Hogueras in Alicante: dates and the 24 June holiday

The Hogueras (Bonfires of San Juan, or Fogueres in Valencian) are Alicante’s big fiesta, and also the one that raises the most questions: when they start, when the monuments are burned, what a barraca is and whether 24 June is a public holiday. Here is each date with its source and the difference between what is already published and what is not.

The dates, year by year

The Hogueras de San Juan, Fogueres de Sant Joan, run from 20 to 24 June, according to the City Council, and in 2026 the cremà (the burning of the monuments) came at midnight on the 24th, as the council’s report on the Nit del Foc described. The programme with the events and times is published each year by the City Council and the Federació. For 2027 the official programme of events is not yet published. What is on record at alicante.es is the deadline for the plantà (the erecting of the monuments) of the official hogueras by Pedro Espadero and Sergio Gómez: the adults’ one, “El lenguaje de los colores”, has to be erected by 6 a.m. on 21 June, and the children’s one, “Hay un amigo en mí”, by the same time on the 20th. Be careful: that is the deadline for the two official hogueras, not the fiesta calendar, which the City Council publishes later.

The racó and the rest of the vocabulary

What a foguera, a barraca, the cremà or the mascletà is, their glossary entries explain more calmly than we can here. What has no entry is the racó: the council’s 2025 decree, quoting the 2014 declaration as Intangible Cultural Heritage (Bien de Interés Cultural), describes racós as “places designed for members to spend time together” (“lugares pensados para la convivencia de los asociados”).

If you are a committee, this concerns you directly. The municipal decree of July 2025 abolished the mesones-bar (bar-taverns) and limited racós to 1,000 people for the 2026 Hogueras. The September 2026 one, the “single racó” decree, goes further for 2027: a single racó per hoguera, the same floor area as this year with a maximum of a thousand people, no new hoguera or barraca and four central streets kept clear of fiesta structures (Bailén, Castaños, San Ildefonso and Cándida Jimeno). Committees with more than one racó have 30 days to say which one they keep.

Rice among the foguerers

The fiesta does not begin in June. According to alicante.es, the 39th foguerers’ Rice Contest (Certamen de Arroces) was held on 31 May 2026 in Lo Morant park, with more than 7,000 people, foguerers and barraquers. Each committee sets up its own little racó there for the almuerzo (mid-morning meal) and then eats the rice it has cooked: at the Hogueras, the table counts as much as the gunpowder. And for the night of the plantà, Alicante Turismo recalls the tradition of the tuna coca with bacores, early figs.

Is 24 June a public holiday?

24 June was a regional public holiday in 2026 (a Wednesday) and is not in 2027, according to the Consell’s decree. In the city of Alicante, the 2026 local holiday was 23 June, for the Fogueres de Sant Joan, and the other, 16 April, for the Santa Faz. The 2027 local holidays are published in the DOGV (the regional official gazette) at the end of the year; until then we cannot say which they will be. The rest are in the Alicante public holidays calendar.

If you are a committee or a barraca

We cook for committees and barracas, and with the single racó every metre and every guest counts: see our catering for Hogueras and barracas and the information on catering in Alicante. We set up kitchen and bar in a marquee, with teams for 40 or for 500 guests, and fiesta weeks fill up months in advance, so the best thing is to get a quote as soon as you have dates.

More about Alicante

For all the city’s fiestas, including the Santa Faz and the local holidays, see the guide to Alicante fiestas. And if you are looking for other dates in the calendar, the calendar hub.