One figure in every three hundred and eighty survives the night. The cremà is the night of 19 March when every falla monument in the city burns, in a fixed order that ends at the town hall. The public decides in advance which single piece gets lifted out first.
What burns, and the order it burns in
Nothing goes up all at once. A Fire Parade, the Cabalgata del Fuego, moves through the main streets from 19:00, and after that the municipal calendar works through the monuments by category, smallest and youngest first, finishing in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento.
What is the ninot indultat in Valencia? The ninot indultat is the figure the public votes to save from the fire, chosen from the 766 on show at the Ninot Exhibition. Two are pardoned each year, one adult and one children’s. They go to the Museu Faller, which charges 2 euros and is free on Sundays.
Children’s monuments burn from 20:00, the winning children’s falla of the Special Section at 20:30 and the town hall’s own children’s falla at 21:00. The large monuments wait until 22:00, the Special Section winner goes at 22:30, and the city’s falla closes the whole festival at 23:00.
That ordering matters more than the individual times for anyone with one night in the city. Seeing both ends means three hours outdoors in March; picking one means choosing between a neighbourhood monument, where the crowd is local and close, and the square, where the last fire of the year draws the whole city at once.
Two survivors out of seven hundred and sixty-six
A falla is populated by dozens of individual figures, and all of them are built to be destroyed. The Ajuntament de València counted 766 ninots across the Ninot Exhibition, and from that whole set exactly two are pardoned, one from the large category and one from the children’s.
No jury decides it. Visitors to the exhibition cast the votes, and the Junta Central Fallera describes the arrangement as unique in the world as a way of adding pieces to a museum collection. A figure enters public ownership because the public picked it, not because a curator bought it.
The verdicts land on 14 and 15 March, one category per day, just before the final week begins. The saved figure is lifted out of its monument, and the rest of that monument burns on the 19th with the gap showing.
Seeing all of it without coming in March
Most visitors to Valencia are never in the city in March, and the festival leaves almost nothing behind. The exception is the Museu Faller on Calle Montolivet 4, which holds the pardoned figures from every edition in sequence, so the collection reads as a run of survivors rather than a display of art. Alongside them sit the festival posters and the portraits of the Falleras Mayores de València.
One detail catches people out, and it comes from a conflict between two municipal sources. Valencia’s own Infociudad record lists the museum as Tuesday to Saturday, closed Mondays, while the Visit València listing gives Monday to Saturday. Both are city publications and they do not agree, which makes a Monday the one day worth confirming by phone before crossing town for it.
| Day | Hours on the city record | Last individual entry |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | listed as closed on Infociudad, open on Visit València | n/a |
| Tuesday to Saturday | 10:00 to 19:00 | 18:00 |
| Sunday and public holidays | 10:00 to 14:00 | 13:00 |
| 1 and 6 January, 1 May, 25 December | closed | n/a |
Because the museum belongs to the city, it falls into the group of municipal museums that charge nothing on Sundays and holidays, with the catch that the free session ends at 14:00. Group bookings run through 96.208.46.25, and the building sits near the far end of the Turia Gardens.
Getting around on the night
Valencia shuts a large part of itself well before the fires start. The fallas ordinance closes the whole area inside the right bank of the Turia riverbed, from the Glorias Valencianas bridge to Plaza de América, plus the grandes vías, from 15:00 on the 16th until 04:00 on the 20th. The cremà falls squarely inside that window, so no car reaches the centre that evening.
Parking changes even earlier. Regulated parking is altered across the entire municipality from 09:00 on the 11th to 09:00 on the 20th of March, with the blue zone suspended, the orange zone reserved for residents around the clock and the green zone running as normal.
A workable plan for the night runs in this order:
- Reach the centre on foot or by metro, not by car.
- Catch the Fire Parade from 19:00 on the main streets.
- Watch a neighbourhood monument burn at 20:00 or 22:00, where the crowd is smaller.
- Move towards the Plaza del Ayuntamiento for the 23:00 finale.
- Expect the closures to hold until the early hours of the 20th.
The exhibition and the museum are different buildings
These two get confused in almost every itinerary, and they are not near each other. Voting happens at the Sala Arquerías of the Museo de las Ciencias Príncipe Felipe, which has hosted the Ninot Exhibition since 2016, inside the City of Arts and Sciences complex.
The exhibition runs from 6 February to 15 March, nearly six weeks, which overlaps the whole first half of the pyrotechnic calendar. A visitor in early March can see the full exhibition in the morning and the mascletà in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento at 14:00 the same day, without either clashing.
The audience is substantial for a temporary hall. The Ajuntament de València logged more than 80,200 visitors in a single edition, which is a major-museum figure for a room that exists six weeks a year.
The pardon has an inventor
The pardon is a dated invention with a named author. The artist Regino Mas entered a proposal called L’Indult del Foc, the pardon from the fire, in a competition the city ran in 1933/34 to invent events for the young Fallas Week, and his entry won.
The first Ninot Exhibition was staged in the Mercado Central and stayed there from 1934 to 1936. That building still trades as a food market, so the birthplace of the pardon is open most mornings: it is the same Central Market that opens at 7:30 and closes at 15:00.
What the idea solved was a genuine tension. A falla takes months to build and minutes to destroy, and the pardon introduced the only exception that leaves the ritual intact. The monument is not saved; one piece of it is.
Frequently asked questions about the cremà
Is the Fallas Museum open on Mondays?
The city’s own Infociudad record lists it as Tuesday to Saturday, closed Mondays, while the Visit València listing says Monday to Saturday. The two municipal sources disagree, so a Monday visit is the one worth phoning ahead about on 96.208.46.25.
What time do the fallas burn on 19 March?
Children’s monuments from 20:00, the winning children’s falla at 20:30 and the town hall’s children’s falla at 21:00. The large monuments start at 22:00, the Special Section winner burns at 22:30 and the town hall falla closes the festival at 23:00.
How many figures are saved from the fire?
Two each year, one from the large category and one from the children’s. The Ajuntament de València counted 766 ninots in the exhibition, so the survival rate is roughly one in every three hundred and eighty figures on display.
Where is the Ninot Exhibition held?
In the Sala Arquerías of the Museo de las Ciencias Príncipe Felipe, inside the City of Arts and Sciences, where it has run since 2016. It opens on 6 February and closes on 15 March, with the two verdicts announced on 14 and 15 March.
Can I see Fallas art if I visit Valencia outside March?
Yes, at the Museu Faller on Calle Montolivet 4, which holds the pardoned figures from every edition alongside the festival posters and the portraits of the Falleras Mayores. It is the only permanent, year-round display of Fallas work in the city.
A falla is built to burn, and the pardon is the one way Valencia found to keep something without breaking that rule.