The Live Chess performance has taken place, year after year, since 1996, usually on the evening of last Saturday of July or on the first Saturday of August. The event is held at the port fishing promenade of Jávea and it is organized by the Comisión de Fiestas Mare de Déu de Loreto in collaboration with the local Chess Club and the City Council.

     Live Chess is a particular and distinguished style of performance, a new approach to this century-old variety of the game of chess, performed on a chess board of extensive dimensions and featured by human characters.

     The outstanding character of the event lies in the fact that it is a play which, played out as a game of chess, develops into a plot, with different choreography and musical pieces, carefully selected for each edition. Another of the features which contributes to the singularity of the initiative is that the event is staged by 6 to 14 year old schoolchildren.

 A narrator and two players read out the different moves of a game, included in the History of Chess: one of the players being the annual local champion chess player, of school age, and the other a Guest of Honour, a renowned Spanish celebrity invited for the occasion, either keen chess player or closely related to Jávea. The astronaut P. Duque, the former ATP first ranked tennis player J. C. Ferrero, the paleo-anthropologist J. L. Arsuaga and the judo Olympic medallist Isabel Fernandez have been some past guests..

 The Live Chess performance of Jávea may be described as a “plot developed by the means of a play staged as a chess game and featured by schoolchildren”.

It was awarded the Spanish prize of Festival of National Tourist Interest in 2002.

FIESTA DE INTERÉS TURÍSTICO NACIONAL.