Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 14.1
Major positive and negative features of festivals
Advantages
Disadvantages to be resolved, managed
Increased local pride and possible interna-
tional prestige
Annoyance at disturbances from event
Additional crowds providing:
Noise, congestion, crowd control. safety. housing
Economic gain
Waste disposal, sanitation, and medical needs
Environmental improvements near festi-
val sites
Physical damage through vandalism
Excitement and pleasure
Anti-social behaviour, substance abuse
Community participation/cohesion
Intra-urban rivalry and alienation
Revitalisation of traditions
Loss of authenticity
Improving culture & expectations
Loss, downgrading of old cultures
New investment and renewal
Loss through event failure; unrealised projections
Business opportunities, job growth
Increased costs, price inflation in hotels. houses
Government and corporate support
Possible loss of local consultation and control
and ensuring its removal, installing portable toilet facilities, providing temporary
accommodation and transport links, to sensitive policing that does not alienate the
spectators. Another vital need is the provision of medical care via paramedical staff
and ambulances for people who fall ill or may be overcome by the event. Many
early and often spontaneous music festivals, or those organized in remote locations,
failed to realize the need for these facilities and controls, which created huge prob-
lems, mainly associated with the requirement to suddenly accommodate the effects
of such large numbers. A similar effect is seen in seaside or inland resorts where
the population may grow rapidly in the summer months, which puts great strains on
things like sewage facilities which have to built to the seasonal population capacity.
The problems of coping with the enormous increase in the population of a centre
can be seen in the largest festival in the world. The Maha Kumbh Mela festival—lit-
erally the 'largest pitcher gathering or fair'—occurs in Allahabad at the junction of
the Ganges and Vamuha rivers and the myhthical Saraswati. It is the largest of the
three yearly Hindu Kumbh festivals held in one of four locations every 12 years to
celebrate the places where Hindus believe a container of immortality was spilled by
Gods fighting over it. The festival involves an estimated 80 million people attend-
ing, although not all of the celebrants stay for the whole time. A focus of the festival
is the dawn bathing in the Ganges where areas for different sectors within Hindu-
ism are set aside. It is believed that the immersion will cleanse sins and help people
find a path to salvation, an eternal life outside the cycles of earthly birth and death,
meaning that the event is as much a pilgrimage as a festive event. In 2013 the most
auspicious day within the whole timespan of the festival was February 14th where
it is estimated that 30 million people bathed in one of 18 locations along the Ganges
(Bismas
2013
), the biggest daily gathering on earth. A major panic in the crowds in
the 1950s resulted in hundreds of pilgrims being crushed. It led the state authority
to create what amounts to a temporary or 'pop-up' mega-city for tens of millions of
pilgrims on the flood plains of the rivers. Every four years a large area is laid out
