All the Fun of the Fair: Sevilla's Feria

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The only thing I was sure about in the weeks leading up to the Feria was that I wanted a dress. No, not wanted; needed. It is surely every girl who has ever been to Spain’s dream to wear one of the flamenco-style dresses that the women wear during the April Feria (while dancing with a dashing Spanish man in impossibly tight trousers, of course). I was looking forward to my first Feria with all the impatience of a child at Christmas (having said that, I still get ridiculously over-excited about Christmas).

Yes, Cinderella, you shall go to the ball!

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I had been living in Seville for six months; and every day on my way to work, I passed dozens of shops filled with beautiful trajes de flamenco, tempting me with their bright colours and decadent ruffles, while simultaneously taunting me with their huge price-tags. Luckily, I must have done something right in a former life, and a friend took pity on me and gave me my very own dress. Yes, Cinderella, you shall go to the ball!

The Feria de Abril takes place two weeks after Easter, and celebrates three of Seville’s passions; flamenco, horses, and bullfighting. Some of the top bullfighters lead the billing during the week of Feria, and at noon every day, Seville’s citizens parade up and down the Feria ground in horse-drawn carriages, displaying their finery.

The 2007 Feria also marked the centenary of Real Betis football club, the city’s rival team to Sevilla FC. As such, the streets of the Feria ground were lined with green and white lanterns, and the portada, the huge illuminated archway which marks the entrance to the Feria, bore the Betis crest. I am not really a football fan (years growing up with two totally obsessed brothers slightly put me off), but when you move to Seville, you have to choose, and for one reason or another (green suits me better), I had chosen Betis, so I suppose it made it all the more exciting for my first Feria. We’ll ignore the fact that my dress was Sevilla colours.

While the actual celebrations are contained in an area of the city across the river from the centre, the ripples can be felt throughout the whole city during the week of the Feria. You can be standing at a bus stop in the middle of the day and find yourself staring at the most fabulously made-up women in fantastic dresses, often with their little daughters in matching outfits, or look over the road to see men in smart black hats and (I’m sorry, I find it hard to stay away from this theme) tight trousers riding past on magnificent horses.

However, although the Feria is an all-day event, it was the after-dark element that seemed to me to be the most spectacular and fascinating part of this week-long party. The Feria ground itself is a kind of huge village; but instead of houses, the ‘streets’ are lined with striped marquees, known as casetas. There are a number of public casetas, which anyone can enter, but the majority are smaller, private casetas, to which you have to be invited - an example of the slightly pijo aspect of Seville society.

Part of the fun of Feria turned out to be trying out new ways of blagging our way into various private casetas. As long as one member of the group knew someone, it was usually possible for them to ask breezily, “You don’t mind if I bring a friend or two?” and then stroll in with five people in tow; but be warned; this method does not increase your popularity. However, considering that there are more than a thousand casetas, it’s not a disaster if you can’t go back.

Once you have succeeded in getting into a caseta, the partying begins in not-so-earnest. A friend had diligently tried to teach me the steps to the four traditional sevillanas which are danced at the Feria - and to my credit, I gave it a good go. At one point I even managed to convince myself that I was something of an expert, no longer dependent on my friend’s barked orders: “Turn!”, “Stamp”, “No, the other way, Ellie!”. However, I think my confidence may have had more to do with the amount of rebujito (fino and lemonade, another great Feria tradition) I had consumed than with any actual skill. My bubble was burst when the Spanish man I was dancing with turned to the couple next to us and said in an apologetic tone, “She’s English”. Humph.

Most of my Spanish friends said that they normally went to the Feria two or three times during the course of the week; some even claimed that they were so bored with the whole thing that they didn’t go at all. Personally, I went five times - it would have been six if an April shower hadn’t dampened my ganas mid-week - and although it tested my stamina to the limit, the two nights I didn’t go, I spent the whole time feeling as if I was missing out.

The tragic thing about the Feria is that just as you are getting used to the crazy schedule of staying up all night, and your sevillanas are reaching a level that might almost be described as acceptable, it is over; time to hang up the flamenco dress for another year.