‘Holding flurry of cultural activities simultaneously has its pros, cons’

AMMAN — Ever since the fasting month of Ramadan and the Eid holiday that followed came to an end, the Kingdom has been witnessing several musical and cultural festivals, featuring Jordanian, foreign and Arab performers.

The majority of the festivals are being held during the same period in several locations, which is a situation that festival organisers, participants and visitors as well as journalists interviewed by The Jordan Times on Saturday have mixed feelings about. 

The 30th Jerash Festival for Culture and Arts, which concluded Saturday, was among the first to start, and during the festival, another two events also began — the Fuheis and Al Balad music festivals.

Raed Asfour, Al Balad Theatre director, described having several activities during the same period as “healthy”. 

“You will encounter such a situation in most great cities. These festivals usually reflect the culture of these cities. Beirut right now hosts several festivals during the same period,” he said.

“This is a sign of Jordan’s stability and well-maintained security. These days, people cannot find happiness due to the difficult regional conditions, so these activities offer us joy,” Asfour added. 

“Everyone has his/her favourite band or singer and can go to the activity that satisfies his/her taste,” he said. 

Although Samer Khraino, executive culture director at the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM), said it is not suitable to have all these festivals hosted during the same period, he acknowledged that there are some circumstances beyond the organisers’ control.

GAM’s Amman Summer Festival, which features musical performances and activities for children, opened Saturday. 

“Sometimes the groups’ busy schedules force festival organisers to hold events in parallel. Also, most of them had to wait until the end of Ramadan and Eid and organise the activities ahead of the new academic year,” Khraino said.

Belal Al Hiary, the founder of Al Balqa Choir that participated in this year’s Fuheis Festival, said summer is the only suitable season for festivals. 

“We don’t have the suitable infrastructure to organise festivals during winter. We only have a limited number of huge halls which forces people who are in charge of these festivals to move their events to summer,” he added.

Sarah Qudah, chief editor and culture editor at 7iber online magazine, said this situation makes it hard for journalists to cover most of these events. 

“We have a limited number of journalists who are specialised in these types of events and they will find it hard to go everywhere. Also, websites and newspapers cannot provide enough space for all these festivals at the same time,” she said. 

Qudah noted that sometimes a journalist might be forced to write a short story with limited details to be able to cover several other activities. 

Audiences interviewed by The Jordan Times said the flurry of activities in Jordan can be somewhat overwhelming.

Mohammad Atoum said organisers have to coordinate with each other, otherwise fans will find it difficult to balance their schedule based on these events. 

“On Friday, there were two interesting concerts at Al Balad Music Festival and the Jerash Festival for Culture and Arts and I couldn’t decide where to go,” he added. 

Mohammad Hazzal, another festival goer, said organisers have to space out their activities to cover the whole summer season. 

“After one month, there will be no activities in summer and what are we going to do?” he asked.

Atoum suggested joining these events under one big festival that lasts for a longer period so that no one misses any activities. 

Similarly, Qudah said these events can be held over one month.

“They can hold each festival during one week so that audiences get the chance to see their favourite performers,” she added.