Splaaaat! Here’s 50,000 pounds of tomato soup

Tomatoes, as you often hear, are quite good for you. So if you happen to take one right in the kisser at the largest tomato fight in North America this weekend, just keep that in mind.

Reno is staging La Tomatina en Reno on Saturday afternoon, a charity food fight featuring 50,000 pounds of the red stuff at the City Plaza.

Ten bucks gets you in. Organizers expect 3,000 to 5,000 to take part, and will require participants to be at least 16. Even then, parental consent is required for those 16 or 17, no doubt a key demographic for such an event.

The day kicks off at 1 p.m. with food, face painting and live music. At 6 p.m., the tomatoes come out. There’s even a special cherry tomato fight for children ages 5 to 10.

The event was inspired by the world-famous La Tomatina festival in Buñol, Spain (in photo above),  where participants often don swimsuits and giant goggles. That tomato fight, which dates to the 1940s, draws about 40,000. This year’s was held Wednesday.

The Club Cal Neva and the American Cancer Society are sponsoring the Reno event. For more info, go here,  or call (877) 777-7303.

—Chris Erskine, deputy Los Angeles Times Travel editor

Photo: The annual Tomatina fest in Spain, the inspiration for the Reno event. Credit: Carlos Alvarez / Getty Images

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 28, 2009 at 2:57 pm by Chris Erskine and is filed under Europe, Festival, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.