Ronda recovers this Saturday, September 5, its traditional Goyesca Bullfight after two years without being held. The event will once again fill the bullring of the Real Maestranza de Caballería starting at 6:00 PM, within the Feria and Fiestas de Pedro Romero 2026, with a lineup headed by Morante de la Puebla and all tickets sold out since last April.
The return has a special meaning for the city. The bullfighting festivities were suspended for two years due to the consolidation and rehabilitation works of the historic bullring, works promoted by the Real Maestranza that have allowed the recovery of both the Goyesca and the rejoneo bullfight, the novillada, and the traditional Concurso de Enganches this year.
What time does the Goyesca of Ronda start
The 67th Traditional Goyesca Bullfight will begin at 6:00 PM in the bullring of the Real Maestranza de Caballería of Ronda, located on Virgen de la Paz street. The time appears both in the official programming of the City Council and in the tourist agenda of the city.
The bullfighting day will have started much earlier. At 11:30 AM, the 42nd Rondeña Rejones Bullfight will be held, conceived as a tribute to Álvaro Domecq Romero and featuring Rui Fernandes, Diego Ventura, João Ribeiro Telles, Léa Vicens, Sebastián Fernández, and Duarte Fernandes.
In the afternoon, the main event of a day that has boosted hotel occupancy and activity in the center of Ronda will arrive. The anticipation is especially high due to the return of Morante de la Puebla to the Goyesca, one of the main attractions of this edition.
Morante, Manzanares, Juan Ortega, and Diego Ventura: the lineup
The event will have a special format. Diego Ventura will open the Goyesca on horseback and will fight a bull from the Portuguese David Ribeiro Telles ranch. Then, Morante de la Puebla, José María Manzanares, and Juan Ortega will take the spotlight on foot, facing six bulls from Garcigrande.
The bullfight will also have a strong commemorative component, as this edition remembers the 75th anniversary of Antonio Ordóñez's alternative, one of the great historical figures of Ronda bullfighting and an essential name to understand the tradition of the Goyesca.
The poster announcing this year is the work of the artist Juan Uslé, National Prize for Plastic Arts, who has constructed the image of the event from geometric shapes and visual references to the bull's antlers and the barriers of the ring.
Are there tickets left for the Goyesca Bullfight?
For those intending to buy a ticket this Saturday, the answer is clear: there are no official tickets left for the Goyesca. The celebration hung the sign of ‘No tickets’ in April, five months before its celebration, after approximately 5,000 tickets for the venue sold out.
The demand was extraordinary from the moment they went on sale. As explained then by the businessman of the venue, Francisco Rivera Ordóñez, the last ticket was sold at 23:01 hours on April 8, less than 24 hours after public sales began. Rivera assured that they had never experienced a situation like this so far in advance in the recent history of the celebration.
The season tickets for the three bullfighting events of the Fair —novillada, rejones bullfight, and Goyesca— had been sold at prices ranging from 120 to 285 euros, depending on the location.
The enormous demand has also ended up affecting outside the venue: hotels in Ronda are experiencing very high occupancy, and getting a table in some establishments in the center has become a complicated task during this weekend.
Why it had not been held for two years
The last Goyesca Bullfight before this return took place in 2023. During the following two years, the venue remained without celebrations due to the structural consolidation project of the venue, works initiated to ensure the preservation and safety of one of the most emblematic bullfighting arenas in Spain.
The Real Maestranza announced in March that the planning of these works would allow the venue to be available again for the Pedro Romero Fair in 2026. The City Council later confirmed the completion of the necessary actions to recover the bullfighting program.
The return is therefore not limited to a single bullfight. Ronda has recovered this year the entire bullfighting cycle linked to its Fair, which began this Friday with a novillada without picadors, continues this Saturday with the rejones and the Goyesca, and will be completed on Sunday with the Exhibition Contest of Carriages.
One of the major events of the Pedro Romero Fair
The Goyesca Bullfight was born in 1954 and has become over the decades one of the main symbols of the Ronda festivities. Its particularity lies in that bullfighters, crews, and plaza staff use clothing inspired by the time of Francisco de Goya, reinforcing the connection between bullfighting, the history of the city, and the figure of Pedro Romero.
This Saturday, after two years of absence and with tickets sold out for months, the Goyesca will be celebrated again at 18:00 hours with Diego Ventura, Morante de la Puebla, José María Manzanares, and Juan Ortega as protagonists. Ronda thus recovers one of the days with the greatest tourist and symbolic impact of its entire festive calendar.