35 Outlandish Festivals That Prove Anything Can Be Celebrated

The annual Merfest in North Carolina sees hundreds of people come together to celebrate being 'merfolk'. Attendees take workshops on underwater modeling and how to hold their breath, and also swim with Hannah Fraser, a professional mermaid and environmental activist.

During the Nalukataq festival held by the Inupiat Eskimos, seal or walrus skin is used as a sort of trampoline. A group of people function as the springs of the trampoline and rhythmically pull on it so that the person standing on the skin is thrown up 20 feet in the air.

Shakespeare Mas is a part of Grenadian carnival where participants recite from Shakespeare and beat each other over the head with sticks when they make mistakes.

Each year on November 5th for reasons no one seems to remember anymore, the people of Devon, England, run through the streets with flaming barrels. It’s believed tar barrel burning may have once been used as a way of warding off evil as many fire-related British festivals take place around Halloween.

The vegetarian festival in Phuket is considered by many to be the most extreme and bizarre of festivals in Thailand. Devotees not only give up meat for the holiday, a select few participants actually practice self-mutilation in the form of piercing their cheeks with swords, walking on hot coals, and climbing ladders made of knife blades.