The profession of 'laying out chairs to collect money' during festivals.

Nghe An province hosts dozens of major festivals each year, mainly in the spring, featuring numerous cultural activities, sports competitions, and folk games that are lively and attractive, drawing tens of thousands of participants. Services related to these festivals, such as food stalls, clothing stores, toy shops, and games with prizes, also flourish, including the rental of seats for viewing the festivities.

Volleyball tournaments always attract viewers at traditional festivals. Photo: Huy Thu

Going back and forth with the festival

According to those in the industry, when traditional festivals are revived and combined with sports competitions, especially men's and women's volleyball tournaments, beauty contests, and elegant youth competitions, they attract a huge number of spectators, leading to a high demand for seating and giving rise to a service for renting seats to watch the festivals.

Initially, only a few local people from the areas surrounding the festivals, such as the Cuong Temple Festival (Dien Chau), the Duc Hoang Temple Festival, and the Gam Temple Festival (Yen Thanh), took up this profession to supplement their income during their leisure time. They mainly moved the plastic and wooden chairs they already had at home to place around the sports field for spectators.

Later, seeing the business was profitable, many people bought more plastic and stainless steel chairs to rent out professionally. Families in this business acquired from 100 to 250 or 300 chairs and took them to festivals throughout the province, from the lowlands to the mountainous areas, to rent them out. The number of people providing this service in Yen Thanh and Dien Chau districts is increasing. Currently, festivals often feature both people professionally renting out chairs and people near historical sites who bring chairs along to "take advantage" of the opportunity.

Locals spread out chairs for rent around the sports arenas at the Cuong Temple Festival 2023. Photo: Huy Thu

Ms. Dinh Thi Hoa (52 years old), from Phuc Thanh commune (Yen Thanh district), who was present at the Cuong Temple Festival in Dien An commune (Dien Chau district), said that she brought 100 plastic chairs to Cuong Temple for visitors to rent. According to Ms. Hoa, to secure a spot to place chairs around the sports fields, those who want chairs must arrive early, before the festival officially begins. More accurately, when the sports tournaments start, even if no one has rented them yet, the chair owners have to spread out the chairs to reserve their spots.

At the 2023 Cuong Temple Festival, dozens of people were renting out chairs on the four sports fields, mostly women, with some families having both husband and wife working in this profession. They came from many districts, with more than two-thirds of those renting chairs coming from Yen Thanh district.

The chairs are inscribed with names or symbols to identify the owner. Photo: Huy Thu

According to Ms. Hoa, the Cuong Temple Festival takes place at the same time as the Gam Temple Festival, but this year, because it's in a rice-growing area, the organizers limited the number of chairs brought into the grounds. Therefore, people providing this service concentrated at Cuong Temple. From early morning, plastic and stainless steel chairs were densely spread around the sports fields near Cuong Temple.

The chair rental vendors here follow a "first come, first served" principle. The owners manage their seating by arranging chairs in designated areas. Each chair is labeled with a name or symbol. In addition to the chairs already laid out on the field, the owners often set up stacks of spare chairs around the field.

Each resident or group of people engaged in a particular trade usually places chairs in a designated area for easier supervision and management. Photo: Huy Thu

According to locals, during volleyball semi-finals and finals, the audience is large, and all the seats in the stadium are usually rented out. Sometimes there aren't enough seats available, especially at festivals, where spectators stack chairs on top of each other and bring in various items to create more standing space. Those who use the chairs to sit or stand have to pay the chair owners. The owners usually collect the money when handing over the chairs. "If we only collect the money after the match is over, we won't be able to get it," said Mrs. Hoa. Some chair owners also offer additional services such as selling drinks and milk.

Tran Van Hoa (19 years old), from Dien My commune (Dien Chau district), who went to cheer for his local volleyball team at the Cuong Temple Festival, shared: "Watching volleyball only costs 10,000 VND for a seat all day, so I don't have to stand and get tired, it's very convenient."

After sporting events end, people who rent out chairs often sit around the stadium watching over the chairs. Photo: Huy Thu

The hard work and toil of the "chair laying" job.

Throughout the sporting events, chair owners have to carry, exchange, and arrange chairs, and collect money. This year, at the Cuong Temple Festival, the organizers did not allow chairs to be stacked on top of each other to avoid accidents, so people standing on the outer perimeter did not rent additional chairs, leaving a large surplus compared to previous years. Those in the business say that bringing such a large number of chairs to the festival sometimes causes sleepless nights, hoping for many people to rent them. Renting chairs at night for the opening ceremony, the folk art performance, and the youth beauty contest is the most complicated, sometimes resulting in not only failing to collect money but also losing chairs.

“The locals who live near the historical site bring the chairs to the stadium for the competition, and then go home for lunch and dinner. But we, who come from far away, are quite exhausted. We eat hastily during the day, spend our lunches guarding the chairs, afraid they might be stolen, and at night we put the chairs back to sleep or sleep on tarpaulins with street vendors,” Mrs. Hoa shared.

Locals from Yen Thanh district who rent out chairs take a nap on their carts and on the walls at the Cuong Temple Festival. Photo: Huy Thu

To transport hundreds of chairs over distances of tens or even hundreds of kilometers, they stack the chairs together, tie them into long ropes, and load them onto motorbikes. According to the locals, if they hired a truck to transport the chairs to the festival, they didn't know if they would be able to rent them out, and the cost of sawing the chairs might even be higher than the cost of the wood.

Mr. Nguyen Van Duong, originally from Yen Thanh district, who rents out chairs at Cuong Temple, said his family has been in this business for nearly ten years. He and his wife bought and transported over a hundred plastic chairs to various festivals throughout the province for rent. In recent days, after leaving Bach Ma Temple in Thanh Chuong district, he and his wife returned to the Lang Vac Historical Site (Thai Hoa town). Immediately after the festival ended, they transported the chairs all night, arriving in Phuc Thanh commune at midnight.

A group of people sitting on chairs watching sports competitions at the Duc Hoang Temple Festival (Yen Thanh). Photo: Huy Thu

Mr. Duong said that volleyball tournaments at festivals always attract large crowds, and at some festivals, local people don't have enough chairs to rent out. Inside the arena, spectators sit on chairs. Outside, spectators stack two or even three chairs on top of each other. Besides plastic, stainless steel, and folding chairs, people from various localities also bring scaffolding, ox carts, tractors, and cars to the festival to rent out as "standing platforms." At the Duc Hoang Temple Festival in Phuc Thanh commune (Yen Thanh district), there are countless ways to stand while watching the festival, and all types of chairs for rent are in high demand.

Depending on the location of the chairs, the rental price fluctuates around 10,000 VND. At some festivals, the organizers control the rental price, preventing chair owners from charging as much as they want. During festivals and sports tournaments, which usually last 3-4 days, this also provides a significant source of income for those working in this profession. Mr. Nguyen Van Duc from Dien An commune (Dien Chau district) shared: "If the festival is crowded, with hundreds of chairs, each competition session can earn us millions of VND."

Locals bring materials to the festival to create makeshift platforms for rent. Photo: Huy Thu

The job of "spreading chairs for money" is attractive to many during festival seasons. They travel from place to place serving festival-goers, regardless of the difficulties and hardships. Recently, localities have intensified efforts to regulate festival activities to ensure the safety of festival-goers, especially with regulations prohibiting stacking chairs and bringing scaffolding into the festival grounds. This has forced those who work as "chair spreaders" to change their mindset and methods.