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 managed only an opening-night gala before being called off because of what?

Germany's invasion of Poland stopped the 1939 festival, and the first complete Cannes festival had to wait until after the war, in 1946.

At which 1967 festival did Jimi Hendrix set his guitar alight on stage?

Monterey Pop was the Jimi Hendrix Experience's first major American show, and the set there made Hendrix famous in the US.

Which Deep Purple song recalls a night at the Montreux Jazz Festival's casino during a Frank Zappa gig?

Smoke on the Water tells how a fan fired a flare gun into the casino's ceiling during the concert, and the fire destroyed the whole building.

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 has a cost: in 2004 the Madras High Court briefly banned it because the chemicals in the idols pollute the sea.

Which cheese do runners chase down Cooper's Hill near Brockworth?

Double Gloucester's race drew such crowds that safety fears got the official event cancelled in 2010, and rebel cheese rollers ran their own anyway.

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

Robert Redford's institute runs a festival that began in 1978 as the Utah/US Film Festival and only took the name Sundance in 1991.

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

Tribeca has since widened from film into TV, music, games and immersive work, and in 2021 it dropped 'Film' from its name.

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

The Golden Lion only arrived in 1949: from 1934 to 1942 the festival's top prize had been the Mussolini Cup.

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

Jane's Addiction's farewell tour never really ended: Lollapalooza ran until 1997, came back in 2003 and settled for good in Chicago's Grant Park in 2005.

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

At Newport Folk, Pete Seeger later said he wished he had an axe to cut the cables, the electric sound was so loud and distorted.

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

Austin's SXSW was Twitter's tipping point: during the 2007 festival, tweets rose from 20,000 a day to 60,000.

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

Tennessee's Bonnaroo lost two years in a row: COVID-19 cancelled it in 2020, and Hurricane Ida's rain flooded the farm in 2021.

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

Miami's city commission pushed Ultra out of Bayfront Park, and after a 2019 stint on Virginia Key it offered the festival a way back.

Tomorrowland, the dance festival held in the town of Boom, is in which country?

Belgium's Tomorrowland began in 2005 as a one-day event run by brothers Manu and Michiel Beers, long before it grew to two weekends.

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

A typhoon hit Fuji Rock's first day, many poorly prepared fans suffered in the cold, and organisers called off day two.

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

Sapporo's statues turned into giant sculptures in 1955, when soldiers from Japan's Self-Defense Forces joined in to build them.

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 moves between April, May and June from one year to the next.

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

A maypole is the heart of Swedish Midsummer, where families circle it doing Små grodorna, the 'little frogs' dance that mimes the ears and tails frogs lack.

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

Richard Wagner could not raise enough money to finish the theatre until King Ludwig II of Bavaria put up the funds, so the first festival opened only in 1876.

Which UK music festival takes place on Worthy Farm?

Glastonbury skips a year every so often, a 'fallow year' that gives Worthy Farm's land and cows a rest.

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

After a big Yi Peng release of paper lanterns, workers are hired to gather those that fall, and villagers are paid for each one they bring back.

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

Kyoto's Gion Matsuri began in 869 with 66 halberds, one for each province, raised in prayers to end the plague.

Which Hindu pilgrimage rotates among four Indian cities and is called the largest human gathering on Earth?

Kumbh Mela takes turns at Prayagraj, Haridwar, Nashik and Ujjain, and pilgrims bathe in sacred rivers, at Prayagraj where the Ganges and Yamuna meet.

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

Kerala's Onam welcomes home the legendary king Mahabali, whom the dwarf Vamana tricked by asking for just three steps of land.

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

Poetry takes both, and in 1917 the Chair went to the poet Hedd Wyn, who had been killed at Passchendaele weeks before the ceremony.

Which film festival gives an audience-voted People's Choice Award?

Toronto's People's Choice winners include Chariots of Fire and American Beauty, which both went on to win the Best Picture Oscar.

Which Nordic country's Roskilde Festival was started in 1971 by two high-school students and a promoter?

Denmark's Roskilde ran short of money in its first year, the students paid the bills, and a non-profit foundation took the festival over for 1972.

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

Truffles are hunted with trained dogs, which, unlike the pigs once used, have no urge to eat what they find.

Where is the Cheung Chau Bun Festival, famous for its race up a tower covered in buns?

Hong Kong's bun festival parade also has children dressed as heroes who seem to float above the crowd, held up by hidden steel frames.

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

Melons are Chinchilla's big crop, about a quarter of Australia's, and the festival began in 1994 to lift a drought-stricken town's spirits.

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

Lyon's candles thank the Virgin Mary, credited with sparing the city from plague in 1643, and a new statue of her made the night popular in 1852.

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.

Which city's Fringe began in 1947, when eight theatre groups turned up uninvited at the International Festival?

Edinburgh's Fringe grew so vast that, with the official festival beside it, only the Olympics and the World Cup sell more tickets.

Which Sussex town's Bonfire Night commemorates 17 Protestant martyrs burned at the stake there?

Lewes's bonfire processions carry crosses for the martyrs burned in 1555–57, while also marking Guy Fawkes Night and the Gunpowder Plot.

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

The Khalsa began when Guru Gobind Singh asked for a head and five men volunteered in turn; they became the Panj Pyare, the first Khalsa.

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

Serbia's EXIT began in 2000 in a university park as a student movement for democracy, then moved into the fortress after that year's elections.

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

Hay-on-Wye was already famous for books: in 1977 bookseller Richard Booth proclaimed the town an independent kingdom and was crowned its king.

Which animal's toy figures are tossed from the belfry of Ypres's Cloth Hall every three years?

Cats are said to have been thrown alive from Ypres's belfry long ago, but the big Kattenstoet parade has run regularly only since 1955.