For more than 59 years, in the first week of August, the Festival of la Guabina y el Tiple, has been taking place yearly. As Pedronel Silva Mateus contributor of the Vélez folklore exposes in the booklet for the XXXVIII musical contest (1999), El Festival de La Guabina y el Tiple debuted in 1962 but one could also trace its origin to the celebration of the Fiestas reales in Vélez in commemoration of the Nuestra Señora de las Nieves.
This Festival integrates different cultural performances and events that allows not only to unite people from the region but also to attract and welcome national and international spectators. This contributes to the economy of the region and strengthens the folklore and the cultural wealth.
On December 21, 2012, the Congress of Colombia under law 1602 recognized el Folklore Veleño (Veleño folklore), El Festival Nacional las Flores de Vélez (Velez National Flower Festival) and la Parranda Veleña as “Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Nation,” thus protecting these practices and encouraging the diversity of cultural expressions.
The festival de la guabina y el tiple is usually held on the from the first Wednesday of the month of august until the following Monday (6 days). The programming starts on Wednesday however, it is on Thursday that the music and cultural content starts. Here are the events related with the festival for each corresponding day:
• Thursday: Ronda Folclórica (folkloric round), Primera Presentación de Conjuntos Folclóricos (first presentation of folkloric ensembles)
• Friday: Parranda Veleña.
• Saturday: Concurso nuevas revelaciones del tiple y el requinto (Contest of new revelations of the tiple and the requinto). Gran final del festival nacional de la guabina y el tiple (Grand final of the national festival of guabina and tiple).
• Sunday: Desfile de las Flores (Flower’s parade) and Premiacion del festival (Winners’s awards)
Despite all these events are relevant and constitute the essence of the festival, I will center on two of the events that receive more participation of the music ensembles as well as the Velez community. These are La Parranda Veleña and El Desfile de las Flores (the flower pared).