Walter Finch
Municipal authorities have been left stumped as to how an illegal six-day New Year’s Eve rave attended by 5,000 people outside a small village in Granada was pulled off flawlessly without any kind of permit or licence.
Residents of La Peza, with a population of 1,500, watched on in bemusement as an unannounced stream of caravans, tents, and seven stages were set up on December 30 about a mile from their town.
The village was then transformed into a small town, complete with a pizzeria, bakery, and clothing shops, the Guardian report.
The local mayor, Fernando Alvarez, said that as the event got started on the Friday it was “it was 24 hours a day of chin chin boom.”
The municipality was quick to report the unauthorised event to the police, who were equally as astonished as to how such a huge party, welcoming revellers from all over Spain and even Italy and Holland, could have sprung up without anyone knowing about it.
Authorities decided to watch over all the fun rather than move in and spoil it, choosing only to block off new vehicles from arriving.
Barricades were set up to block vehicles from accessing the site, and a helicopter hovered overhead to ensure that anyone arriving at the location did so on foot.
But the local residents, police and municipal authorities were astonished as each day, instead of dying down, the festival geared up for a new night of partying.
Despite choking off traffic and filling the nearby village with all-night dance music, the event passed off peacefully, apart from a couple of arrests for drugs offences.
One 80-year-old La Peza residence even gave up watching from afar and got involved with the partying.
The identities of the event organisers are currently unknown, but Alvarez admitted that if he knew who they were, he would “hire them to plan our village fiesta.”
“Frankly it was magnificently organised,” Álvarez added.
“We got six days of entertainment out of it. But we also recognise that this incident has given us a bit of publicity and put us on the map.
“We’re here if anyone wants to visit us – but maybe not 5,000 people all at once.”
