Party Towns
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday October 27, 2001
Whether you're a sucker for a bull's balls fry-up, like a pint of the Old Peculiar Mountie Crotch or just love life (or even death), there's a festival to suit you, writes Keith Austin.
The Fun Also Rises
www.funrises.com/serious.html
Under the motto that "every week of the year there's a fun place to be - and every fun place to be has a best time to be there", The Fun Also Rises site features a top-100 list of events around the world. Not much information on the actual events, but it's a good one-stop shop to get an idea of what's out there festival-wise. For instance, among the selection criteria for inclusion is that events must have a total attendance of at least 10,000, with the exception of Tokyo's Fertility Festival and the Vienna Opera Ball. Did you know there was a Tokyo fertility festival? Well, there you go.
WhatsGoingOn.com
www.whatsgoingon.com
Wander the meandering highways and byways of this site and you will chance upon a veritable feast of festivals, events and unusual destinations. Where else, for instance, would you come across information about The Penis Festival, held every year on April 15 at the Wakamiya Hachimangu Shinto Shrine in Kawasaki, a Tokyo suburb. The festival celebrates the vanquishing of a demon that lived in a woman's vagina and would bite off the penises of her lovers. According to legend, a local craftsman fashioned a steel phallus that broke the demon's teeth. To celebrate this, everyone from children to the elderly gather yearly to eat penis-shaped lollies, carve radishes into penis shapes and take part in a huge parade dressed up as their favourite cartoon character, but with one part of the anatomy enlarged. Puts a whole new slant on the word Pokemon, methinks.
Day of the Dead in Oaxaca
www.mexonline.com/muertos.htm
One of many sites about Mexico's famous El Dia de los Muertos festival on November 1 and 2. Skeletons on stilts will parade through a number of cities as celebrants gather for the annual Day of the Dead. As with Halloween, the festivities take place right across the country, but they are said to be particularly strong in Oaxaca, 550 kilometres south-east of Mexico City. There are flowers, mariachi bands and kids in fancy dress, as the living welcome back the spirits of the dead. And dontcha just love those cute skeletons?
Travel writing on World Festivals and Events
www.2camels.com
The best of all possible sites if you are searching for festival fun (and run by one Paul Dodson, an Aussie expat from Canberra, now living in London). It looks great - just love the angry-looking camels and the little Dalai Lama bloke on the Dancing Monks of Tengboche feature - and has a comprehensive list of festivals by country, by date and just downright bizarreness. But it isn't just a list, it's a collection of travel writing by the site's 50 or so authors. Gives you a wonderful idea of what to expect if and when you get there. Interesting to note that the calendar search engine's pull-down menu begins with Afghanistan (perhaps give that one a miss for the time being). Festivals featured include:
La Tomatina Festival:
During this festival some 10,000 people descend on the Spanish town of Buol on the last Wednesday of August each year and throw tomatoes at each other. Said to have begun as a food fight between friends in 1944 in the town's main square, it has grown to a week-long festival that includes fireworks, dancing, wine, food, etc. And then, on the Wednesday morning, the shopkeepers cover their stores in plastic sheeting and duck as tomatoes are hurled around the square by pissed tourists. It takes about an hour and the only rule is that you have to squash your tomato before hurling it.
Il carnevale d'Ivrea
- Ivrea Carnival:
Squashed tomatoes are one thing, hurling oranges is quite something else. Ivrea, in Italy, celebrated its 194th festival this year, but the tradition is said to go back to the early 1600s. Its history is too convoluted to go into here - something about a revolt that started with stones being thrown at the bad guys - but its modern-day re-enactment is called Battles of the Oranges. It's not rocket science: 10,000 people basically re-enact the battle. Expect a few bruises. The sign of the carnivale is a red hat. If the police find
you not wearing one they will ... throw oranges at you.
Take vodka!
Mani Rimdu Festival:
AKA The Dancing Monks of Tengboche, this three-day festival takes place straight after October's full moon in the Khumbu region of Nepal. There are dancing, prayers, chanting, a 14-scene masked dance drama, clarions, bugles, clashing cymbals and beating drums. There is tea with rancid yak butter but no clapping or cheering. Read Andy Binns's article here for a sense of the beauty, and the gentle humour, of the occasion.
SunSITE Thailand
http://sunsite.au.ac.th/thailand
Click on the Special Events link here to find out about The Elephant Round Up Festival which has been held on the third Saturday of November in Surin, Thailand, since 1960 and now attracts something like 40,000 tourists and 200 elephants. During the show the animals take part in colourful processions, move logs, play soccer and have tug-of-war games against human teams.
