Manizales Fair: Truly awesome!

This is the slogan from the 54th Manizales Fair that takes place from the January 3rd to 10th. It starts with the traditional parade on horseback and the arrival of the “royal flight” with the International Coffee Pageant contestants.

Days of beauty pageants, bullfighting, music and coffee

It is a week-long festival during which beauty queens, bullfighters and locals come together for a traditional celebration. It includes catwalk shows with different themes, an important bullfighting program, a lot of music and a host of other activities that bring together the residents and thousands of tourists who come to the capital of the department of Caldas especially for the fair.

Bullfighters and beauty queens are the main guests at the Manizales Fair, an event with more than half a century of history. It first started with bullfighting and parades of women dressed as manolas, in their traditional Spanish dresses. The event is now recreated with the Dew Wagons Parade, a Spanish custom, with carts streaming through the city's streets with the beauty queens on board.

Manizales Fair has more than half a century's history behind it.

The bullfights and events that the beauty queens attend, such as their visit to the Ruiz Snow Peak, are complemented by acts such as the Tangovía, the grand orchestral concert, the National Trova Festival, the trailer trucks display, the small wooden go carts race and dancers who fill the town’s steep streets.

The doors to Manizales are always open, welcoming anyone looking for fun and interested in the history of one of the most important festivals in Colombia.