Holi Festival of Colours

Holi is a Hindu festival that takes place in Spring to celebrate harvests, the beauty of spring’s abundant colours and is a chance to say farewell to winter. Revellers come together in all-​white, and throw vibrant masses of coloured powder at each other in wild celebration. Clearly this is awesome, and inspired by the fun and frolics of the festival and following on from the success of an event in Germany last year, London got on board!
Holi One Colour Festival took place across two weekends at Battersea Power Station. From 3−10pm, at every hour on the hour, festival-​goers were to throw coloured powder in the air and dance the day away. The mess was enhanced with a pretty good DJ line up, with banging hits from home-​grown talent including Benga and MistaJam as well a multitude of European DJ’s providing some continental efficiency.
It was a fun day out, but unfortunately was quite pricey and I’m not really sure what the £30 ticket gave us apart from entry to the grounds. As with all events I’ve ever attended at Battersea Power Station, nothing is actually in the power station but on the ground outside, or in a marquee (think this is for safety or perhaps I’m just not a VIP). Everything had to be purchased, including the powder paint which I felt was a bit cheeky. Other colour-​themed events (like the colour run) at least provided the paint and other free bits and bobs.
All in all a really fun day, but a massive gimmick and money-​marking event for the organisers. Again lucky with the weather, as may not have been as fun in the cold/​rain. Perhaps the organisers should actually arrange for springtime so that it’s more in tune with the actual festival (otherwise it’s really like have
ing Christmas in July isn’t it?!)