The story
Cali Christmas Fair/Season in Cali
Running annually from 25 to 30 December since the city's bullring opened in 1957, Cali's fair combines a civic December celebration with the city's salsa identity, most visibly through the Salsodromo, a choreographed parade of around 1,300 dancers created in 2008. Total attendance across the week is estimated at more than 700,000, anchored by the Salsodromo and the Superconcierto live-music event.
Cali's December fair traces to the inauguration of the city's bullring on 28 December 1957, when the event was known as the Feria de la Cana; some accounts tie the fair's creation partly to a wish to lift civic spirits after a major explosion at a munitions convoy near the city's old railway station had caused widespread loss of life, though sources vary on the exact year of that disaster relative to the fair's founding.