History

 
 
FiraTàrrega was born in 1981 as the result of a confluence of ideas: that of converting the town's local festival into a grand fiesta; encouraging the people to take part and get involved and put the whole town to the service of a concrete project, in this case, for the theatre.
 
At that precise historic moment, a series of factors contributed to getting this initial project of the ground
 
• Politically, the restoration of democratic town councils after the first local elections, promoted the popular festivals and regained the street as a physical space for collective meetings and celebrations.
 
• In the cultural field, theatre companies and musical groups who reinforced this idea appeared in Catalonia. These include Comediants, founded in 1978, Vol Ras in 1980, La Vella Dixieland or El Tricicle. At the beginning of the 80s La Fura dels Baus, La Cubana, etc, also appeared.
 
• Geographically, Tàrrega is a town near the important urban centres but far enough away to mean staying there for a greater or lesser time.
 
• The calendar was also an element to keep in mind when organising la Fira. The fact that it coincided with the end of summer and the last weekend before the schools went back favoured the attendance.
 
• Finally, the medieval layout of the town allowed the organisers to concentrate the venues in the centre, which centralised the shows and bunched the audience together, making them into protagonists in the event.
 
CHRONOLOGY OF LA FIRA
 
The popular festival that FiraTàrrega was in its beginnings gradually evolved into a complex machine that combined different aspects. Three elements mark the personality of FiraTàrrega:
• its popular festive character.
• the concept of a show of spectacles where different companies present there proposals.
• the concept of the fair, that is, a market where programmers from all over the world can buy and sell shows that will be staged over the following season in theatres and festivals in the whole world.
With time, each of these aspects would have different degrees of importance and would mark the various stages in the evolution of FiraTàrrega.

1) From 1981 to1985

 
La Fira was mainly a great popular street festival. The spontaneity, improvisation and voluntarism of the audiences and the organisation itself were elements that energised the festival.
At the same time, in 1984 saw the beginnings of some key elements for the future development of La Fira:

a) it was the first year when there was an organisational team.
b) for the first time, there were performances in closed venues with paying.
c) The Craft Fair began.

1985 saw the constitution of the Municipal Public Foundation Board for La Fira de Teatre al Carrer, which gave it a new dimension and allowed the first organisational structure to grow. It was also the year when the first programmers were invited to attend and when Comediants stopped managing La Fira, leaving it in the hands of a professional, although the rest of the organisation was still made up of volunteers.

 
2) From 1986 to 1990

During these years, the most important aspect of La Fira was that of a festival or show of spectacles, although it was still a great popular festival, as well as developing the aspect of the market for performing arts.
The sixth edition represented the first important strategic change in the organisation. The management team became totally professional and the figure of the manager was incorporated. La Fira became an independent entity separated from the local Town Festival in which it was born, a situation that would continue until the tenth edition.

In this period, the Board bet on two directions:

a) The concentration on spectacles that are of interest to the programmers
b) Festive spectacles that can attract the maximum audience

There are other aspects that mark these years, such as the appearance of the Area de International Promotion of La Fira, the figure of the head of Infrastructure as the person responsible for the technical preparation of the venues and the needs of the town, the specialisation of the venues and the relation of the Fira with other cultural events, such as exhibitions, round tables on theatrical themes, etc.

 
3) From 1991 to 1998

The 11th edition was a turning point and marked a change in the theoretical basis of FiraTàrrega. There was a renewal in the Management team that showed a clear desire to specialise and transform the Fira, structured now into Artistic director, Technical Director and management.
Without dropping the idea of the popular street festival, the Fira became ever more orientated towards the other aspect as a market for spectacles and clearly defined its personality along those lines. The Fira began to have a presence in all the festivals and the great theatrical events, principally in Europe, stimulating the interest of programmers from all over the world to visit La Fira de Teatre.
The Llotja was created as a meeting point, a space for signing contracts, exchanges information between professionals and the ideal setting for debates and discussion of theoretical aspects. Tàrrega became an essential rendezvous for programmers from around the world. Another aspect is that musical spectacles were no longer programmed which was also intended to initiate a process of specialisation of the audiences.

3) From 1999 to 2006
 
From 1999, La Fira began an important process of diffusion a around the rest of Spain, especially among the theatrical profession, and it was present in the other theatre fairs and festivals of the performing arts held throughout the year. La Fira was recognised for its pioneering role and its wide experience of organisation and became an essential reference point for the other theatre fairs around Spain. La Fira became part of the collective of the Spanish Co-ordinator in Fairs.
All this process of diffusion around Spain culminated in 2001 with the entry of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (National Institute of the Performing Arts and Music) on the Board of FiraTàrrega.

