The Flower Fair in Medellín, with its utmost event the Silleteros Parade, conjures up the myth of the ‘everlasting spring’ and stages the massive and noisy meeting with the floral city. The memories of several generations converge on this date in Colombia’s festive calendar and the interaction with the visitors brings out the city attributes of a kind, happy and good host city.

The first known version of the Flower Fair traces back to 1912. At that time, there were poetry contests about the Virgin and the spring. People made altars in homes, schools and churches and profusely decorated them with flowers. At the end of the celebration there used to be a splendid gala ball in the stunning Golden Room of the Club Unión, located on the symbolic Junin Avenue, where ‘Miss Orchid’ was then crowned.

In this social dramaturgy, the street binges carried out by college students were well-known and went up to have the appearance of a noisy carnival. There were then, for many years, allegorical floats parades, masquerades and street musical groups, and the permit to ‘put the world upside down’ thanks to a decree issued by the governor of the moment, by means of satires and mockeries at the authorities and institutions. Some excesses led to the prohibition of these festivities for over two decades until the idea of a local festivity –the Fiesta de la Antioqueñidad- came up to be both the expression of the civic spirit of Antioqueños and the manifestation of their prosperity and laboriousness.

That was how the Flower Fair returned, when Medellin was already recognized for the merit of its gardening contests led by the gardening clubs and for being the World Capital of Orchids and the City of Flowers. Flower exports were a fact from the late 1930s: some gardens and greenhouses shipped flowers to Panama, the Antilles, Florida and New York, by plane.

In May 1957, the first exhibit of silletas with flowers took place at Bolivar Square as one among other events in the Flower Fair that year, whose celebration was at the peak moment of animation when the military regime prevailing was toppled (the famous May 10). This fact led to a stop in celebrations. Three years later they resumed under the denomination of ‘Party of Liberty and Flowers.’ This was the second time the silleteros showed up as one of the most outstanding shows.

In 1964, it was called the ‘Flower and Textile Fair.’ It included a beauty pageant and the great flower contest, as well as an exhibit of the industrial and commercial power of the city. From that year, the Flower Fair was moved to the month of August to make it coincide with the Antioquia Independence commemoration.

From its very beginnings, this celebration changed its nature of a party into more of a fair, and for the last two decades, it has kept its name of Flower Fair. It has been textile, industrial, agricultural, equine or livestock farming, and has also organized local, regional, national and international beauty contests which are now converted into the ‘Feminine Contest of Talents.’

At present, the Flower Fair with its varied program achieves an incredible flow of national and international tourists. Medellín’s labor frenzy then gives way to celebration. From one end of the city to another, people mobilize, in fact, everything is moving. Shopping centers announce their sales; numerous contests brighten up the fair: bearing-wheeled carts, paragliding, inns and mule-riders, and school bands, together with several exhibits: birds, bromeliads, bonsai trees, handicrafts, aquarelles and sceneries, antiques, among others. Everything related with the subject of flowers and civic culture.