performances, so the event will use a big top without columns for the first time, allowing the public to enjoy a complete view. One of the main air shows will be offered by the North Korean Pyongyang National Circus. Some 30,000 tickets have gone on sale, but some free cultural activities will be held too, such as exhibitions, talks and fairs, with the aim of bringing the circus world closer to society.

Figueres, Alt Empordà County’s capital city, will once again hold the International Circus Festival, which will be held from 26 February to 2 March. Some of the main performances will be given by Russian Troupe Bayramukov, Venezuelan Agostino Malteses’ ‘Pendulum of death’ and local magician Raul Black’s first live show. The event will be structured into two semi-finals with new artists and a final, called the Gold Spectacle, to be held on Monday. There, the best attractions, according to the public and the jury, will be performed, and the winner will be announced. Last year, the event played host to 28,000 people, an attendance that the organisation expects to reach again.

Cultural activities

However, the festival also includes free activities related to the circus world. As the Director of the event, Genís Matabosch, has said, the festival is not only a party, but has its cultural dimension too. Matabosch thinks that they have to fight the stigma that associates the circus to a spectacle directed exclusively at children. With the aim of bringing the circus world closer to society, the organisation have prepared twenty cultural activities such as painting exhibitions, photography talks and book presentations. 

This part of the programme is for free, with the exception of the Italian clown David Larible’s show, a world circus star. The biggest miniature circus of the world, which the Dutch engineer V. Herweden built for forty years, is another one of the main exhibitions. The mockup, which measures 50 square metres, recreates the Gleish circus, famous during the Thirties.

Social aspect 

The artists that will participate in the festival will also offer shows to groups of people that can’t make their way to the main big top, so they will act in Vilallonga’s old people’s home and the Puig de les Basses’ penitentiary centre. The morning sessions of the first two days of the festival will be reserved for 6,000 Catalan and French students that have already confirmed their attendance. In addition, the festival organisers will give 100 tickets to the charity Càritas Figueres so that they can distribute them to underprivileged families.