Program

The acts begin with the so-called San Marcos Chico, in which small heifers, without horns or bolts, are taken out to be run by the little ones. On the 23rd and 24th the uncajonation takes place, the release of brave bulls, ending the day with a popular festival. On the 25th the music band plays a bullseye and makes a parade to warn that at eight in the morning bulls will be released in an enclosure limited by the closure of several streets.

After ten o'clock in the morning the mass takes place followed by the procession in honor of San Marcos, in which the saint is accompanied through the streets of the town by two brave heifers adorned and cloaked. After the procession, the bulls are released again in the closed enclosure. The day will end with a festival in which the different clubs that take part in the party will participate. The members of the peñas usually immobilize the bulls so that they are put on brightly colored tackle with embedded mirrors, an action known as cascar al toro.

The Brotherhood of San Marcos plays a fundamental role in the organization of the festival.The origins of the celebration of San Marcos in Beas are immemorial, and already in the 16th century there is evidence that the town of Beas had made a solemn vow to San Marcos in time immemorial, for having delivered them from a plague of locusts. This vow consisted in not eating meat and in not sacrificing any beef that day, nor that butcher shops were opened.

Since 1993, after a heated controversy between supporters of the party and non-supporters, the Beas rope bull is subject to the regulations in force today, in which the cattle after bullfights in an enclosed area must be slaughtered and not returned to their livestock. However, the custom of the San Marcos bull is so deeply rooted in Beas that a little song is still sung as an act of reaffirmation and vindication of the festival that says: Long live the festival of San Marcos! / No one can remove it, / not the mayor, not his brother, / not Tomás the municipal.

In the year 2000 the Declaration of National Tourist Interest of Andalusia was requested for the San Marcos Festival, a declaration that is made firm in the Resolution of September 7, 2000 of the Minister of Tourism and Sports.