Europe - Ghent Festival
If magnanimity, eloquence and grandeur are what you idealize in your perfect festival, then Ghent festival is the place for you to be this summer. With almost 2 million people attending the festival in 2008 in Ghent, Belgium, the festival became the largest open-air cultural festival in Europe by distance. The Ghent festival is composed primarily of three festivals- the International Street Theatre Festival, The International Puppet Buskers Festival and the Blue Note Festival, which is also affectionately called the jazz festival.
The Ghent festival evolved in the 19th century, when the ‘fathers’ of Ghent decided to organize the Sunday feasts by the peasants into a more civilized festivity in the form of the Ghent festival. The feasts that the peasants indulged in were nothing more than drunken orgies and often resulted in mass absenteeism on the part of the peasants on Monday mornings due to heavy liquor consumption on the weekends. This resulted the clergy of the town to ponder upon a solution to this menace, and they came up with the idea of festivities for the common-folk of the town, which later evolved into a full-fledged festival known as the Ghent Festival, which was organized by the governments and the richer strata of the society for the masses to enjoy.
For decades, the festival had carried on like this, and in its checkered history of more than 165 years, the Ghent festival has witnessed many ups and downs. With the rich folks occupying the paved areas and others celebrating in the dusty and dirty streets, the Ghent Festival was being stereotyped as being ‘pathetically middle-class’ by the late 1950s. It was with the entrance of Walter De Buck, who, along with his band of musicians and friends engaged everyone belonging to different strata of the society, including the priests, the commons and the classes of the society. He had brought the charm back to the Ghent festival and was a hit of his age. Since then, people from all over the Europe have been frequenting the Ghent Festival, which, in its modern form takes place in and around the city center and is the most famous for its Jazz festival, awesome food and electrifying environment.
Posted under Europe
This post was written by admin on October 20, 2008
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