Why does Europe have better/more exciting/imaginative festivals?

Great Debates
1

I’m not sure if this is true or not, so that’s part of the question, but I find myself really missing festivals and other public events that I experienced living in Europe (mostly France). What really struck me is that there was so much that seemed to encourage not only the spontaneous but also blurring of lines (spacial and ideological).

For example, I get the feeling that in the US, it is always about where the festival begins and ends. You go to this place, to take part. Whereas, I remember when my wife and I went to Chartres for the Fête de la lumière, and we were blown away at how the city itself was the exhibit, and you could just wander around and see these incredible lights, with various concerts and then an amazing performance at the end. Or, to an even larger extent, Fête de la Musique, people are invited to simply come out on the street and play music anywhere and everywhere. There are certain planned events, but then everywhere in between, there are people playing on corners, in bars, in parcs. It’s incredible.

This is what I mean by how the lines are blurred spacially. It’s not set to one little place. I’ve experienced this some in Asia too, but to a lesser extent. But I’ve never gotten this feeling from festivals in the US.

As far is blurring the lines ideologically (I’m not sure that’s the right word, but I’ll go with it), I remember when my wife and I went to Cite de la Science in Paris for the opening of a hands-on program about science and innovation (which alone was very cool and interactive). As you walked around in the giant building, there were also artistic performances included acrobatics, music, and fantastical giants, many of which just roamed around the events. It seemed to say that science isn’t just about numbers and formulas, but about creativity and imagination. The artistic part weren’t at all “sciency.”

I can’t really imagine that here in the US. Have I just been living in the wrong places? Why don’t we have these sorts of things? Does it have to do with permits, that things have to stick to certain areas? Are there people trying to change that? Why don’t we have a Fête de la Musique (we apparently do in NY, is it the same? why not elsewhere?)

I’ve seen this kind of stuff all over the world, and now I feel like all of our festivals are so tame and could use more community participation. I got to thinking because I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC yesterday, which was fun. Yet, I kept thinking that if we were in France, there would have been acrobats and such, running around in the crowd doing impromptu performances.

2

Ever hear of the Bay to Breakersrace in San Francisco? It’s a combination sporting event and weird partying festival.

Or you should see what goes on in Montreal sometime. That’s a city famous for its summer festivals.

3

Sounds a lot like First Night in Boston.

4

Fuck that fucking shit and get your ass to Montreal for the Jazz Festival and the Just-For-Laughs Festival.

5

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6

Traditions form when families live in one place for long periods of time.

Americans are too mobile. We help found a city, then pack up & leave.

Traditions just…mean less, that’s all.

7

I don’t know, dude. Try **Mardi Gras **or something.

In NYC, Halloween has become a sort of city-wide festival like you describe. There is the big parade down 6th. Every bar in the city is filled with people in costume, not to mention all the appartment parties.

Saint Pattricks Day is celebrated in a similar manner, as is the completely separate Hoboken Saint Pattricks Day.

I would say the reason our festivals might seem more “tame” is that cities generally don’t like being turned into what amounts to a fraternity row during Greek Week. So the celebrations might be a lot more regulated.

8

Yes. Implicit in the American understanding of a truly “public” festival is nuisance and disorder. Better by far to keep the spirit limited to constructed space and paying ticket holders.

9

I blame the lawyers.

10

The Spanish do the re-enactment of the Moor invasion pretty well. As near as I can tell, the idea is everybody gets up early in the morning, the men don Arab dress, get in boats and go out to sea then re-enact an invasion where everybody is armed, firing blunderbusses and firecrackers up into the air. I heard elephants are involved at some. This is after days of partying and various processions of floats through the villages.

11

Mardi Gras , New Orleans
Fantasy Fest ,Key West
The Fest actually has events for a week and is fun ,without the dark undertones of the Mardi Gras. But both are wild fun with floats and costumes all over the streets.

12

If any place needed better/more exciting/imaginative festivals, it would be right here where I live, upstate NY. The summers here are short, but I tell you, every event offered is always absolutely mobbed, and that goes for winter, spring and fall. People are so desperate for SOMETHING fun to do, somewhere to go. We need even more fun stuff!

13

Americans are still conflicted over their Apollonian and Dionysian natures, it’s a Puritan legacy compounded by all the rebels and misfits in our historical DNA. Officially sanctioned revelry doesn’t come easily to us.

14

The burning man festival isn’t imaginative enough?

15

Here in Houston, our International Festival starts next weekend & runs through the next weekend. It was originally a free art event, held on South Main near Hermann Park. Then it moved downtown & grew. One year it moved to Reliant Park (in the vicinity of Reliant Stadium & the unused Astrodome). That was a big failure & it moved back downtown.

It’s great fun & a chance to hear a lot of fine music for not much money. Alas, it was much better when it was free. It’s not the money that I mind–and it gets so packed on good days that I doubt many Houstonians mind, either. But it was more fun when you could just wander around downtown, looking up at our lovely skyscrapers & noticing the very diverse crowds of Houstonians enjoying the place, rather than being fenced in. But some past festivals were almost rained out; so I understand that money is needed just to keep the thing running. (There’s plenty of corporate & philanthropic underwriting, too.)

The next weekend, the still free Art Car Parade happens. It’s a smaller event but there’s lots of imagination on display.

Meanwhile, the city of San Antonio will be celebrating Fiesta. Different groups sponsor events all over the city. Some are free, some not. There are also parades; the whole city really does get into the spirit.

San Antonio has about a century on Houston. It takes a while to get these traditions started.

Where do you live now? Are there any events at all in your city? Do you patronize them? I try to remind my co-workers about happenings downtown; some of them only come Inside the Loop for work. They can’t be taking the kids to soccer every day of every weekend, can they?

16

That’s exactly my point. Burning Man is out in the desert, away from everything else. It’s not a part of the city, or part of a community.

17

Yes, but do your fancy-schmancy European festivals have funnel cake? Hmmm?

18

That’s what I came here to say - I’m not aware of anything like that in Europe (and I reckon some of it wouldn’t even be possible here in the UK, due to legal restrictions on safety, etc.)

19

What desert in England, France, Germany, The Netherlands, etc could we use to stage something similar?

20

I’ve not been to Burning Man, but Robodock in Amsterdam has plenty of dangerous stuff (and some of the stuff I saw at the wilder parts of the Gentse Feesten in Gent, Belgium would also classify as fairly dangerous). And Easter fires have been a popular tradition in the East of the Netherlands since at least the 1930s, with towns competing for the biggest pile of burning wood.