Most English-language guides to the Riau-Riau Pamplona tradition describe it the same way: a rowdy street party born in 1911, pulled from San Fermín’s formal program in 1991 for getting too wild, and revived a few years later as a citizen-run event that has continued every July 6 since. That account is not wrong so much as it is thin. It skips the part of the story that actually explains what tourists are watching today: Pamplona tried, seriously and with the city’s backing, to bring the original version back in 2012. It failed again, the same way it had failed before, and the peña that now runs the popular version had briefly abandoned its own march to help make that restoration work.
Understanding that failure matters because it explains a detail almost no visitor notices. The event happens every year, right on schedule, listed on the Ayuntamiento de Pamplona’s own published calendar of San Fermín events. But the city government itself is not in it. The people singing, dancing, and blocking the street on July 6 are continuing a tradition that was invented specifically to torment municipal officials, in a version the municipal officials no longer attend.
This account draws on the Ayuntamiento de Pamplona’s own event records, the Spanish-language historical documentation of the tradition, and contemporaneous reporting on the 2012 restoration attempt, cross-checked against each other rather than repeated from a single source.
A Prank That Became an Institution
The Riau-Riau tradition takes its name from a shout, not a place or a saint. On July 6, 1911, Pamplona lawyer and writer Ignacio Baleztena Ascárate, known locally by the pen name Premín de Iruña, hollered “¡Riau, riau!” at the close of a verse of the “Vals de Astráin,” a waltz composed decades earlier by Pamplona bandmaster Miguel Astráin for the city band. The moment came during the Marcha a Vísperas, the city council’s formal walk from the Casa Consistorial to the Iglesia de San Lorenzo for the solemn Vespers Mass honoring San Fermín, held every July 6 at the start of the festival.
The shout caught on, and so did the behavior around it. Mozos began dancing in front of the procession, slowing the councilors’ walk on purpose. The Ayuntamiento’s own description of the custom calls it a tradition born “con un carácter de protesta hacia la autoridad”: a character of protest toward authority, though a theatrical and affectionate one rather than a serious confrontation. By 1914, it was an accepted, expected part of the July 6 program. Baleztena went on to invent several more Pamplona traditions still practiced today, including the Cabalgata de los Reyes Magos and the founding of the Muthiko Alaiak peña, for which he also wrote the anthem. Set against the fiesta’s medieval origins, the Riau-Riau is a recent invention, barely into its second century.
Lyrics were added to the melody in 1928 by María Isabel Hualde Redín, giving the tune its formal title, “La Alegría de San Fermín.” The words describe the very procession the song accompanies: children shouting, a cabezudo swinging at the crowd, gigantes being pushed along by mozos, and La Pamplonesa marching behind, all headed toward the saint’s chapel. Those gigantes carry a much longer documented history in Pamplona than the Riau-Riau itself, one that predates it by centuries.
The Walk That Took Five and a Half Hours
What began as a short, good-natured delay grew heavier every decade. As crowds packing the roughly 500 meters between the Ayuntamiento and the Iglesia de San Lorenzo swelled, the councilors’ walk slowed correspondingly. By 1980, revelers had stretched the walk to roughly five hours and 25 minutes for a route that takes five minutes to cover empty. Through the 1980s the crush intensified rather than easing, and 1990 turned out to be the last year any part of the council managed to complete the walk on foot at all.
In 1991, the crowd surge caused injuries, among them to the mayor, and the march was suspended for that year. The pattern of disorder in the years leading up to it led the city council to remove the Marcha a Vísperas from San Fermín’s formal program entirely in 1992. Since then, the Vespers Mass has been held at a fixed hour, with council members arriving by car rather than on foot. The tradition invented to slow down the councilors’ walk had, in effect, ended the walk altogether.
Three Things Wearing One Name
Here is where most coverage collapses three distinct things into one. “Riau-Riau” refers, depending on context, to the waltz itself, to the historic council march it once disrupted, and to a separate, newer event that carries the same name today. Understanding the difference is the only way the modern event makes sense.
