Most festivals I’ve been to have been fairly “normal”...usually concerts, food festivals, things of that nature, nothing too weird. I’ve been to some of the travelling rock festivals from Lillith Fair to Lollapalooza to Ozzfest and a few local only ones that featured many bands but aren’t household names. In terms of more “diversely themed” festivals which also have music, there’s an annual festival where I live in St. Paul, Minnesota called the Taste of Minnesota which has arts and crafts, food and free live music (this year I saw Seether, last year I saw Morris Day & The Time, other years I’ve seen Heart, The Rollins Band, War, The Plimsouls, Dread Zeppelin, just to name a few, it’s usually an interesting mix). Minneapolis has its own festival with food and free music every year called the Aquatennial, which is a celebration of water (Minneapolis is the “City of Lakes” within the state known as “the Land of 10,000 Lakes”)...I only went one year and it was too crowded…I went to see the Black Crowes but the crowds were too massive, so I ended up on a side street where Semisonic was playing (before they became famous and were just a “local” band).
Where I had grown up, in a far northern town in Minnesota not exactly known for its culture, most “festivals” were rather small affairs, often revolving around livestock and arts & crafts (when there was a band it generally was a polka band), and invariably they would feature as their most well attended exhibit a “beer garden”. One notable one where my grandmother lived had a very popular event where a large wooden board with several squares painted on it, each containing a number would be placed in front of a chicken pen, and contestants could pay $1 for a number, and when the chicken was released, whichever number the chicken decided to crap on would be the winning number, and the contestant who had that number would walk away with a wad of cash. Of course, if that wasn’t your style, you could also win turkeys or other assorted meat products by playing bingo in the hall.
Strangely enough, I’ve been to not one, but two separate festivals built around blueberries. One is in Ely, Minnesota, it’s called the Blueberry Art Festival, where a number of local artisans ply their wares in late July every year in the small northern Minnesota town, and many activites and exhibits are built around blueberries. And one year I was in Blue Hill, Maine (outside of Bangor)...a town so called because it sits on a huge hill which actually turns blue in late summer when the blueberries ripen, and attended a blueberry themed festival they had going on.
In the cities I’ve also been to street fairs, art fairs, and even the gay pride festival, which really was no different than any other festival you might find. I’ve been to fourth of July festivals, carnivals, and one other festival we have in Minnesota that I like to attend most years is called the Festival of Nations, which is an international themed festival with exhibits, food, music, dance, etc. from nations around the world. We also have a festival that just started to become a huge deal in the Twin Cities over the past few years….called the Living Green Expo, a festival dedicated to alternative energy and green living. There I got to ride on the pedal pub…a new concept where ten people pedal (like a bike), there is a driver to steer and operate the brakes and a bartender to serve beverages while you ride. They also had several organic food offerings, including Galactic Pizza, a wholly organic pizza restaurant based in Minneapolis, where the delivery drivers wear superhero costumes, and once, one of the drivers while on a pizza run saw a man snatch an old lady’s purse, he chased the guy down (wearing full superhero regalia) and apprehended the crook…great publicity for them.
But the one festival that really caught me off guard was one I stumbled upon quite by accident. In October of 2000, my wife and I were married and went to Europe for our honeymoon, first to London for a week, then we flew to Rome, spent a night there, drove to Florence and spent 3 nights there, then to Lake Como on the northern border of Italy (with a view of the Swiss Alps across the lake), down to Pisa and then back to Rome, then flew back to London for another night and back home. The villa we stayed in just outside Florence was a 500 year old vineyard overlooking Florence, located on the outskirts of a village called Impruneta, famous for its terra cotta pottery. We walked into town that night and found ourselves in the middle of the Festival of St. Luke…there were vendors, exhibits, fireworks and the backdrop was just amazing.
So, I don’t know how “weird” any of it has been, they’ve all had a LOT in common, but each has its own reason, and it makes life interesting to have these festivals around.
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