Lilac Festival

Lilac Festival is the name of various festivals which celebrate the Lilac (Syringa).

Canada

United States

Lilac Festival (Calgary)

Lilac festival is an annual street festival held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It started as a small neighborhood celebration in 1989 by the Cliff Bungalow /Mission Community Association and the 4th Street Business Revitalization Zone and has grown to entertain over 80,000 people on the last Sunday in May. The lilac (Syringa) flowers are often blooming throughout the area at this time.

The festival takes place along the 13 blocks of 4th Street (between 13th Avenue South and Elbow Drive) in the Beltline and Mission neighborhoods. It lasts for one day and features entertainment stages with street dancing, as well as craft, food, entertainment, electronics, and other business stalls stalls.

Lilac festival has been voted Calgary's best free festival in 2006. In 2005 it had an estimated 120,000 attendance.

"The Lilac Festival" in Calgary's Mission district

"The Lilac Festival" in Calgary's Mission district

Belly Dancer

Lilac Festival (Mackinac Island)

The Lilac Festival is a ten-day annual festival held in honor of the common lilac at Mackinac Island in the U.S. state of Michigan. The festival, which has been held since 1949, begins on the second Friday of June and concludes, on the third Sunday of June, with the horse-drawn Lilac Parade.

History

Americans began widespread planting of the common lilac during the Victorian Age, and Mackinac Islanders soon found that the island's microclimate makes it a healthy location for the common lilac to grow to a larger size and longer life than in most gardens of the United States. Some Mackinac Island lilac trees are original Victorian plantings, dated at more than 150 years old.

Today

The festival is timed to try to coincide with the week that Mackinac Island lilacs are in bloom, and bunches of white and purple lilac flowerets are used by organizers as the visual symbol of the festival.

As no private motor vehicles are allowed on Mackinac Island, the floats of the Lilac Parade are all drawn by draft horses such as Clydesdales and Percherons. The festival procession is one of the few remaining horse-drawn parades in the United States.