After the 1992 suspension, civic associations picked the custom back up without the council’s involvement, organizing their own walk along the same route, accompanied by a band, most recently La Pamplonesa, the same ensemble that once played for the councilors themselves. From 1997, this substitute march was organized jointly by the Peña Mutilzarra and a local retirees’ association.
Twice, the city tried to bring the original, council-attended version back: once in 1996, and again in 2012. Both attempts collapsed. The 2012 attempt is the more telling failure, because Peña Mutilzarra set aside its own independent march that year, for the first time since 1997, specifically to help the city-backed restoration succeed. It did not. Violent incidents involving mozos forced its suspension again, and the peña went back to running its own separate version in the years that followed, which is the event that continues today.
What Actually Happens on July 6 Now
The Ayuntamiento de Pamplona’s own annual events listing confirms what tourists see every year: a gathering at Plaza Consistorial in the late afternoon of July 6, a walk down Calle Mayor toward the Iglesia de San Lorenzo, La Pamplonesa playing the Vals de Astráin on repeat, and the crowd shouting “¡Riau, riau!” and dancing after every stanza. The event’s listed “órgano gestor,” its managing body, is Peña Mutilzarra, not the city council.
That distinction is the entire point of the modern tradition. City officials still hold their Vespers Mass at a fixed hour and arrive separately, avoiding the crowd their predecessors once tried to walk through. The Riau-Riau in Pamplona that visitors join today is a citizen-run continuation of a joke that, at its origin, was aimed squarely at the people who no longer take part in it.
This has not quietly changed in recent years. Peña Mutilzarra’s own announcements confirm the pattern held through 2024 and 2025, and continues into 2026: the peña’s June 2026 announcement for this year’s edition, its 29th consecutive year, calls it plainly the “Riau-riau no oficial.” A July 2025 interview with the peña’s own secretary carried the headline “Luchamos para que el Ayuntamiento acuda al Riau Riau,” roughly: we are still fighting for the City Council to attend. A peña does not fight for something that has already happened.
What Visitors Should Know
The gathering point is Plaza Consistorial, in front of the Ayuntamiento, on the afternoon of July 6, the same day as the txupinazo that opens San Fermín at noon. Timing has varied slightly year to year, typically mid to late afternoon. Dress for a crowd: this is a dense, high-energy street event, not a formal procession, and the route down Calle Mayor toward the Iglesia de San Lorenzo fills quickly. There is no ticket, registration, or fee. It is, and has always been, an open street tradition rather than a spectator event with fixed viewing areas.
FAQ
What is the Riau-Riau in Pamplona?
It is a July 6 street tradition in which crowds accompany a band playing the “Vals de Astráin” from Plaza Consistorial toward the Iglesia de San Lorenzo, shouting “¡Riau, riau!” and dancing after each verse. It descends from a historic custom of slowing down the city council’s own walk to the same church for the Vespers Mass.
Why was the Riau-Riau banned in Pamplona?
Crowding made the original council march increasingly unmanageable through the 1970s and 1980s, at one point stretching a five-minute walk to roughly five and a half hours. After injuries, including to the mayor, during the 1991 disruption, the city removed the march from San Fermín’s formal program in 1992.
Does Pamplona’s city council still take part in the Riau-Riau?
No, and this held true through 2024, 2025, and 2026. The event that continues each July 6 is organized by the Peña Mutilzarra, not the Pamplona city council, even though it appears on the Ayuntamiento’s own annual events calendar. City officials attend the Vespers Mass separately, by car, at a fixed time. As of July 2025, the peña’s own secretary was still publicly pushing for the council to join, confirming it had not.
Did Pamplona ever try to bring back the original Riau-Riau?
Yes, twice: in 1996 and again in 2012. Both attempts to restore the council’s walking procession failed. The 2012 attempt collapsed after violent incidents involving mozos forced its suspension, even though Peña Mutilzarra had set aside its own independent march that year to support the city-backed restoration.
Every article on the Encierro blog is authored or reviewed by active bull runners with direct experience in Pamplona.