Bumbershoot festival

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NORTH AMERICAN SAIJIKI

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Bumbershoot festival

***** Location: Seattle, Washington USA
***** Season: Autumn
***** Category: Humanity

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Explanation

Bumbershoot is an annual international music and arts festival held in Seattle, Washington.
One of North America's largest such festivals, it takes place every Labor Day weekend at the 74-acre (299,000 m²) Seattle Center, which was built for the 1962 World's Fair. Seattle Center includes indoor theaters, outdoor stages, McCaw Hall, and Memorial Stadium.
The name of the festival was taken from bumbershoot, a colloquial term for umbrella, probably coined in the 19th century a portmanteau of the words umbrella and parachute.


Bumbershoot began as a city-funded arts and music festival called "Mayor's Arts Festival", also known as "Festival '71", held at Seattle Center on August 13–15, 1971. This event had a total attendance of 125,000 visitors. Amidst the local economic depression triggered by the near collapse of Boeing, the festival attempted to revive local spirits, and was the largest event held in Seattle Center since the 1962 World's Fair. Talk radio host Irving Clark Jr. chaired the fair committee, and avant-garde impresario Anne Focke used one-fifth of that for light shows (which incorporated lasers, still something of a novelty at that time), computer graphics, enormous inflatable soft sculptures by the Land Truth Company, and an electronic jam session. Other events included dance, theater, folk music, arts and crafts, art cars, body painting, a Miss Hot Pants Contest, amateur motorcycle races, and one out-of-town performer: country singer Sheb Wooley.

In 1972, "Festival '72", held on July 21–23, took in 175,000 guests. In 1973 the festival adopted the present name "Bumbershoot", grew to five days, and pulled in 200,000 visitors. National acts included Cal Tjader, Joe Venuti, and John Handy. In 1974 it grew again, to 10 days and 325,000 visitors. The festival opened with a "Renaissance Processional" for the kilometer or so from downtown to the center; Mayor Wes Uhlman and most of the city council participated that year, in roles ranging from clowning to reading children's stories aloud to, in the mayor's case, running the Lost Child Center.



Another prominent Bumbershoot event from this era was the Bumbernationals Artists' Soapbox Derby, which continued into the early 1980s.[citation needed] 1975's 11-day festival was produced by Parks Department employee John Chambless, a former University of Washington professor of history and philosophy who had produced the 1968 Sky River Festival, a Pacific Northwest hippie-era festival.

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Things found on the way


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HAIKU - ZAPPAI

an art stroll
with scents and songs on the wind -
bumbershoot

Shared by Elaine Andre



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Related words

***** . Labor Day, Labour Day - USA .


***** NORTH AMERICAN SAIJIKI PROJECTS

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