The Great Canadian
Beer Festival
www.gcbf.com
Yes, yes, yes, it's usually the Munich Beer Festival that gets all the attention, but what about this alternative in Canada? Not only can you drink until the cows come home (or fly home, depending on how much you've put away) at the Great Canadian Beer Festival but when your neighbour starts talking to you, it'll be in English. Which is no help at all because I speak Bulgarian after a litre or two of Old Peculiar Mountie Crotch. Each November, Vancouver Island dances to the beat of several thousand beer guts jostling more than 130 beers.
Travel Festivals, Events and Destinations
www.whatsgoingon.com/100things.cgi/#contents
Worth noting for the book, 100 Things To Do Before You Die, which was put together by the editors of Whatsgoingon.com and featuring such stand-outs as The Testicle Festival, held every September in Clinton, Montana. Billed as "the bawdiest and most absurd festival in the USA", where "4,500 pounds of those mysterious, life-giving rocks that once dangled between the legs of some rather unfortunate bulls are fried up and served as Rocky Mountain Oysters or Cowboy Caviar". Of course, there are dancing and drinking, and the obligatory wet T-shirt comps. There are also a round or two of Bullshit Bingo and a perturbing sounding contest called Bite The Ball, in which you ride your motorcycle under a hanging testicle and attempt to take a lump out of it. Fun for all the family.
Hip Guide to Amsterdam
http://hiptravel guide.com/amsterdam
There is a link here to something called The Cannabis Cup, which is held every year in Amsterdam - in November, so wrap up. I have no idea what it's all about but there is live music and lots of DJ stuff. And it's non-smoking. Just kidding.
edfringe.com
www.edfringe.com
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, according to this somewhat truncated site, is "the world's largest arts festival". And you just missed it; which is why there isn't much to see here (though it would have been nice to see some pictures or reviews of previous festivals). Next year's Fringe runs from August 4 to 26, with the program launched in early June, so tune in around then.
The Gateway to Edinburgh's Festivals
www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk
Is Edinburgh festival central or what? Welcome to the official Web site, giving you access to (deep breath) everything from hogmanay through to the Festival Fringe (see above), the Book Festival, the International Festival, the Film Festival, the Jazz & Blues Festival, the Science Festival, the Military Tattoo and the Children's Festivals.
Original Glastonbury Festival Website
www.efestivals.co.uk/glastonbury/
Mud, glorious mud! The Glastonbury music festival is held in June each year at Worthy Farm, Pilton, 13 kilometres from Glastonbury. Oh, except this year when it was cancelled by organisers concerned at the number of gatecrashers last year and the resulting safety concerns. Perhaps it'll be twice as big in 2002.
The main e-festivals Web site gives you the lowdown on all the big music events in Britain, indoors or out.
The Burning Man Project
www.burningman.com
Trying to explain The Burning Man Project, according to its own Web site, is "like trying to explain what a particular colour looks like to someone who is blind". Held for a week over the Labor Day weekend (next year's is August 26 to September 2), it is a gathering of some 25,000 artists, hippies, anarchists, you name it, in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, which culminates in burning a huge effigy. Village Voice described it as "a guerrilla war against the commodification of the collective imagination". This awesome Web site
has video of the most recent Burn, a gallery of great pictures and a first-timers' guide.
Bugbog
www.bugbog.com
Link through the exotic festivals tab here to discover a very useful little "colourful festivals by the month" section.
Lots of information about the countries featured, but little about the actual festivals. For instance, the Desert Festival in January is said to be held "near the town of Jaisalmer, under the full moon. Dance, music and camel riding. Nearest airport Jodhpur, 280 kilometres away."
Delray Beach
Garlic Festival
www.dbgarlicfest.com
Held each November at the Old School Square, Swinton Avenue, Delray Beach and inspired by the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California, the main attraction here is Gourmet Alley, where chefs cook up a storm in a gigantic main kitchen area. Gird your loins for festival calamari, garlic fries, sausage and peppers, bruschetta, rosemary and garlic marinated pepper steak sandwiches, shrimp scampi and, of course, garlic bread. Not sure where it is? Just follow your nose.
Tuning out
Just put your lips together and blow, said Bacall to Bogie, not knowing it would lead to Puckerama, a whistling festival in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from October 18 to 21 this year, with whistling workshops, performances and jam sessions. The festival (found through www.festivals.com) strove to "have the highest ethical standard". Which is good, because those unethical whistlers just spoil it for the rest of us.
© 2001 Sydney Morning Herald