Cuartelillo

The cuartelillo is the clubhouse where Moors and Christians festeros (fiesta members) gather during the fiestas: the place where they eat, get ready for the parade, wait between events and welcome family and friends. In Valencian it’s a quartelet. It isn’t the Guardia Civil post the dictionary gives you: here the “troops” are festeros and the barracks is their second home.

What a fiesta cuartelillo is

According to Albert Alcaraz’s study Moros i Cristians. Una festa, as reported on Wikipedia, each comparsa has its “cuartel, maset, kábila, capitanía or meeting place”. Different names for the same thing, and every town sticks to its own.

Watch out for one distinction: in some places the cuartelillo is the headquarters of the whole comparsa, while in others there are far more cuartelillos than comparsas. Elda is the clearest example: with nine comparsas, the town council had 242 permanent cuartelillos on its books in 2022 (those that have been in the same premises for four years or more), plus the temporary ones registered each year.

How it works in Elda, Abanilla and elsewhere

• Elda. When Spain’s Ministry of Industry and Tourism declared the fiesta a Festival of International Tourist Interest in 2026, it described the cuartelillos as “spaces where festeros and visitors share hospitality, music and good company”. They’re so much a part of the fiesta that the town council opened an application period in 2022 to authorise them before the fiestas began.
• Abanilla (Murcia). Here the Moorish groups are called kábilas and the Christian ones mesnadas, and people talk about cuartelillos too: the journal Náyades recounts that the Calatrava mesnada had the castle backdrop for the old embajadas in theirs.
• Anywhere else, the word can change from one comparsa to the next. If you’re writing to a committee, use the word they use.

What the town council asks for

There’s no single rule: each town council sets its own. In Elda, in the 2022 call, temporary cuartelillos submitted a declaración responsable (a signed self-declaration) confirming that the premises had:

Requirement	What Elda asked for (2022)
Access	Straight onto the street, without using a shared staircase
Condition	Safe and in good repair
Utilities	Electricity and running water
Insurance	Public liability cover of at least 150,000 euros
Fire safety	A fire extinguisher

The town council then inspected every cuartelillo. If your comparsa or group is moving into new premises, check with the town hall before you sign anything.

What it’s used for during the fiestas

• Meeting point before setting off for the parade and on the way back.
• Dining room for the get-together lunches, the almuerzos (mid-morning breakfasts) and the dinners on the programme.
• Open house for family, friends and visitors.

Cooking in a cuartelillo

Feeding people in a cuartelillo isn’t the same as in a function room: space is usually tight, access for unloading is limited and the kitchen, if there is one, is small. On our service page we explain what we need to know about the premises to prepare a proposal.

At Xepep we cater comparsa meals and cuartelillos around the fiesta programme, from a get-together lunch to a bar in a marquee over several days. And if you’re organising the meal yourselves, our article on the comparsa or filà meal will come in handy.

For more vocabulary from the table and the fiesta, explore Cremaet and Three Kings parade.