Improving Fairs' Fare

It has been suggested to me that I was rather dismissive about Pollensa's fair in a piece I penned for the "Bulletin" this Sunday just gone. "So there will be lots of old pots on show if you happen along" was quoted as having been representative of this dismissiveness. Smugly, I have to say I feel vindicated.

I should point out that this piece was written before the fair started. I had no prior knowledge, therefore, of what transpired at the fair over the weekend. Not that a great deal did transpire, which may be part of the problem, but of stuff on display, the most symbolic were suggestion boxes. The town hall wanted to know how it could make the fair better.

I am not criticising the use of the suggestion boxes. Quite the opposite. It is encouraging to find a town hall actively engaging José Public punter for once. The suggestion boxes were there because the town hall has finally cottoned on to the fact that the fair needs an injection of new ideas. It requires greater originality, and this was precisely the point I had made. The fair is much the same each year, and the impression is that you are looking at the same old pots year on year out.

A counter argument to this is that there is comfort to be drawn from the familiar, but this is a lame justification, one that inhibits a different approach or some different thinking. It is the easy option to simply replicate previous events but it is not a great option if the fair loses its credibility and its popularity.

The number of visitors at this year's fair was lower than before. Economic hard times are said to be partly to blame, though I am not sure this is the case. Even in good times people have gone to fairs just for something to do. They haven't necessarily gone to buy something; there are, after all, events going on that don't demand parting with cash, and window-shopping, so to speak, is all part of the day out at the fair.

Competition is also said to be affecting numbers, but competition there has long been. Inca's interminable series of fairs culminates on Thursday with Dijous Bo, Muro's fair was last weekend as well. The timing of these is nothing new, so one is left with the impression that people are just a bit bored with the repetitiousness of the fair.

Pollensa's isn't the only fair to suffer. Alcúdia's fair in early October also received fewer visitors than normal. The town hall introduced a new aspect this year in that there was a so-called mediaeval fair. With hindsight, given the reduced number of the usual exhibitors, this was probably an innovation designed to compensate for their absence. It wasn't much of an innovation in any event, as the idea was borrowed from other mediaeval fairs that have been in existence for a number of years; Capdepera, for example, has one in spring and it is very much more vibrant than what was on offer in Alcúdia.

But an historical flavour may just be a way of reinvigorating fairs. Not mediaeval but through theming fairs according to a specific time in the past. Recapturing an element of a previous era has worked quite well in Santa Margalida where they revived the old tradition of the hay harvest festival last year and repeated it again during this year's La Beata celebrations. With this, everyone is expected to dress up in gear associated with an old farming culture.

While this is an example of an event specific to local tradition, might fairs be like fairs would have been in, for instance, the 1970s or the 1920s or earlier (had they existed)? Or perhaps with Pollensa, the fair might be shifted to much closer to Christmas and become a proper Christmas fair, one that might even be multi-cultural. Get the Brits involved, for example, with groups of carol singers.

What one doesn't wish to see happen is that fairs just die out through lack of interest, but for too long the fairs - and one can say the same about much of what happens during fiestas - have been staged with little thought given to originality. Ultimately, whatever is decided, the starting-point for any decision should have in mind precisely why there is a fair. Just because there has been one in previous years is no answer.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.