Aste Nagusia (“Great Week”), also known by its Spanish name Semana Grande, is Bilbao’s main city festival, held over nine days beginning the first Saturday after 15 August each year. It was created in 1978, when city associations organised a contest to design a single major festival for Bilbao in place of a set of smaller, scattered summer events.
When & where
- Founded
- 1978
- Home
- Bilbao, Spain
- Genre
- Culture
- When
- Late August
Upcoming editions
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Past editions
About Aste Nagusia (Semana Grande)
The festival opens with a firework rocket (the txupinazo) and the arrival of its mascot, Marijaia, who presides over nine days of concerts, fireworks competitions, traditional Basque rural sports such as wood-chopping and stone-lifting, parades and children’s activities across squares and quaysides throughout the city, before Marijaia is ceremonially burned to close the festival.