We’re making theatre accessible to everyone

If you have reached this page when you were browsing, it’s because you searched for Inturotel. And since you are here, if you’re interested in its origins and history, you’ll discover how and why a group of people who, “proud of their Mallorcan roots”, have built a company that gives back to the island by championing various projects, including supporting our own project year after year of making culture accessible to everyone through family theatre.

Now, from the perspective of having known each other for all this time, at Sa Xerxa Children’s and Youth Theatre of the Balearic Islands we think it was only a question of time before we would collaborate.

We met the Manresa family more than ten years ago when Antònia and Xisco from Inturotel got in touch with us on the family’s behalf to offer their support and collaboration with FIET.

We have known each other for a long time and since they have been by our side we have found that we have more and more in common:

Land, sustainability, culture, commitment to the community…

The aims that inspire both our organisations are not just merely coincidences. They are goals that represent values. Values that are imbued with humanity and that seek to feed the human soul while celebrating the culture of our islands. Our non-profit association tries to do this by making culture accessible through the performing arts for children, young people and their families.

Sa Xerxa. 

About us

In autumn 2002, in a small village in the central plain of Mallorca, the first Children’s and Youth Theatre Festival of the Balearic Islands was held. 1200 spectators attended. The initial organisers, delighted by the response of the public, thought that the initiative should continue and a good way of ensuring that this happened was to create an association that would bring together people who were aware of culture’s social importance. This is how Sa Xerxa Children’s and Youth Theatre Group came about, a non-profit organisation that promotes culture run by volunteers with the aim of supporting quality theatre for children and young people, allowing them to participate in cultural activities through the performing arts.

Its focus is theatre for all audiences, which means ensuring that shows reach all the corners of the Balearic Islands and at the same time contributing in a decisive way to supporting Mallorca’s cultural industry by promoting family theatre activities.

FIET, our flagship project  

The Children’s and Youth Theatre Festival of the Balearic Islands

In Vilafranca de Bonany, at the heart of the central plain of Mallorca, this event takes place regularly during the third week of October. For the last ten years it has been known as FIET, which is what we affectionately call sons and daughters in Mallorca and often children generally on the island of Menorca are called fiet or fieta. 

Sa Xerxa’s flagship project has been consolidated over time. FIET brings together thousands of people and dozens of theatre companies and professionals.  It’s a cultural festival that turns the village into a showcase for children’s and youth theatre created on the islands and beyond our borders.

Over the years, FIET has become an extremely popular event both for professionals and family audiences. Each year the festival attracts around 20,000 spectators and over time it has become one of the most interesting professional children’s and youth theatre fairs in Spain. Proof of this is the National Children’s and Youth Performing Arts Prize that it was awarded in 2022 by the Ministry of Culture and Sport.

Moreover, it promotes the dissemination throughout Spain, Europe and the rest of the world of our artists’ creations of performing arts shows and also raises awareness of the islands as a cultural destination.

FIET offers a multi-faceted programme of performing arts shows (both local and national with a few international examples as well) aimed at family audiences and promoters. It also serves as a meeting point and a place for reflection for performing arts professionals. 

Every October, Vilafranca becomes a theatrical exhibition space. Its theatre, squares, streets, sports centres and other alternative performance spaces are all set up. The village is full of volunteers who help with the ticket office, guiding spectators at the various theatre sites, preparing food or arranging accommodation for people from the companies and promoters in private homes.   

There is a very special atmosphere that attracts families from all over the island who are keen to enjoy the new creations of the year.

More than twenty years after that first event in Vilafranca de Bonany, the festival has become a regular event every third weekend in October.   

We have organised theatre and education workshops. We have shown the festival and its shows to pupils and teachers and through our programme “La Feria se acerca a la escuela y la escuela se acerca a la Feria” (the Fair is brought into schools and schools are brought to the Fair), bringing together pupils and teachers from many schools across the island of Mallorca. We have promoted creative events. We have disseminated and made it possible to promote small scale shows through the Librarians Workshop. We have supported and helped the cultural sector, the creatives, and the cultural industry of the performing arts, which all fight to make a living from their artistic work.  

We have demonstrated the clear social dimension that theatre should have. Year after year we keep promoting the inclusive aspect of the performing arts. Theatre has the power to bring diverse audiences together, each person with their own capabilities, to enjoy shows. We share the Festival with organisations that work with people in different situations and with different capabilities and we also participate in intergenerational activities that bring infant and primary school children together with elderly people. Over time, the word FIET has perhaps come to be interpreted as an acronym in Spanish for Intergenerational Festival of Shows for Everyone.

And, moreover, we are also committed to promoting and practising sustainability in all our activities. It is difficult to sum up everything that has happened over the last two decades. Without setting out to do so, we have discovered that theatre, in all its dimensions, helps people become more cultured, more educated and more humane. This is the reason we exist, insist and persist. 

 Family tourism

"Why not travel to Mallorca during the third week of October to enjoy FIET with your family?” Staying at Inturotel in Cala d'Or just a short distance from the Festival means you’ll get the perfect combination of a holiday by the sea and high-quality culture. FIET is waiting, ready to amaze you and make you smile.

A warm welcome awaits you!