The trend of festival commercialization

(Baonghean) -In Nghe An, there are 25 provincial and national level festivals every year, taking place from Lunar New Year to the 10th lunar month, mainly from the 1st to the 2nd lunar month. Along with the rituals, cultural and community sports activities in the festival are quite rich economic and commercial activities. From an economic perspective, the current festival has many shortcomings that need to be rectified.

Cockfighting at the Mai King Temple Festival in 2014. Illustrative photo

Like previous years, the Hang Bua Festival (Quy Chau) in 2014 has many booths selling various products. Besides the products of local craft villages or agricultural products of the people in the communes of Quy Chau and Que Phong such as brocade, rattan and bamboo products, silver bracelets, sticky rice, mushrooms, wild bamboo shoots, etc., there are many booths selling consumer goods such as clothes, jewelry, children's toys, etc. In which, the goods are mainly of unknown origin, without labels, of course without instructions for use or warranty.

Children's toys, jewelry... are mostly made in China. These stalls stretch hundreds of meters from the gate to the festival grounds. Behind the grounds are temporary food stalls that have just been set up, serving only for a few days of the festival, looking very shabby and unhygienic. Buyers and sellers are in a mess. Right in front of the festival grounds are numerous "fun and rewarding" games that attract a large number of young people to participate. A boy lost almost all his money after playing, his face was blank, but the game host continued to "encourage" him to continue playing. In fact, these are disguised gambling games in which the organizers take advantage of the curiosity, impulsiveness, love of fun and greed of a group of young people to make a profit. In addition, there are also some telecommunications companies that organize mobile sales booths with some forms of promotion, but the number of customers is not large.

At the Cuong Temple Festival (Dien Chau), there are also many disguised gambling activities, very chaotic trading, and soliciting visitors. At some other festivals, people organize their own parking lots and charge very high fees; some people openly sell fortune-telling books, palm reading, horoscope reading, pirated CDs and DVDs, in front of the festival security forces. At the Hoang Muoi Temple Festival (Hung Nguyen), every year superstitious activities such as palm reading, fortune telling, and prayer services are repeated.

Products displayed at festivals have local characteristics. However, because the festival participants are mainly local people, local products are not new to them; the main guests are guests from agencies and localities, and are actually regular customers, so the demand for products with local characteristics is not high. On the other hand, these items are also monotonous, the same every year, so they are not attractive. Therefore, these items are often sluggish, not bringing economic efficiency as well as efficiency in terms of promotion and communication.

Currently, there are no typical souvenirs of Nghe An province as well as localities to be sold at festivals with the following criteria: "Products are new, creative and imbued with Nghe An cultural identity, have clear uses, are convenient to use; are compact; are easy to disassemble, pack, and transport; have beautiful designs, and create sympathy with users". The cost of organizing festivals also costs the local budget a lot. After each festival, the Organizing Committee is very tired and spends a lot of money to solve the problem of waste.

Thus, in terms of economic efficiency, in organizing festivals, localities are "failing at home". The commercialization of festivals not only does not bring economic efficiency to localities as analyzed, but also distorts festivals, negatively affecting the nation's fine traditions.

It is necessary to strictly manage economic activities during the festival, prevent commercialization and organize economic and service activities scientifically, so that the festival takes place in accordance with its spirit.

Tran Quang Dai