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Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest is the world's largest Volksfest. It combines a beer festival with a fun fair and is held annually in Munich on the Theresienwiese from mid-September to the first Sunday in October.

Burning Man

Burning Man is a week-long large-scale desert event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance" held annually in the Western United States. The event's name comes from its ceremony on the second to last night of the event: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred to as the Man, the Saturday evening before Labor Day. Since 1990, the event has been at Black Rock City in northwestern Nevada, a temporary city erected in the Black Rock Desert about 100 miles (160 km) north-northeast of Reno. According to Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey in 2004, the event is guided by ten stated principles: radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy.

Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year marks the beginning of a new year according to lunar calendars or, informally but commonly, to lunisolar calendars. Because a year of twelve lunar months is about 11 days shorter than a solar year, lunar cycle-based calendars may have strategies to take this fact into account. Pure lunar calendars have twelve lunar months invariantly and consequently their New Year is not fixed relative to the solar year; no adjustments are made. In contrast, most lunisolar calendars also have twelve lunar months, but every few years, a thirteenth "leap month" is added to resynchronise with the solar year. Consequently, neither type of calendar begins on a fixed date in the international Gregorian calendar.

Day of the Dead

The Day of the Dead is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. The multi-day holiday involves family and friends gathering to pay respects and remember friends and family members who have died. The celebrations can take a humorous tone, as celebrants remember amusing events and anecdotes about the departed. The festival is widely observed in Mexico and among people of Mexican heritage in other parts of the world. It falls during the Christian period of Allhallowtide. Some argue that there are Indigenous Mexican or ancient Aztec influences that account for the custom, though others see it as a local expression of the Allhallowtide season that was brought to the region by the Spanish; the Day of the Dead has become a way to remember those forebears of Mexican culture.

Rio Carnival

The Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is a festival held every year before Lent; it is considered the biggest celebration of Carnival in the world, with two million people per day on the streets. The first Carnival festival in Rio occurred in 1723.

Carnival

Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. Carnival typically involves public celebrations, including events such as parades, public street parties and other entertainments, combining some elements of a circus. Elaborate costumes and masks allow people to set aside their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity. Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol, meat, and other foods that will be forgone during upcoming Lent.

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