Unusual Festivals Around the World To know some unusual things

The festivals, usual or unusual, exist to commemorate some historical events. The objective of festivals is to bring people together, following some common rituals and faiths. The unusual festivals are quite different from those festivals known in Popular Culture and signify some or another event. Here are some of those unusual festivals celebrated across the world.

1. Underwater Music Festival – USA 

Florida Keys in the US becomes the best place for all the music lovers and divers during this unusual festival celebrated for the past 35 years. The Underwater Music Festival is sponsored by a local radio station delivering music underwater via speakers deferred underneath the boats situated above the reef. The aim sticks to promote reef protection, environmental sustainability, and responsible diving. Participants play their musical instruments, including horns, guitars, drums, etc. and ocean-themed songs like the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine”, etc. underwater to win the competition.

 

2. Air Guitar World Championship – Finland

This championship is part of the annual geld Oulu Music Video Festival in

Oulu, Finland, and grabs the attention of Guitarists to play Air Guitar. It got started as a joke in 1996 but now turned into a serious, and popular event with the ideology od “Wars would end, and all the bad things would go away if everyone just played air guitar.” In this championship, participants are supposed to play guitar on stage in two rounds for a minute each. They are allowed to play air guitar and no other instruments that get them marked out of 6.0. this phenomenon promotes the idea of world peace.

 

 

3. Monkey Buffet Festival – Thailand

The annual festival celebrated in Lopburi, Thailand, is known for its strange culture of offering privileges to the local population of these naughty animals. Lopburi is commonplace to find monkeys anytime, but of course, some gather during the annual food fest held at the end of November. People believe that these macaques bring good luck and fortune, and thus, they are offered this delicious fest, though it was started a businessman in 1989 to drive tourism in Lopburi. Along with the tables overloaded with food items, including sticky rice, fruits, cashews, etc., monkeys and apes entertain through their participation in various live performances and dance. The monkeys can be seen with numerous fun activities, fighting for food, sometimes getting aggressive to human beings by stealing their purse, hair clips, etc., and they can also be jumping on people’s shoulders.

4. The Baby Jumping Festival – Spain

This unusual festival takes place in the Spanish Village of Castrillo de Murcia in mind-June every year to celebrate the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi dated back to 1620. During the week-long celebration of this strangest festival, red and yellow-masked “devils” run through the streets while terrorizing locals and jumping over the rows of babies. It is called El Salto del Colacho in Spanish, which generally means “devil’s lap”. Catholics believe that these men dressed as devil cleanse all the sins and evil from the babies by hurdling over them. The men turning into devil chase people and try to whip and insult the youth.

5. Wife Carrying World Championship – Finland

    

   

   Source – Reuters

This annual contest is held annually in Sonkajarvi, Finland. It got started in 1982, where male competitors are supposed to carry their teammate. This contest got inspired by historical actions or the 19th-century legend of “Ronkainen the Robber”, where men stole wives from neighboring villages. The prize is more attractive and bizarre than the contest itself. It offers the wife’s weight in beer to the winner. This contest allows men to carry the female partner in different ways through an obstacle track of 253.5 meters in the fastest time. Participants do need to lift their wives necessarily.

6. International Worm Charming Festival – England

This bizarre festival got introduced in Blackawton in 1983 when a local couple noticed Devonian approaching by relieving themselves in a nearby field (too many could be seen after one). Since then, the International Festival of Worm Charming is organized each year with more than 600 attendees. A team of three people is constituted to collect the maximum worms in 15 minutes. The team is allotted a square meter of a field to charm the maximum possible worms. According to the Telegraph, “People attend the festival in May to try their luck in what has been voted by an Australian guide as Europe’s most unmissable festival.” This British tradition is said to bring numerous communities together.

7. Pidakala War – India

    

   

   Source – The Week

Pidakala War of Andhra Pradesh, India is nothing but another version of La Tomatina of Spain where people hurl tomatoes on each other. For celebrating this annual festival, locally called Goraihabba, the villagers collect the dung of almost 3,000 cattle around the location. The collected dung gets piled near the Veerbhadra Swamy Temple. Thousands of people from two distinct groups hurl dung on each other to celebrate this festival in spring. The event signifies a mythological marriage dispute that happened a day after the Ugadi festival in South India. According to villagers, this festival is good for health and also brings prosperity and rain to the villages.

8. Battle of the Oranges – Italy

The battles of Oranges dated back to medieval times celebrate the day of freedom of Townsfolk from the brutal rule of an evil duke. In this bizarre custom, the citizens of town Ivrea gather in the main square annually and throw oranges on each other. Every year, to the run-up to throve of Tuesday, the people of Ivrea get divided into nine different squads dressed up differently. For the following three days, men, women, and even children hurl oranges on each other while making attempts to kill them on the streets designated for war. Moreover, the battle of throwing oranges on each other represents the brawl between the followers of Duke and Violetta. Over 50,000 pounds pf oranges are destroyed during the war leaving numerous people with wounds and bumps.

9. World Body Painting Festival – Austria

    

   

   Source – The Guardian

It is the annual body painting festival held in July in Austria and grabs the attention of over 30,000 spectators from over 50 nations. Since 1998, the festival is a representation of art and culture by involving the creation of the modern bodypainting art movement. The festival has become worldwide and becoming an attractive place for artists and cultural institutions to create a network along with growth opportunities. The three-days fest follows a preparatory week, including various workshops about beauty make-up, hairdressing, knowledge of brushes, etc.

 

 

 

10. Flower Carpet – Belgium

The Flower Carpet is another unusual event held in Brussels, Belgium. It is a biennial event that started in 1986, now held in August along with Assumption Day. At this event, people from across Belgium assemble at the Grand Place to weave a carpet like drapery out of millions of colorful flowers. This extraordinary spectacle (Flower Carpet) is 70m long by 24 meters wide with 1,680 m2 of begonias, dahlias, grass, and bark. Further, Grand Place is a historic center of the city which got listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. Organizers select a different theme for every edition along with the music. The event also takes place at other cities in other forms, such as flower carpets at Onam in Kerala, India.

 

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