Five reasons to go to the Cologne Carnival
The Live Event lockdown has been tough for all us. But we take seriously our obligation to remind people how great the world is out there, specifically that magical biochemistry that happens within all of us when we meet and celebrate at Live Events.
So as the lockdown begins to ease, we’re launching a regular series, that we’re calling Welcome to the Fightback: We introduce to you events that are we are live-selling on the DAIMANI platform.
Of course, the marquee events may need little introduction, but we also want to take you on a journey to those events that are huge in one part of the DAIMANI universe but which you may never even have heard of.
Lachende Köln Arena
[which translates to Laughing Cologne Arena]
Where: The LANXESS Arena in Cologne
For more information on the beautiful metropolitan city of Cologne on the banks of the Rhine, please do visit their official tourism website.
Date: January 16 2021
How to buy: Click-and-buy on DAIMANI.
Why: In one very simple sentence: What’s not to love about an official VIP Hospitality programme whose whole purpose is to celebrate Eating and Drinking, and Indulging in the Pleasures of the Flesh, but is also blessed by the Church because what comes next is the Lenten Festival. So before the fast, why not purge your body through partying?
What makes the VIP Hospitality special: Enjoy typical traditional Cologne food and the city's favoured Kölsch beer. For the food why not try Himmel un Äd, translated as Sky and Earth, which you and I would know as mashed potatoes with piece of apple and half of a rooster.
Five specific reasons:
1. Be Part of History
The timing of the Cologne Carnival [of which Lachende Köln Arena is but one event] is not a coincidence. You will be joining in a party of sublime excess that stretches back to the medieval ages and is deeply woven into the history of the Rhine cities. The celebration takes place six weeks before Easter, in other words just before the period of fasting or Lent begins. In fact, the original name still used in parts of the German-speaking world, ‘Fastnacht’ (night before the fast), pays tribute to these early Christian origins. Equally the word ‘Carnival’ derives from the Latin for ‘flesh’.
2. Blessed by the Church
The Catholic Church turns a knowing, blind eye to the exuberant and boisterous behaviour you can expect at the Cologne Carnival and Lachende Köln Arena, regarding it as a comprise in exchange for the piety expected in those long Lent weeks prior to Easter. Carnivals are mostly celebrated in the Catholic regions of Germany: along the river Rhine in cities like Mainz, Cologne and Düsseldorf.
3. Clowns as Kings and Queens
Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect – for an outsider unused to the Carnival concept – is that the normal order of things is reversed. Not only is drinking and partying acceptable, the figure of the fool or clown is the most respected person, and the nobility is openly satirized [which has to be a good thing]. Everyone who attends is therefore a ‘Fool’ or ‘Jecken’. The focus of the Carnival are a triumvirate of pantomime characters called the Prince, the Peasant and Maiden who make more than 400 appearances at various Carnival events during the six-day celebration.
4. Expect to see a lot of Masks
Similar to the Venetian masquerades, people on the streets hid their real identity behind masks and costumes, some elegant, others witty. For just a few days each year everyone lives the topsy-turvy world of Carnival, and then normality returns.
5. It’s always good to make fun of the Prussians.
The Carnival concept developed into its current form in the early 19th Century, when Prussia governed the regions along the Rhine. Voltaire once observed that, ‘Where some states have an army, the Prussian Army has a state.’ So it was only natural for those in the region to dress up as Prussian soldiers as a form of protest and to mock their Prussian rulers. Today you see this in the Carnival ‘regiments’ which have military banners, complete with marching bands and powdered wigs.