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 The Notthing Hill Carnival |
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London hosts a lot of colorful festivals, fairs and carnivals throughout the year. The most famous among this is the Notting Hill Carnival , the world's second largest carnival and the largest street festival in the world. The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual event which takes place in Notting Hill, London , England each August, over three days. The carnival attracts almost 1 million people. It has a distinctly Afro-Caribbean flavor, led by members of the Caribbean population, many of whom have lived in the area since the 1950s.
The Carnival originated as a response to the depressing state of race relations at the time. It began in January 1959 in St. Pancras Town Hall, after UK's first widespread racial attacks had occurred the previous year. From being successful indoors, it first moved outside and shifted into August in 1965. By 1976 the event had become definitely Caribbean and attracting around 150,000 people attending.
For a period of time however, the carnival was marred by riots primarily by Caribbean youths with a considerable coverage of the disorder in the press. Since then, there had always been the controversy over the public safety aspects of holding such a well-attended event in the narrow streets of London .
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Carnival starts on Saturday with the Panorama, a competition between steelpan bands mainly from London . Sunday is Children's Day, with a shorter Carnival route for children, while main parade then takes place on Monday. The current route for the main parade covers around 3 miles, following Great Western Road, Chepstow Road, Westbourne Grove and Ladbroke Grove.
The highlights of this celebration include a competition between London 's steelpan bands and a 3 mile street parade with dancing and music. During the parade, there are trucks with pan bands or mobile sound systems. There are also costumed masqueraders and around 40 static sound systems spread throughout the area playing a range of music at high volume to celebrate different music styles.
A Steelpan is also known as pan or steel drum. Sometimes, the term collectively refers to the musicians as a steelband. The Steelpan is a musical instrument and a form of music originating in Trinidad in the West Indies. It is a pitched percussion instrument, tuned chromatically.
One of the oldest steelband in the world is The Neal & Massy Trinidad All-Stars which began in 1935. Steelbands in the early years used to be looked down upon by the upper class society and the panplayers were seen as undesireables. This view has completely reversed to the point where there are many more church steelbands than conventional bands
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