Festivals in January

January Festivals

17 January Festival Articles

15 January Festival Snippets

24 January Festival Photo Galleries

15 January Festival Videos

113 January Festival Websites

Festivals in January - 17 Articles

Article Title: Mardi Gras - The Greatest Free Show on Earth

Festival Name: New Orleans Mardi Gras

Festival Country: USA

Festival Type(s): Carnival, Street Parade, Mardi Gras

Throw me something, Mister! Throw me something!' shout thousands of street revelers to costumed riders on larger than life floats as they shower glittering trinkets over the scrambling crowd below. Parades--60 formal ones at last count and many other informal ones--fantastic costumes, elegant balls and intricately designed tableaux, all essential parts of Mardi Gras, one of the wildest celebrations in the country.

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Article Title: Mardi Gras Sneak Preview

Festival Name: New Orlean's Mardi Gras

Festival Country: USA

Festival Type(s): Carnival, Street Parade, Mardi Gras

Many people do not realize this, but Mardi Gras or rather, CARNIVAL, begins on January 6, the Epiphany, or Kings Day. The parties and parades begin on a very small but widespread scale until the climax on the Wednesday before Lent which is Fat Tuesday.

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Article Title: Ati-Atihan Festival

Festival Name: Ati-Atihan Festival

Festival Country: Philippines

Festival Type(s): Carnival, Street Parade, Party

The noise strikes you first. It's thick, heavy, relentless, a bone-rattling clamour that fills every available inch of airspace. It sounds like the march of a thousand jackbooted skeletons on their way to pay a visit on someone unpleasant, like the dentist or the taxman. Your brain takes it in as an all encompassing roar initially, but gradually the different rhythms and tempos become apparent. Over here an intricate staccato. Over there a dull thud. Right over there a mixture of the two but at twice the speed.

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Article Title: Orange Battle at Canrevale di Ivrea

Festival Name: Carnevale di Ivrea

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Bizarre, Carnival, Party

Unlike La Tomatina, the ammunition at Italy's Carnevale di Ivrea's orange battle doesn't get squished before it is hurled in the streets. It may, however, become smushed after colliding with the helmets that keep faces from leaking their own natural juices.

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Article Title: World Buskers Festival

Festival Name: World Buskers Festival

Festival Country: New Zealand

Festival Type(s): Busking, Juggling, Performing Art

Each January locals and visitors of all ages flock to open-air city malls, the city's cultural precinct, and out to the seaside suburb New Brighton to witness the world's very best busker talent: the World Buskers Festival

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Article Title: Thaipusam - Festival of Faith

Festival Name: Thaipusam

Festival Country: Malaysia

Festival Type(s): Traditional, Bizarre, Religious

As an avid attendee of matsuri (traditional festivals) across my adopted home country of Japan, I had thought there was little to touch them in terms of color, vivacity and raw animism. Until I went to Malaysia's Thaipusam festival, that is.

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Article Title: Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

Festival Name: Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

Festival Country: Taiwan

Festival Type(s): Lunar, Traditional

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is one of the more important holidays on the Chinese calendar. I'd heard of it at in college, but didn't really know anything about it, other than looking at the moon was important.

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Article Title: Roach Racin'

Festival Name: World Championship Cockroach Racing

Festival Country: Australia

Festival Type(s): Sport - Bizarre, National, Bizarre

Only in Australia would they celebrate their national holiday by racing cockroaches. Yes, that's right I'm talking about those pooey brown, hairy legged, skin crawling, under the fridge indulgers and lights out kitchen partiers that infest much of the land Down Under.

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Article Title: Oh, Dem Golden Slippers

Festival Name: Mummers Parade - Philadelphia

Festival Country: USA

Festival Type(s): Street Parade, New Year

The air is usually bitingly cold as each New Years Day, thousands don outlandish costumes and strut to the thumping beat of string bands in a colorful Philadelphia spectacle, The Mummers Parade. They're called Mummers (probably after the German word for disguise), they're mostly white, blue-collar guys who every January 1 - except 1919 and 1934 - have strutted up Broad Street decked out in wild array from head to spray-painted toe in one big absurd, hilarious, fraternal party.

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Article Title: Cherry Blossom Festival

Festival Name: Cherry Blossom Festival

Festival Country: Japan

Festival Type(s): Floral, Local, Traditional

Visitors come from all over the island, from mainland Japan, and even from other countries to see the earliest sign of the approaching spring.

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Article Title: Coming of Age Day - Seijin No Hi

Festival Name: Coming of Age Day - Seijin No Hi

Festival Country: Japan

Festival Type(s): Cultural, Traditional

Seijin No Hi was declared a national holiday in Japan in 1948 and in Okinawa in 1961. It is a day of tradition, but also of fun. In addition, it is a day of advice and wise words and a day to begin exercising the rights of adulthood.

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Article Title: Cape Town Minstrel Carnival

Festival Name: Cape Town Minstrel Carnival

Festival Country: South Africa

Festival Type(s): Street Parade, Cultural

As the southeast breeze kicks up outside Cape Town's Greenpoint Stadium, the sound of strumming banjos and banging drums reaches a crescendo, and thousands of merry minstrels hold onto their multicolored hats.

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Article Title: Happy (Chinese) New Year!

Festival Name: Chinese New Year

Festival Country: China

Festival Type(s): New Year, Traditional

The Chinese calendar is based on lunar-solar cycles. Five cycles of twelve years each make up the entire lunar cycle of 60 years.

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Article Title: Camel Wrestling

Festival Name: Camel Wrestling Championship

Festival Country: Turkey

Festival Type(s): Sport - Bizarre, Bizarre, Sport - Combat

While the Spanish have bullfights, and the Italians cockfights, and the English go hunting with hounds, the Turks have camel wrestling.

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Article Title: Battle of the Oranges

Festival Name: Battle of the Oranges - Ivrea Carnival

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Carnival, Bizarre, Party

That fight for liberty is recreated with the Battles of the Oranges, which substitute stones. Italy exceeds its production quota of oranges as agreed within the EEC (the European Economic Community) , so the excess needs to be destroyed (just to keep up the retail price). My co-citizens cooperate in the difficult path towards a unified Europe by helping to smash some oranges.

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Article Title: The Winter's Tale: Barleywine in Alaska

Festival Name: Great Alaska Beer and Barleywine Festival

Festival Country: USA

Festival Type(s): Beer, Party

There's no better place to get acquainted with new beer styles than at a beer festival. That's especially true of barleywine. The best showcase for the style, and one of the world's biggest, is The Great Alaska Beer and Barleywine Festival in downtown Anchorage.

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Article Title: Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Festival Name: Dr. Alfonso Ortiz Tirado Cultural Festival

Festival Country: Mexico

Festival Type(s): Music - Varied, Art, Cultural

For ten days at the end of January, the sleepy town of Alamos, Sonora, wakes up to the lilting strains of guitars, the pounding rhythms of rock bands and the echoing arias of opera stars, all part of the Dr. Alfonso Ortiz Tirado Cultural Festival.

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