Festivals bring out the puritanical paranoiac streak in many guidebook writers — the same fear that used to lead to early map-makers writing ‘Here Be Dragons’ across vast, unexplored areas of the ancient world.
“You won’t find a room!” is a common refrain.
“Everything will be booked out for months in advance!”
“Prices will rocket!”
“It will be too crowded!”
“Everything, even the banks, will be closed!”
“Doom, gloom and woe!”
In a sense they are right. Festivals are generally overcrowded and expensive. Rooms and even seats in cafés are difficult to come by and many of the usual attractions will be shut. But they are also, irrefutably, just what travelling is about. Or at least used to be about, before the whole of the world offered itself up on a plate, tagged, priced and sanitised, with phone, fax, e-mail and even a website for bookings. Festivals are raw. Unpredictable. Exciting.
They also often define the ‘right’ time to visit a place. You can tell this just by looking at the postcard stands. Buy a postcard in Venice and Rio,
