If you like food fights, you’re going to love the La Tomatina Festival in Bunyol, Spain, as it is a giant tomato fight. The annual event will take place on Aug. 25th, and it’s free for all participants.

Every year thousands of people flock to the small village of Bunyol, which is in the Comunidad Valenciana, to basically smear each other with tomatoes. The village’s population actually quadruples overnight as about 30,000 people arrive to take part in the messy event.

Things get underway after five tomato-packed rockets are launched into the sky as a starting gun and then the tomatoes start to fly as it’s everybody for them-selves.

However, there are a few rules to abide by as you have to squash the tomato first before throwing it into the crowd. You won’t have to worry about running low on ammunition as there are about 275,000 lbs. of ripe tomatoes on hand to last for the two-hour battle.

By the time the event’s over, everybody is soaked from head to toe in tomatoes. Everybody helps with the clean up and then it’s time to head into the town to celebrate.

The crazy festival started way back in 1945. However, it didn’t begin as a type of ritual to ask the gods for a good harvest. It actually came about during another local festival as people started fighting by throwing tomatoes at each other that they had grabbed from a local market.

It has now developed into one of the craziest annual events in the world.

For more information on the La Tomatina festival, visit www.tomatina.es/index.php

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