40 Fun Facts About Festivals

At the Wodaabe people's Gerewol in Niger, who judges the line of painted, eye-rolling young men?

Marriageable women pick the winners of this week-long courtship contest, where the male beauty ideal prizes tallness, white eyes and white teeth.

Cannes's first film festival opened on 31 August 1939 and was halted a day later because of what?

Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 stopped the festival after a single gala screening of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

At which 1967 festival, a template for Woodstock, did Jimi Hendrix set his guitar alight on stage?

Monterey Pop saw Hendrix close 'Wild Thing' by burning his guitar, then smashing it seven times and throwing the remains into the crowd.

Which Deep Purple song recalls the Montreux Jazz Festival's casino burning down at a Zappa gig?

Smoke on the Water chronicles the December 1971 blaze; Deep Purple had come to Montreux to record there and had to scout the town for another venue.

Which New Mexico city fills its October dawns with mass ascensions of 500-plus hot-air balloons?

Albuquerque's Balloon Fiesta is the largest in the world and is billed as the most photographed annual event anywhere; it began in 1972 with just 13 balloons.

Ganesh Chaturthi's ten days end with the elephant-headed god's clay idols paraded off to what fate?

Immersion, the visarjan, sends the god home via a river or the sea; in Mumbai alone around 150,000 idols are immersed every year.

Which cheese is chased down Cooper's Hill near Brockworth in a race that injures runners most years?

A 3–4 kg wheel of Double Gloucester gets a one-second head start and reaches speeds fast enough to knock over spectators on the steep, uneven slope.

Which actor was the main founder of the institute that runs the Sundance Film Festival?

Robert Redford, who lived in the area, built the Sundance Institute that now runs the largest independent film festival in the United States.

Which film festival did Robert De Niro co-found in 2002 to revive Lower Manhattan after 9/11?

Tribeca was launched by De Niro and two partners after the World Trade Center attacks drained life from the neighbourhood.

Which prize goes to the best film at the world's oldest film festival, founded in Venice in 1932?

The Golden Lion crowns a festival that Giuseppe Volpi founded in August 1932 and that still ranks among cinema's 'Big Five'.

Lollapalooza was conceived in 1991 by singer Perry Farrell as a farewell tour for which band?

Jane's Addiction's send-off grew into a touring alt-rock circus and is now a multi-day fixture in Chicago's Grant Park.

Bob Dylan was booed by some fans in 1965 when he plugged in an electric band at which festival?

Newport Folk, in Rhode Island, had cheered Dylan's solo sets in 1963 and 1964; on 25 July 1965 he returned backed by members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

South by Southwest, where Twitter first found buzz in 2007, fills which Texas city each March?

Austin has hosted SXSW since 1987, and the 2007 Interactive strand is remembered as the moment Twitter caught on.

Bonnaroo, the June festival held on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, is in which US state?

Tennessee's Bonnaroo has run on what is now Great Stage Park since 2002, typically starting on the second Thursday in June.

Ultra, the dance festival named after a Depeche Mode album, grew worldwide from which Florida city?

Miami's Ultra was founded in 1999 by Russell Faibisch and Alex Omes, and its Ultra Worldwide offshoots now run far beyond Florida.

Tomorrowland, which draws 400,000 dance fans a year to the town of Boom, is in which country?

Belgium's Tomorrowland held its first edition in 2005 in Boom, in the province of Antwerp, and has grown into one of the world's biggest dance festivals.

The first Fuji Rock Festival, held at the foot of Mount Fuji in 1997, lost its second day to what?

A typhoon struck day one, so organisers cancelled day two, which turned out sunny; the festival has lived at Naeba Ski Resort in Niigata since 1999.

Which Japanese city's Snow Festival began in 1950 with six statues built by high-school students?

Sapporo's festival grew from those six statues in Odori Park into a seven-day event that drew about two million visitors in 2007.

Vesak, marking the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death on one day, follows which lunar phase?

The full moon of the lunar month of Vesakha fixes the date, so Vesak drifts between the late-spring months from one year to the next.

Sweden's Midsummer, a family celebration of the brightest days, centres on dancing around what?

A maypole in Sweden is called a midsommarstång, a 'midsummer pole', because it goes up for Midsummer rather than in May.

Which composer's operas alone fill the Bayreuth Festival, in a theatre he supervised building?

Richard Wagner personally oversaw the design and construction of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, and the wait for tickets can run five to ten years or more.

