Review 2012

The Origin The source of inspiration is the traditional spring festival “Holi” which is celebrated in the northern parts of India. The Holi belongs to the most important and most famous celebration in India for centuries. When the full moon announces the change from winter to spring the people in the north of India welcome the springtime with the Holi-Festival – the festival of colours. In the spiritual Hindu sense the victory of the good over the bad and the victory of the spring over the winter are celebrated. The specialty is that the people are colouring themselves with colourful powder – Gulal – and throwing those colours in the air and on each other. For the days of the celebration the barriers between castes, religion and origin are invalid. Societal constraints between social classes, young and old, poor and rich are abolished. During these days all people are equal. Cultural variety, joy, mutual respect and tolerance are making the Holi Festival unique and unforgettable.

The Holi Festival of Colours picks up this mood and brings the cultural festival to Europe.

The cooperation with the official Indian bureau of tourism and the friendly support of the Indian embassy in Berlin confirms the idea of spreading the Holi thought. The Flashback – 2012 One summer. 4 cities. 25,000 colourful guests. 250,000 facebook fans.

The Festival of Colours mesmerized the people in Berlin, Dresden, Hannover and Munich. A collective feeling of euphoria and equality which has never been seen before spread around as a colourful cloud over the summer 2012 in Germany.

The start of Europe´s BIGGEST Colour-Festival was the 29.07.2012 in Berlin. The event which was planned for a small group of people exceeded all the expectations in just a couple of hours. A gigantic and not expected demand followed up the first announcement of the first  Festival of Colours in the capital of Germany: the tickets were sold out in 6 minutes.

Because of the very quickly growing facebook fan community and the exceptionally high media interest which carried the spirit of the festival over the whole country it was clear that Berlin won’t be the last station of the Festival of Colours. So the festival was organized in Dresden, Hannover and Munich on the 26.08.2012, 01.09.2012 and 09.09.2012 with visitor numbers between 4,000 and 11,000, short sell out time slots and an unbroken high media interest.

The Holi Festival of Colours as origin of all upcoming colour festivals in Germany has proven its position in the event market by its professional and responsible planning and implementation.

The organizers are placing a lot of value on the quality of the colour - which is cosmetically and ecologically harmless for human beings and nature. The Festival has to stay sustainably positive in the minds of the visitors, location owners and the cities.

The organizers are thankful to the mayors and the administrative bodies of the cities which made the implementation of the Holi-Festival of Colours possible in a short period of time by their support.

The Prospect – 2013 The huge success of the Festival and the permanent growing demand showed that a continuation of the Festival of Colours is required by the fans. After the winter break, the festival will be back with a big tour through Germany in 2013. The Festival of Colours is going on tour between April and September 2013 in around 12 cities. The destinations are still secret and are going to be announced in the beginning of 2013. Hint: Fans should join the Holi-Festival of Colours facebook fanpages of their cities so that they don’t miss the sales start of the tickets – they are going to be sold out very quickly. A European tour in the biggest cities is also in planning – more information soon.

Organizers The Festival of Colours are organized by the Holi Concept GmbH (founder and initiators of the biggest Colour Festivals in Europe: Jasper Hellmann, Max Riedel, Maxim Derenko).

Reporting 2012 Germanwide front pages in notable magazines like the Bild, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, articles in the Focus, in the Stern and the Spiegel, TV reportages at ProSieben (Galileo and taff), RTL (Explosiv and Punkt), ZDF (Drehscheibe Deutschland), ARD (Morgenmagazin) and online reporting at Spiegel Online, Bild.de and many more are only a short extract of the domestic media which has reported about the Holi Festivals 2012. The international attention was also as big as the domestic one: from BBC over the Indian Tribune to the China Daily – all around the world people could read something about these extraordinary Events.