The carbide shooting in Drenthe, bonfires, flower parades and fierljeppen in Friesland. These and dozens of other annually recurring traditions have been on the list of cultural intangible heritage in the Netherlands for several years. The list consists of 370 Dutch cultural expressions, including dishes such as the Groningen egg ball and the Indonesian rice table. Until this week, perhaps one of the most notorious events, organized in almost all parts of the country, was missing: the funfair.
That changed last Thursday. The Knowledge Center Intangible Heritage Netherlands (KIEN) has designated the fairground culture, together with three other cultural expressions, as cultural intangible heritage. Criteria for this include that the utterance is ‘alive’ and ‘continued from person to person’. Organizers must also be open to changes and the expression must not conflict with international human rights treaties.
KIEN explains that the fair is “for all ages, for all walks of life and all nationalities,” fair families “often run a fairground business for generations” and children “learn the trade by joining from an early age.”
fair history
The fairground heritage working group, which has been suggesting a place on the list for some time, says it is “overjoyed”. Earlier Karel Loeff, member of the working group and heritage expert, mentioned the fairground culture against NH Media already “a vibrant culture with a centuries-old history.” Loeff: „The fair is a meeting place for many people. Every year it is exciting who you will meet again this year and how that meeting arises.”
The history of the fair goes back to the Middle Ages. Cities organized trade fairs and churches celebrated their consecration with a Holy Mass (the church mass). Fairs arose from this: moments of relaxation for the inhabitants of town and village, where all kinds of products were for sale and artists showed their work. The fair thus became the place for quacks, doctors, inventors, artists and traders.
Hundreds of years later, fairground visitors mainly feast on cotton candy, rides on the merry-go-round, the Ferris wheel and bumper cars. Nevertheless, according to KIEN, the fair, the largest of which can be found every year in Tilburg, kept changing but “not in character”.