Which composer born in Salzburg is the focus of its summer festival, opened in 1920 with Jedermann?

Mozart was born in the city, and his operas anchor the five-week festival that Max Reinhardt inaugurated on 22 August 1920 with Hofmannsthal's Jedermann on the cathedral steps.

Yi Peng, held in northern Thailand alongside Loy Krathong, fills the night sky with swarms of what?

Paper lanterns called khom loi are released by the thousand over Chiang Mai, a Lan Na tradition that runs at the same time as the national Loy Krathong.

Which Japanese city's Gion Matsuri, born of a ninth-century plague, parades tall floats in July?

Kyoto's Gion Matsuri dates to 869, when Emperor Seiwa ordered prayers against a plague, and its Yamaboko float processions run on 17 and 24 July.

Kumbh Mela, the pilgrimage that drew 660 million people in 2025, rotates among how many cities?

Four cities share the Kumbh Mela: Prayagraj, Haridwar, Nashik and Ujjain, and the gathering at Prayagraj is counted as the largest on Earth.

Onam, with its snake-boat races and flower carpets, is the harvest festival of which Indian state?

Kerala's Onam welcomes the mythical king Mahabali home for an annual visit, after Vamana banished him to the netherworld.

The National Eisteddfod of Wales awards its top prizes, the Chair and the Crown, for which art?

Poetry takes both prizes: the Chair goes to an awdl in strict metre and the Crown to a pryddest in free verse, all of it in Welsh.

Which film festival's audience-voted People's Choice Award has become a bellwether for the Oscars?

Toronto's festival starts the Thursday after Labour Day and runs eleven days, and its audience-voted winners have often gone on to Best Picture glory.

Which Nordic country's Roskilde Festival has been run by a non-profit foundation since 1972?

Denmark's Roskilde was created in 1971 by two high-school students and a promoter, and the Roskilde Foundation has run it for music, culture and humanism ever since.

Alba's autumn fair in Piedmont, where buyers pay thousands of dollars a kilo, sells which delicacy?

Truffles from around Alba, the prized white kind, sold for $2,200 to $4,800 per kilogram in 2001, and the fair peaks in October and November.

Where is the Cheung Chau Bun Festival, with its races up 60-foot bamboo towers covered in buns?

Hong Kong's bun towers stand at Pak Tai Temple on Cheung Chau, and the scramble up them was revived as a race in 2005.

Chinchilla in Queensland skis, bungees and spits pips with which fruit at its biennial festival?

Melons are the town's crop: Chinchilla calls itself the 'Melon Capital of Australia', and the festival adds a melon bullseye, an ironman and eating races.

Which French city's Festival of Lights, begun in 1852, peaks with candle-lit windows on 8 December?

Lyon's festival took off when a statue of the Virgin Mary was erected beside the basilica overlooking the city, and it now runs for several days.

The Feast of San Gennaro in Naples, echoed in New York's Little Italy, centres on a vial of what?

Blood said to be Januarius's is kept in a sealed ampoule in Naples Cathedral, and the faithful gather three times a year to watch it liquefy.

How many theatre companies turned up uninvited in 1947 to start the Edinburgh Fringe?

Eight companies began what is now the world's largest performing arts festival, which stays open-access: anyone can perform, with no selection committee.

Which Sussex town's Bonfire Night, the UK's biggest, also mourns 17 Protestants burned at the stake?

Lewes's bonfire societies burn effigies of Guy Fawkes and Pope Paul V each year, marking both the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and the Marian Persecutions.

Vaisakhi, Punjab's spring harvest festival, also marks Guru Gobind Singh founding what in 1699?

The Khalsa, the order of initiated Sikhs, was born under the tenth Guru, and Vaisakhi doubles as a harvest celebration across Punjab and northern India.

EXIT, the festival born of a student democracy movement in 2000, was staged at Petrovaradin Fortress in which country?

Serbia's EXIT began in Novi Sad as a protest for freedom in the Balkans and grew into one of Europe's largest music events before its organisers left Serbia after the 2025 edition.

Which Welsh town's literature festival did Bill Clinton call 'the Woodstock of the mind' in 2001?

Hay-on-Wye's festival was devised in 1988 by Norman, Rhoda and Peter Florence and runs for ten days from May into June.

Every three years, a jester in Ypres tosses plush toys of which animal from the Cloth Hall belfry?

Cats really were thrown from the tower once: they had been kept in the Cloth Hall to control vermin among the stored wool and were tossed out each spring.