Museo Festero

The Museo Festero occupies the Casa del Festero, a four-storey 19th-century mansion built for the Selva family, right in the centre of Villena. It opened as a museum in 1981 and received official recognition in 1996, with a collection entirely dedicated to the Moros y Cristianos festival, one of the most important celebrations on the province’s festive calendar.

Two centuries of festival costume

The rooms hold festival costumes, imagery, posters and programmes published over the last two centuries, with 19th-century pieces among the collection’s most valued for their rarity and state of preservation. The visit traces how the costumes of the different comparsas (festival companies) have changed, alongside weapons and ornaments that form part of the festival’s historic parade.

Villena holds its Moros y Cristianos festival every year, and many of the costumes on display, several of them hand-embroidered, are the same designs that later parade through the streets during the celebration.

More than a costume display, the museum works as an archive of Villena’s festival memory: it documents how the celebration has changed from the 19th century to today and why it remains, year after year, one of the town’s strongest markers of identity.

The festival itself brings together dozens of local companies, each with its own costumes and traditions, and the museum’s collection reflects that variety rather than a single uniform style.

A visit takes under an hour and pairs well with the Museo Arqueológico José María Soler and the Castillo de la Atalaya, both close to the historic centre, and with the province’s list of best museums. It makes a good option for a rainy or very hot day, since the whole visit is indoors.