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FESTIVALS REVIEW
Festival Mania!
by Ed Williams
What’s the big deal with festivals these days?
I mean it, why are there so many festivals now? Used to,
you would hear about an occasional festival here and there,
for example, there might be a watermelon festival down
in south Georgia somewhere, or there might be a rattlesnake
round-up over in Alabama, or whatever. These events came
very few and far between, and they were a fairly big deal
mostly for that reason.
Contrast that to the present - everyone has a festival
going on these days. Why just recently I took a look around
central Georgia, and it’s amazing how many of them
are being held. All I can say is that they must bring
the money in, because some of them border on the almost
absurd. You can almost sense that some civic group got
together and decided, “Hey, we need to bring in a
few bucks for our city or county coffers, so what better
way to do it than to put on our first ever Dead Possum
Festival!”
Maybe I’m being too harsh, though. Hey, if festivals
bring in tourists and money, who am I to complain? We
live in a capitalist economy, I’m proud each and
every day that we do, so we can vote for whatever we desire
with our dollars and cents. It’s a simple, beautiful
system. And, in that spirit, I think I’m going to
suggest some potential festivals for any interested cities
or towns out there, some that should be immediately taken
into consideration, and some that I have no doubt would
bring in tens of thousands of dollars for whatever community
puts them on:
1. “The Sunburned Chest Festival” - What better
way to pull a big crowd than to announce a festival with
its main event being a contest - a contest between female
entrants to see whose chest is the most sunburned. Of
course, the judges would have to make a comparison between
the contestants’ burned and non-burned skin, and
that alone would constitute the major draw for this particular
festival. And, as y’all might guess, you’d have
thousands of male attendees, and sales for items like
sunglasses, beer, and disposable cameras would skyrocket.
2. “The Bring In Martha Stewart On The Day Of A Big
Ball Game Festival” - Now this wouldn’t come
cheap, as Martha probably charges a hefty fee to make
a personal appearance, but it would be well worth the
expense. Schedule her in on the day of the Super Bowl,
for example, and put her in a large auditorium to make
a speech. Ticket sales would go through the roof as most
of the women in the area would show up to hear whatever
Martha has to say. The men in the area would then purchase
much more beer, cigars, chips, dips, and other sports
related food items as they would know they could enjoy
them in complete peace while the game is going on. It’s
a “can’t miss” strategy, Martha pulls in
the women, the men buy more food, everyone involved benefits.
3. “Butts County, Georgia” - Oh man, there’s
so much I could do with this, I can think of about ten
thousand plus potential festival ideas for this county
and then some. Unfortunately, my editors won’t print
about 9,999 of them, so I’ll just wistfully think
of what might have been...
4. “The Perry Como Impersonators Festival” -
This is actually sort of a “festival in reverse”
type idea, because if this was actually held most of the
area’s population would quickly go someplace else
for a couple of days. And hey, that might not be a bad
thing if a community had civic projects they needed to
do like spray for mosquitoes, fix some large sewer drainage
problems, or whatever. The festival planners could work
out a deal with the surrounding communities to get a cut
of their motel and restaurant revenues while the Perry
C. festival is going on, so everyone involved comes out
a winner.
I could go on and list even more festival ideas, but these
that I’ve listed should be enough to get the ball
rolling. In a really noble gesture on my part, I will
claim no copyright for these ideas, so if anyone out there
really wants to use any of them they can free of charge.
Now, with all that having been said, if some community
out there really considers putting on a “Sunburned
Chest Festival,” I think that the least y’all
could do would be to invite me to be one of the judges
for the main event, after all, fair is only fair...
About the Author
Ed’s latest book, “Rough As A Cob,“ can
be ordered by calling River City Publishing toll-free
at: 877-408-7078. He’s also a popular after dinner
speaker, and his column runs in a number of Southeastern
publications. You can contact him via email at: ed3@ed-williams.com,
or through his web site address at: www.ed-williams.com.
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