About
The People’s Festival of Campo Maior, also known as Flower Festival and Artists’ Festival, is a popular event that has lately become one of the greatest of its kind in the Portuguese cultural life.
In a nutshell, we can say that People’s Festival of Campo Maior consist in the decoration of a large number of the village streets ( about 100 in the last edition) with paper flowers and other paper artefacts, executed by the hands of the dwellers who live in each of the decorated streets.
The origins of Festas do Povo of Campo Maior is still a controversial issue. Yet, it is known that they appeared in the late nineteenth century. From then on 35 editions have taken place, this number reflecting its irregular occurrence.
Unlike other festivals the Festas do Povo only occur when the people of Campo Maior decide they will, because the people of Campo Maior are the ones who decide whether or not this huge enterprise will be carried out: dressing up the whole town with handmade paper flowers.
It is this kind of organization that makes this Festival unique in the whole world. Being an event based on voluntary work, its figures impress: 5,000 people involved, 30 tons of materials (paper, wood, glue, wire, etc), kilometres of decorated streets and thousands of visitors coming from the whole country or from abroad.
We may say the first editions of the People’s Festival in Campo Maior were a really local event, with little or no impact beyond the limits of the region. However, this situation has changed along the years and during the 20th century’s seventies the Festival was already famous, thus contributing to the promotion of the town both at a national and at an international level.
The 20th century last editions and the first ones in the 21th century have witnessed a huge development concerning the number of visitors, thus contributing to the recognition of this event as the greatest tourist attraction and landmark this inner region has to show to the whole world.
In the 21st century the People’s Festival in Campo Maior have achieved such a level that they are known to have an impact on the creation of new job opportunities directly related to this event.
Within a week, the time an edition lasts, the People’s Festival are said to create 200 job opportunities, move about 1.5 million Euros , having a direct economic impact in the region in a scope of 100kms , including some regions in Spain.
Due to its unique characteristics this event is impossible to happen each year, which causes this dynamic to be lost between editions.
But the seed remains and People’s Festival are, at present, a well-known national “label”, being able to contribute to the economic development of the municipality , even in years when the festival don’t occur. It is, thus, urgent to recognize the huge economic and social impact of this event, so that it may stop being a seasonal one.
The municipality of Campo Maior has no doubt in classifying the People’s Festival as a major cultural event in our country, thus trying to preserve its increasing value, sustainability and safeguard.
In order to achieve this aim , the Municipality has decided to take some measures , the most important being the creation of a Label and a Product which may enable the sustainability of the event in between editions, this way answering a question:
Will there be anyone, anywhere in our world, who might be able to fall in love for these flowers, born from our own hands, as much as we do?
And so a new label/ product is born:
FLORES DE CAMPO MAIOR – Campo Maior Paper Flowers
Simultaneously, the Campo Maior Paper Flowers are also a solidary product, thus contributing to help causes and projects in this area.
This aim has been achieved through the association to the Social Solidarity Cooperative Raya Mayor, its members being underprivileged people, this way contributing to employment growth rates in Campo Maior and to the integration of the most vulnerable ones in our society.