40 Insane and Bizarre Festivals Around the World

31Slinningsbålet

Slinningsbålet

Each year during the Norwegian festival of Slinningsbålet, pallets are stacked several stories high and are burnt to set the record for the tallest bonfire.


32Festa Confederada

Festa Confederada

There is a town in Brazil named Santa Bárbara d'Oeste that has a large population of people descended from American Civil War soldiers who fled there after the war. They have an annual festival called the Festa Confederada, where southern activities take place. People dress as southerners, and Confederate flags are flown.


33Hop-tu-Naa

Hop-tu-Naa

On the Isle of Man, children sing songs and carry lanterns made from turnips, while adults try to predict the future using ashes from the fire on 31st October during a festival called Hop-tu-Naa.


34International Highline Meeting festival

International Highline Meeting festival

During the International Highline Meeting festival attendees spend most of their time strung up on tightropes stretched across the Italian Alps in Monte Piana.


35Merfest

Merfest

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.


36Nalukataq festival

Nalukataq festival

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.


37Shakespeare Mas

Shakespeare Mas

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.


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38Burning Tar Barrel Festival

Burning Tar Barrel Festival

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.


39Phuket vegetarian festival

Phuket vegetarian festival

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.


40Punkin' Chunkin' Festival

Punkin' Chunkin' Festival

Punkin' Chunkin' Festival provides a fun atmosphere for local communities to enjoy a variety of events, food, shopping and, of course, punkin chunkin. The chunkin' machines draw "ooos" and "ahhs" as pumpkins fly out over Sayers Lake at Bald Eagle State Park. The event is a fundraiser for the Howard Fire Company and happens annually in October. 

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