As the summer street parties come to an end, Jumanah Younis compares Notting Hill Carnival with Brixton Splash, to see if bigger is necessarily better.
As Notting Hill Carnival and the long bank holiday weekend fade into a pleasant memory, the nation bids farewell to the intermittent sunny intervals otherwise known as summer. Wrapping up against the return of the cold and rain in full force, it’s a good time to reflect on the various festivals that have marked the season now passed. Notting Hill Carnival has become something of an institution; one of the few days when you can pretend you live somewhere with a more continental climate that allows you to drink outside. Established in 1964, Carnival has a deep-seated history in London and has gained increasing popularity over the years. In its busiest year, it attracted up to two million people. But is bigger necessarily better?
While residents complain that the streets of Notting Hill are too small to host such a popular event, revellers complain that the festival is becoming almost impossible to navigate because of the crowds. Stretching from Notting Hill Gate to Kensal Green, the festival can be near impossible to traverse, and a successful day depends largely on a prior knowledge of which entrance to arrive at and at what time. The parade weaves around the outskirts of a labyrinth of residential roads where over 35 sound systems are based, and with people spilling out of almost every surrounding street it can be a disorientating experience. Lose your friends and you’re condemned to at least an hour-long search and confusing phone calls (I learned this the hard way). In the end, you’ll discover that someone needed the toilet which meant everyone had to wait and slowed the whole party down by half an hour.
This year I miraculously manage to bump into a group of friends by chance while wandering lost and a little exasperated on Portobello Road. Knowing that carnival is billed to finish early this year and unwilling to spend more time traipsing, we plonk ourselves at the nearest sound system in a visible location to facilitate toilet-trips and avoid losing people. Monday is more successful. We arrive, pre-prepared drinks in hand, via the entrance nearest to our preferred sound system. Four hours of dancing, a bottle of rum and guava juice later, and carnival’s well and truly underway.
While ten years ago Notting Hill Carnival may have been defined by its uniqueness as a popular street party in Britain, recently a number of other similar one and two-day street festivals have sprung up, aiming to imitate the atmosphere of carnival on a smaller scale in other localities. Founded in 2006, Brixton Splash is considerably younger than Notting Hill Carnival, but aims at a similar celebration of cultural diversity. This year’s event, held on the 7th August, attracted twenty thousand people; a more than respectable number for a five year-old festival. It has avoided much media attention (aside from this year, unluckily preceding the riots), and feels markedly rooted in the community where it is held. There is no influx of tourists (although it attracts crowds from across London), there’s a spattering of famous DJs and plenty of good Caribbean food.
It’s much easier to find people, to move between sound systems, and to wander in and out of the area that's technically billed as the festival site. As a younger and much smaller festival than Carnival, the physical boundaries of the event are allowed to be less defined, the local community is more relaxed with the crowds and the atmosphere is altogether less stressful. Coming out of Brixton tube station for the festival, I don’t see any signs or any official acknowledgment that something is going on (aside from a line of police officers stood by the ticket machines…) Wandering onto the high street, I follow the thudding bass line down Coldharbour Lane and quickly find friends, a good DJ and some beers: straightforward. Even nicer is the aftermath; almost no one disperses once the music has ended; most people simply shifts to the nearest pub, patch of grass or pavement.
Does that mean Brixton Splash is the new Notting Hill Carnival? Well, I hope not. The two events offer a similar set-up, but very different environments; and what Brixton Splash lacks in glamour and notoriety makes up part of its appeal. For a big-impact, impressive street party, Notting Hill Carnival still leads by a long way. Ultimately, if you get hold of a map and some friends, Carnival can show you a great time. Headliners are famous DJs and performers, the parade is impressive and the collective impression of the crowds, music and food is memorable. But if you're looking for a less intense way to do a city day-festival, Brixton Splash is a bit grimier; more laid-back…and probably has a bit more street cred.
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