El Foro de la Defensa de las Novilladas (see my earlier post ‘Whither Novilladas?’) has made some progress in achieving its stated objective of achieving an economically sustainable model of putting on novilladas.

On May 20, in a joint statement with ASPROT (la Asociación de Profesionales Taurinos), el Foro announced the two parties had reached agreement on a number of measures aimed at assisting the celebration of novilladas with and without picadors in the rings of Foro members (all these being 3rd or 4th category):

• A 35% reduction in cuadrilla members’ earnings

• The ability of any taurine professional, independent of what union they belong to, to take part in the novilladas

• A new payment model to avoid fraud, with payments made to participants 5 days in advance of a festejo

• Novilleros earning image rights if their festejo is televised

• Liberalisation of image right collection, with any professional belonging to a trade union association (ASPROT, UNPBE or independent) receiving a fixed amount by cheque

• Recognition of a higher payment category for novilleros over cuadrilla members (not always the case currently)

• A duty of festejo organisers to consult with aficionados and peñas taurinas

• Creation of a quality mark for festejos put on by el Foro, guaranteeing compliance with this agreement.

This accord means el Foro have gone some way towards achieving their objective, most of the other elements they proposed last June requiring government or regional authority intervention. El Foro already contains the main promoters of novillada ferias - Arnedo, Arganda del Rey, Algemesí and suchlike - but the agreement may well lead to an increase in the forum’s membership.

Like any negotiation, it appears to have involved some give and take and there is noticeably now no mention of el Foro’s previous aim of pegging ticket prices to between 15 and 20 euros each.

Jesús Hijosa, el Foro’s president and mayor of Villaseca de la Sagra, commented: “This is the first of several steps as we continue working in favour of novilladas.” He subsequently attacked the concept of the novilladas la Fundación del Toro de Lidia is promoting with income from la Gira de Reconstrucción and local subsidies - “What is the future for the FTL novilladas? It’s bread for today and hunger tomorrow. If a village involves itself in putting on a festejo, then there’s a future: but if they put on a festejo with 45,000 euros of public funding, they won’t mount another the following year.

“El ‘Alfarero de Plata de Villaseca’, which starts on June 12, will mark the beginning of this agreement. Many municipalities are calling to join the Forum and benefit from this agreement because it’s the only way to maintain the festejos we are celebrating or even be able to increase them. It must be made clear that this is not done with the aim of making money. We are not entrepreneurs; we do not want to make money, rather to lose as little as possible. In this way we can justify the celebration of the established festejos to our communities without their involving great losses to the municipality.”