La Fira was redimensioned and a process was begun to rationalise both the number of companies and venues and other aspects.
In 2000, commissioned by the Board, the University of Lleida carried out a study of the Fira’s economic impact and an analysis of the audiences. The data from these studies indicate that the event has an economic impact on the town and the surrounding area of around 3,000,000 Euros per year. The study also indicates that the average age of the visitors to the Fira is around 30 and they are especially from two geographical areas: Barcelona and its conurbation, and the districts near Tàrrega. This study was repeated in 2004 with similar results that confirm the Fira as a veritable socioeconomic motor.
From 2003 on, special emphasis was given to the presence of proposals using visual and universal languages, justified by the notable rise in the number of programmers from both Spain and the rest of the world and, consequently, the need to present spectacles in which language is not a barrier for exporting them. At the same time, La Llotja became one of the main nuclei of the Fira and grew in size and acquired more services due to the increase in the exhibitors and contacts between professionals there.
2005 was the Fira de Teatre’s 25th anniversary. In this edition, as well as the habitual programme, a series of commemorative acts were organised in recognition of all the people and entities that made the birth and consolidation of the event possible. Various exhibitions and a book looking back at the event’s history helped to bring back these 25 years. La Fira de Teatre reached the 25th edition recognised as one of the most dynamic international performing arts markets in Europe and the clear leader in Spain.
 
4) Internationalisation: from 2007 to date
 
Coinciding with the change in the artistic management, in 2007 the Fira underwent a deep process of redefinition. First among the objectives set in this process was to strengthen its position in the international field to turn it into a professional reference point and a leader in the performing arts. In second place, and in the artistic field, it was proposed to generate an attractive offer to ensure that the professional programmers continue to be interested in Tàrrega, with a singular and clearly defined personality. In this sense, the proposal was to make a clear bet for creativity, going back to programming those companies that have the public areas as the main reference for their creations and reinforcing the dynamising role that the Fira can have on the production of new spectacles and the sector of the performing arts. Altogether, this change was reflected in the same 2007 with a new graphic corporative image that included the new brand FiraTàrrega and the complementary slogan creative land.
In this period, financial support for new productions appeared through the credit lines of the Catalan Institute of Cultural Industries (ICIC). In 2007, the first Creative Residence took place with the Cia. Deambulants (who inaugurated the event that year) with a three-week stay in the town to allow the company to finalise the process of producing the spectacle. The same year saw the start of the Company Venues, where private distributors can display their catalogues of spectacles. 2008 saw the start of the Creation Laboratories (the first edition with the Royal Theatre Company of Catalonia) to favour the production of new spectacles, especially for the street, and that had the full logistic, technical and promotional support of the Fira.
The activity of the Fira was becoming ever more clearly orientated towards the professional sector, obviously without neglecting the entertainment and cultural aspect for the thousands of spectators over the four days of the festival. In 2007, the Club of the Professionals was started, a new informal meeting place for the professionals accredited during the days of the Fira. The machinery of the Fira works all year round for the companies and professional programmers and has a clear vocation to lead projects in the international field. This has led to, for example, to the 2008 exchange agreement with the British Council to promote British street arts (Getting on the map) in Spain and to project Catalan artists in Britain; or also in 2008 the launch of the cross-border project Meridians, led by the Fira and with seven other European festivals taking part. This is a network whose aim is the joint production of three spectacles and their exhibition in the other participating festivals. The project is subsidised by the European Union in the framework of Cultura 2000. In 2009, the Fira, together with the ICIC, organised the 1st Technical Meeting for Street Arts and Circus, aimed at training companies and professionals in the sector. The same year, an exchange agreement was established with the government of Québec, which, among other things, led to the presence of a group professionals from that region in Tàrrega.
In the same period, FiraTàrrega also intensified their action to improve the conditions under which the spectacles take place in the different venues, in both the technical aspects and in comfort for the spectators. The strategy of expanding the venues outside the town itself was taken further. In 2007, a spectacle was programmed outside the town for the first time, in the neighbouring village of La Figuerosa. In 2008, this experience was extended with a spectacle in Talladell and another on a secondary road on the outskirts of the town. In 2009, a set of singular spectacles was programmed on Sant Eloi hill, a park and green area that had never before been used.