I haven't been able to find any threads specifically talking about festivals, so here is a place to talk about your experiences attending or working at whatever festivals you go to.
A few years ago I was at a harvest festival and fell in love with and bought a baby bunny. A bit after that my parents stopped to get something to drink on the way back to the car. While I was waiting on them I sat the box with the bunny on top of an empty stall and waited next to it. Que people coming up to me asking if the monkey was in the box? I was very confused until one of them pointed to what I thought was the back of the stand. There was a sign for a fortune telling monkey. I had to explain that no this was a bunny I had just bought and I was just sitting here waiting on my parents. And that's the story of the time I was mistaken for a fortune teller at a harvest festival.
I've been having the hardest time finding an obon festival in oklahoma. understandable, I know, but it still really SUCKS because they've always been sort of...my way of connecting with my ancestors and grandparents who have passed? my parents are a bit more disconnected from the religious side of it, so I didn't get that growing up, but they appreciate the cultural side a lot back home, though, we were SUPER lucky, there would usually be three or four around the same time! my hometown's one generally invited a local taiko school to come out and play, and one of my most hilarious memories of a festival is everyone trying to watch them from underneath shelter while they played in the pouring rain, because they were that determined to perform.
