Puerto de Sagunto to hold film-themed fashion parade on 18 September
The 9 de Octubre Traders' Association is turning Avenida 9 de Octubre in Puerto de Sagunto (coastal district of Sagunto) into a cinema-themed fashion parade on Friday 18 September, from 20:30.
On Friday 18 September, the best-known shopping avenue in Puerto de Sagunto (coastal district of Sagunto) will break from its usual routine: for a couple of hours from 20:30, shops, hairdressers and other businesses along Avenida 9 de Octubre will literally step out onto the street to show off what's new, in a format designed to turn the neighbourhood into a stage rather than just a place people pass through.
Behind the idea is the 9 de Octubre Traders' Association, which has once again chosen cinema as its creative hook. Every participating business has to tie its clothing, accessories or services to a well-remembered film, following the slogan chosen for this edition: "De película" ("straight out of the movies").
For the evening, the roadway will double as an improvised red carpet, styled to recall various visual codes from the world of film. It is not just about fashion: services offered by local businesses will also take centre stage, woven into the same show, part of an effort by neighbourhood shops to compete, if only for one night, with the immediacy of an online purchase.
One of the highlights will come from the Infinity Dance academy, which will take to the avenue's makeshift "stage" with a routine designed specifically for the occasion. The association has singled out the academy's effort during rehearsals, a sign of how much weight its performance is expected to carry in the evening's programme.
Leading the organisation is Gregorio Martínez, the association's president, who praised the level of commitment shown by businesses along Avenida de las Instituciones in pulling off another edition of the parade. Martínez also stressed that the success of events like this ultimately depends on who turns up to watch: without residents' support, he warned, initiatives like this one tend to fade away over time. For the association's president, the goal is not just that one night's sales, but turning the avenue into a neighbourhood meeting point beyond regular shop hours.
The chosen time slot -late on a Friday afternoon, as summer heat starts to ease- is meant precisely to make that turnout easier: people who work during the day can drop by on their way home without giving up the rest of the weekend, and families with children get a street-level leisure option that needs no ticket or booking. Anyone heading to Avenida 9 de Octubre that night will be able to watch the parade from the pavement and browse the shop windows of the participating businesses along the way.
The event also lands at a moment when the City Council has made backing small businesses one of its priorities. The Commerce department, led by councillor Ana María Quesada, has in recent months pushed videos and social media campaigns, including on TikTok, designed to give visibility to neighbourhood shops in the face of the growing weight of large retail chains and online shopping. The 18 September parade fits into that same municipal strategy of keeping street-level commercial activity alive. That push for digital promotion aims to offset, even if only partly, the drop in in-person footfall that the sector blames on the rise of e-commerce, a concern shared equally by shop owners and municipal officials.
This is not the only date on Puerto de Sagunto's calendar built around that same goal. Every spring, the district also hosts the Feria del Comercio y Turismo (Trade and Tourism Fair), another event through which neighbourhood traders' associations try to give the local business fabric some breathing room. Between one date and the other, the neighbourhood ends up with two key moments each year -one in the warm spring months and another as summer starts to fade- when small businesses take to the street to remind residents they remain an active part of neighbourhood life, beyond online shopping pages and the district's larger shopping centres. Competition for customers, in fact, is not only virtual: the neighbourhood sits close to large-format shopping centres such as L'Epicentre, which brings together more than a hundred brands a short walk from Avenida 9 de Octubre, a context that helps explain why street-trader associations keep multiplying events like this one to avoid losing visibility.
Institutional backing is not limited to the City Council either. Playing a more supporting role is also the Conselleria de Industria, Comercio, Turismo e Innovación (the Valencian regional department for industry, trade, tourism and innovation), which is backing the organising association in this push to boost economic activity in Sagunto's coastal district, as part of the wider regional grant scheme the Generalitat keeps open for traders' associations across the Valencian Community.
According to El Periódico de Aquí — Sagunto / Camp de Morvedre.
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