FESTIVALS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

AIR GUITAR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

Remember the good old days of the power ballad, when you used

to bust out on the dance floor with some epic air guitar during

AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” Well, here’s your chance to show off

those moves again in front of thousands of adoring fans at

the Air Guitar World Championships in Oulu, northern Finland.

KAZANTIP

According to the locals, Kazantip Republic (also known as Z) is not

what you think, but sometimes it’s what you dream about. See,

the people who take part in this festival strongly believe that

parallel festival universes exist, but with a twist. Take Burning Man,

for example. Turn its dusty desert into a sun-dappled beach

on a Cambodian island. The beach is two square kilometres of

pure party paradise, where summer lovers and creative souls

unite to worship the sun, sand, and sexiness that is Z.

This land has its own constitution, religion, and rules.

ROUKETOPOLEMOS

What’s more impressive than a chocolate egg during Easter you ask?

What about 60,000 rockets fired between two churches on an

idyllic Greek island? That’s exactly how the most important date in

the Orthodox Christian calendar is commemorated on the Greek

island of Chios, the fifth-largest island in Greece, one of those

semi-arid, sun-bleached jewels of the Aegean that postcards

and screen savers were invented for. The bad news, however, is

that this festival is known for being one of the most dangerous

since many people have lost their hands or even their

lives during it.

CALCIO STORICO FIORENTINO

Some have called it the most brutal sporting event in the world.

Once a year in the middle of the elegance of Renaissance-era

Florence and in front of the imposing marble facade of the

Church of Santa Croce and its statue of Dante, rival teams

duke it out in a violent, body-to-body match set on a sand-covered

playing field as fans wildly cheer on their neighbourhood squad.

ROSWELL UFO FESTIVAL

UFO enthusiasts and sceptics alike flock to this site of the 1947

Roswell incident to celebrate the unknown and have some quirky fun.

So what are you waiting for? Pack your bags for Roswell, New Mexico

and take a deeper look into one of the most famed UFO incidents in

the United States during the Roswell UFO Festival.

CANNABIS CUP

The festival was founded in 1987 by Steven Hager, an American writer,

activist, and strong proponent of the legalization of marijuana.

He first conceived the event as a harvest celebration to promote

the personal cultivation and use of cannabis. This way, every

November since 1988 thousands of budding horticulturalists and

stoners descend upon the city of Negril, Jamaica, to attend what is

widely renowned as the world’s preeminent drug fest,

the High Times Cannabis Cup.

NAGHOL LAND DIVING

In a terrifying appeasement to the gods and a bold display of virility,

in this festival men jump off a spiked tower, hurtling to the ground

below, attached only to vines. Yep, what you just read is 100%

true. On Pentecost Island in the South Pacific, each year men of

the Sa tribe build a ninety-eight-foot-tall tower out of jungle wood,

climb to the top, and jump off, tethered by vines tied around

their ankles. If the vine is too short, he will swing back against

the tower. If it’s too long, the land diver will at a minimum

experience pain, possibly break some bones, or even die.

FESTIVAL OF NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES

Mexico may have Dia de los Muertos, but Spain one-ups them with

their pilgrimage of the nearly dead, officially known as Fiesta de

Santa Marta de Ribarteme. It might sound like a macabre festival

but it really isn’t. To get an idea of what happens keep this

image in mind: solemnly dressed family members carry those

who have claimed a near-death experience in the past year

to the church, where a mass is celebrated around noon,

often with many of the near-dead sitting erect in coffins.

Cool, huh?