It's 2009 and a new travel season has started. This year's travels will be limited to Europe and I'll start with an event in my mother's hometown.
Hessentag is an annual event of the German state of Hessen in some chosen city to celebrate its history and to make it a destination. My childhood city of Langenselbold located about 25 miles east of Frankfurt was the 49th Hessentag Stadt (city). Preparations started over a year ago and included a complete redo of the water, gas, sewage, stormwater and electric infrastructure under the main celebration route, including a complete redo of roadways, sidewalks, elevated bus stops and street greenery. Millions of Euros were spent in preparing the town of only 15 000 for an influx of over a million visitors during the 10 days of festivities. The state of Hessen is slightly smaller than Maryland with slightly more people (6.1 million).
The festivities took place along a route of about 2 miles with booths on both sides of the roads which were closed to all motorized traffic for the duration. Some samplings of booth offerings were handmade willow baskets, every type of broom you can imagine, jewelry from many nations, foods mostly native but also Thai, Kurdish, Chinese, Polish, and even American ice cream, hot dogs, etc. Music and dancing took place simultaneously on 10 large and well outfitted stages throughout the day with much of the music being rock, jazz, blues, etc, with English singing. A US Army dixieland band and a US Air Force rock band, both from military stationed in Germany could also be heard. One of the stages was exclusively dedicated to in-state folk dancing and oomph bands of which there must have been dozens according to the 180 page program book. There was also a large military presence and an even larger police presence with many police on Segways and motorbikes. The police tent had the best free rock music events. A parade of 157 entries lasting three hours was the finishing event.
The most important activity was eating and drinking, with beer and wine retreats distributed throughout the festive areas. At the palace park one could spend all night drinking a great variety of wines while listening to various bands. This is where I spent much of my time into the late dusk with childhood acquaintances . It was truly amazing to see the determination of the visitors to attend, even on the many rainy days, as they marched about with their umbrellas not seeming to mind the weather.
Other activities of interest were historical presentations at the palace, the churches, and the history museum. The Hessen Minister (governor) was present all ten days and was very visible opening various exhibits and holding hearings with various interest groups such as farmers, educators, etc. Being quite a personable politician, he was often seen walking about and joining citizens for a drink.
This event took great coordination and many volunteers to carry out effectively. It was done very professionally with much attention to detail in preparation for the worst in weather, traffic and parking and in cleaning up. Of course, residents living along the festive route or near the music stages didn't get much sleep except between midnight and 3 AM when the noisy street cleaning started.
I believe that a similar idea of a traveling state fair, which this partially was, could be implemented for many of the small cities we have in Maryland. But could we get a good crowd to attend?
