The fight begins after an even more strange opening event, in which participants climb a greased-up pole to reach a ham; once the ham is retrieved, the first tomato is free to be thrown.
The premise is fairly simple: it consists of an hour-long tomato-throwing frenzy, with the 15,000 or so attendees provided with around 120 tonnes of overripe tomatoes. The fight begins after an even more strange opening event, in which participants climb a greased-up pole to reach a ham; once the ham is retrieved, the first tomato is free to be thrown.