When going to a festival I don’t just like to go there and see the bands, I also like to have once in a while a look at the colourful people within the festival folk. Somehow you can find the same kind of people at every festival, it doesn’t matter in which country you are.

For some people a festival isn’t just about the music, it’s also about getting dressed. During this weekend I’ve seen people dressed as animals like bees or frogs. Others seem to play the role they always wanted to be just for one weekend. So, watch out - and you’ll find all the self-appointed fairies and Kings of Beer all around the festival site. And there are also those you obey the rule, that less is more, and instead of putting on more clothes they prefer covering just a few parts of their body with tape.

But what makes adults to choose this way of dressing? It must be more than the simple effect of being drunken. Is there probably still the touch of freedom above festivals or is it the relaxed atmosphere that makes people acting like this? Probably it’s the same thing that causes fanatical fans of heavy-metal music to dance at a Reggae concert or to sing a Number-One hit from the 80ies at the camping site.

Probably it’s one of those things that are meant to be unsolved forever - and actually it’s great that there are people like this. They are having a good time on their own and I guess that everybody of us also has to smile at least a bit when the self-appointed King of Beer or Kermit the frog are passing our way. A festival without those people would lose some of its blaze of colour and that would be a real pity.

-Katharina Mörtl-

16.07 2006 klo 20:51 - In English.