Organisers of Gloucestershire and Pamplona’s iconic festivals have announced plans to merge their cultural traditions into a single annual event, after both towns admitted their festivals were “still slightly too safe”.
The new merged festival – to be named The Running of the Cheese Bulls – will involve several hundred participants being chased by enraged bulls down an almost-vertical hill while attempting to grab a 4-kilogram wheel of Double Gloucester cheese.
A spokesperson for Pamplona’s Running of the Bulls said they were keen to implement the new format, after receiving feedback that their festival had a distinct lack of cheese. “With this new format participants won’t just be fleeing death, they’ll also be pursuing dairy products, which I think adds a nice focus for the event,” he said.
Gloucestershire’s organising committee chair said there had long been a feeling their cheese rolling event could do with more horned animals. “I’ve often watched as hundreds of people tumble down a grassy hill in pursuit of cheese and thought, you know what this event needs? A 700-kilogram bull aggressively pursuing them. It’s what’s been missing this whole time. And I think with this new added incentive, we’ll see records broken”.
Under the new format the cheese will be released first, followed a second later by competitors, then two-dozen bulls, then ambulance crews.
Since news of the new format broke, other festivals have expressed interested in becoming involved. “Chasing a wheel of cheese down a hill while being chased by bulls is great. But what if you also had to dodge tomatoes?” a spokesperson from La Tomatina festival said.
__
Headline by Anthony Bell
