Cartagena's first Teatro Circo, built by Carlos Mancha on the plot left by a demolished bullring, opened on 31 May 1879 and kept its circus shape — timber, canvas roof — until Tomás Rico Valarino rebuilt it in iron in 1889. Unamuno presided over a poetry contest there in 1902; Alfonso XIII sat through El alcalde de Zalamea in 1911. The old house closed in February 1968 and was pulled down; the Nuevo Teatro Circo opened on its site on 3 October 1970, and held the city's jazz festival alone from 1980 to 2012.