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Two big annual events draw the crowds to the Marrakech region: the big Gnaoua and world music festival in Essaouira (early June) and the film festival in the Red City (late September). At the Gnaoua event surf groupies and post-hippies get together with ethno-beat enthusiasts and local gentry. Concerts are open-air, the historic ramparts of Essaouira making a fitting backdrop. Marrakech’s big cinema-fest, the FIFM, is a ritzier occasion altogether. Stars and starlets, royalty and rogues rub shoulders with the big cinema names from the South. Alongside the round-tables for cinéastes, open-air screenings of Bollywood film draw the crowds to Jemaâ el Fna. Marrakech also has a big July folklore festival, traditionally a showcase for Morocco’s huge range of traditional music and dance. If new festival management has its way, this event will take on an ethnic character, bringing it in line with the Essaouira Gnaoua bash. More discreetly, Essaouira also has a spring chamber music do. Finally, long-established traditional festivals or moussems, generally in late summer, are worth catching, especially as the tradition seems to be disappearing. Movable Festivale
The population of Morocco is over 99% Muslim and the major Muslim festivals are public holidays. However, as the Muslim calendar follows the lunar cycle, the Muslim or Hegira year is 11 days shorter than the standard international year. Therefore religious holidays are constantly on the move, coming forward by 11 days each year. Main holidays are as follows, with projected dates in brackets (NB The Christian year 2004 corresponds to 1424-1425 in the Hegira calendar).
Dates of main Muslim festivals in 2004 Ras el Am (Muslim New Year) 10 February. Aïd el Mouloud (The Prophet Mohammed’s birthday) 3 May. Start of Ramadan 16 October, annual month of fasting, gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘break-fast’. No food, no drinking of any kind, no smoking and no love-making during daylight hours. Beware drivers speeding blindly towards their iftar meals as sundown approaches. The whole country turns slightly manic. Aïd el Fitr 14 November. End of Ramadan, marked by family visiting. Aïd el Kebir or Aïd el Adha 1 February, two lunar months after the end of Ramadan. Families sacrifice a sheep or goat, commemorating how Allah sent Ibrahim a lamb so he didn’t have to sacrifice his son. NB Dates are approximate, the final decision depending on sightings of the waning moon.
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