The Dragon Festival is a Spanish

free festival Free festivals are a combination of music, arts and cultural activities, for which often no admission is charged, but involvement is preferred. They are identifiable by being multi-day events connected by a camping community without centralised c ...

which ran from 1997 to 2009, held at Los Cigarrones on the riverbed of the Rio

Guadalfeo The Guadalfeo is a small river in the province of Granada, Spain between the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the coastal ranges of Sierra de la Contraviesa and Lújar. This river is formed by the merging of three rivers, the Rio Poqueira, Río ...

, 2 km to the south of

Órgiva Órgiva is a Spanish town municipality in comarca of Alpujarra Granadina (which is located within the larger Alpujarras region) in the province of Granada, Andalusia. It has a population of around 6,000 and lies in the Alpujarra valley between the ...

, and from 2010 at Santa Fé, Granada,

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, during the month of March, and culminating on the weekend nearest the

March equinox The March equinox or northward equinox is the equinox on the Earth when the subsolar point appears to leave the Southern Hemisphere and cross the celestial equator, heading northward as seen from Earth. The March equinox is known as the verna ...

. The festival is a celebration of various alternative cultures and includes live music and theater.

History

The town of Órgiva (a garrison town that marked a front line throughout the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

) is renowned now for its alternative '

hippy A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

' scene. In 1996, flooding washed away a huge swath of land in Cigarrones, clearing the way for a gathering. On March 14, 1997 a huge sail depicting a jolly dragon was raised in Cigarrones and the Dragon Festival was born. The hundred or so people present could never have imagined that by 2001 nearly 10,000 people would attend. Although the majority of people who had bought land at Cigarrones were party to the festival, the idea of so many people turning up for a 'wild weekend' which on occasions continued for weeks, inevitably caused some rifts in the community. Police presence had been virtually nonexistent but by 2002 the festival's increasing size was attracting the attention of the local Partido Popular (PP) majority council. The Mayor placed a prohibition order on the festival and called in police reinforcements in order to create a noticeable police presence.En el corazón del dragón , From Ideal , 14 March 2003
Ideal
/ref> The Dragon Festival was causing a national media stir, firstly because banning a fiesta in Andalucia was simply unheard of but mostly because two people had died at the festival in 2002.

Prohibition attempt

In 2003 an attempt was made by the authorities to prevent the Dragon Festival taking place with the heavy of

Guardia Civil The Civil Guard ( es, Guardia Civil, link=no; ) is the oldest law enforcement agency in Spain and is one of two national police forces. As a national gendarmerie force, it is military in nature and is responsible for civil policing under the a ...

in the road leading to the festival site. However, the impending Iraq war gave voice to the festival's call for peace. For several weeks, residents from the festival site, daily dressed in pink and sang their way to the police line to offer the police tea and cakes. On the eve of the festival the police stepped aside, allowing the festival to take place. Local elections brought a new

Partido Socialista Obrero Español The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party ( es, Partido Socialista Obrero Español ; PSOE ) is a social-democraticThe PSOE is described as a social-democratic party by numerous sources: * * * * political party in Spain. The PSOE has been in gove ...

(PSOE - center-left
Mayoress
to power who had previously been quite vocal about 'embracing' the Dragon Festival, however it was unanimously felt in the festival community that any interface with the local authorities was not the way to go since it could mean restrictive regulations and control.

Local opposition

Over the years, a few members of the Cigarrones neighborhood had made their opposition to the festival known. Early in 2009 a huge earth moving vehicle arrived at the festival site with support from the Guardia Civil and one member of the Policia Local. They proceeded to excavate holes two meters deep and two meters wide across the entire festival site, claiming they were for a tree planting project. More than two thousand holes were excavated across public land making it impossible to park anywhere, so if there was to be a 2009 Dragon Festival it would only be possible on the relatively small areas of pro-festival owners' land left without holes. Two days before the 2009 Spring Equinox a prohibition order was posted proclaiming a ban on the Dragon Festival on grounds of health and safety and that anyone found organizing the event would be charged and if convicted, receive hefty fines.

Prosecutions

Within days of the posting of the prohibition order, seven pro-festival land owners received paperwork telling them they had been found guilty on an 'administrative' charge (ie.. ignoring a local authorities' ban) and had each been fined the sum of thirty thousand and fifty Euros. Failure to pay would mean the seizure of any assets, including their land. The charge against three people were dropped but the remaining four people have taken their case to the Crown Court in Granada on the grounds that nothing was done to enforce the ban on the festival in 2009 so in their defense, these land owners claim that they could have done little themselves to stop it even if they had wanted to. The court cases were resolved with the exception of one against Mr Alex Brimmel. Mr Brimmel's lawyer claims the charges against Mr Brimmel brought by the Town Hall should have expired but the Town Hall bypassed normal channels so the case cannot be resolved. Mr Brimmel has brought a case against the Town Hall for unconstitutional practices in order to resolve his case.

Relocation

The long wet winter of 2009/2010 once again flooded Cigarrones, filling in most of the holes and cutting off access, effectively stopping any large gathering in 2010. In 2010 an estimated 1500 people created a free festival in Santa Fe, 4 km to the west of

Granada Granada (,, DIN 31635, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the fo ...

(60 km north of Orgiva) and is widely perceived as the new home of the Dragon Festival. The Dragon Festival continues at Santa Fe.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official Dragon Festival

Dragon Festival at Myspace
Free festivals Counterculture festivals Festivals in Spain