If you visit Gozo during the summer,  you’ll inevitably stumble into the festa season.  The feasts are probably the most important celebrations for the island’s people as each village takes its turn to honour its patron saint with great acclaim and fanfare.  Nothing is left to chance, and here, we’ll delve into what goes behind the making of Gozo’s village feasts.

As the feast approaches, the village will undergo a metamorphic process, with the main streets and squares dressed up with adornments and decorations. The ground-mounted flagpoles with decorative and symbolic finials are among the first to appear.  These will eventually sprout a variety of banners, flags, and gonfalons, and some become a banner tree hosting a cluster of banners.  The larger banners are usually painted with imagery related to the feast or village patrons, and most are richly ornamented with golden fringes and tassels. Apart from flags, the team handling the flags will also be in charge of all street decor.   Known as Tal-Armar, this can loosely be translated into meaning those who decorate,  but interesting enough; it can also mean arming up, which is literally what the village does as it prepares to celebrate the feast colourfully and joyfully!

Along with the flags, garlands, and bunting, there are pedestals of various shapes and dimensions onto which statues will be mounted. These will be complemented with light festoons that are hung along or across the village streets. Some villages have gone the extra mile and created unique paraphernalia that add that extra oomph to the feast.  The village of Xewkija is renowned for the giant mechanical umbrella that is opened during the street marches to allow the revellers to dance in the shade!

While the vibrant visual atmosphere of the village feast is an essential signal of the village’s festivities, one cannot ignore the role that the village band has. There can be no feast without a band, and the band symbolises the village’s unity and pride. Most villages in Gozo have their band club where the members meet to practise and rehearse the distinctive band marches, some of which are typically associated with some feasts more than others. Every year, the band will acquire new marches to play while fondly sticking to the old favourites, like the familiar anthems (usually having a more joyous upbeat). Apart from these anthems, each village also has a more solemn anthem, usually sung in Italian, that is played and sung by the choir when the procession with the patron saint of the statue leaves the church.  The village band accompanies the procession of the patron saint, and other bands are invited to keep a lively atmosphere in the main village squares.

Gozo’s feasts are synonymous with impressive fireworks displays. This tradition goes back to the Knights of St. John, when cannon balls and musketry were fired to mark the feasts, but today’s fireworks enthusiasts have come a long way.   A fireworks spectacle marks the weekends with loud petards during the daytime and colourful splendour once the dark has set it.  Watch out for the new colourful daytime aerial charges often accompanied by star-like bursts.  Giggifogu, a derivation from giochi di fouco, or games of fire, is a typical ground fireworks display. Usually set up in the main village square, giggifogu involves spinning Catherine wheel compositions in geometric patterns mounted onto poles to create a fascinating spectacle for the mesmerised crowd. Often, this is skillfully synchronised to music, and some Gozitan villages even organise this event away from the village square in nearby fields where a bigger and more elaborate firework spectacle can be set up.  The magnificence of the nighttime fireworks commands the scene as the shells burst out into comets, rivers of glitter, palm fronds or bursts of chrysanthemums amid the crackle and noise.   This results from meticulous work hours by the pyrotechnics team, who, after working for months on the shells, spend the last days laying out the fireworks in the open fields, ready to be fired at just the right moment.

The festivities in the street are not just an act of serendipity! Cheering and revelry are organised by youth teams who ensure the crowd moving with the band is equipped with flags, balloons and other paraphrenia for the right sort of partying.  These youth teams play a crucial role in maintaining the festive spirit and ensuring the traditions are passed down to the younger generation. Supporters, old and young alike, wear festa gear consisting of T-shirts and even hats akin to sports gear but emblazoned with the popular festa imagery and slogans.    Many youths will also paint their faces with colourful stripes in the symbolic colours of the feast.   Dancing, chanting, and singing ensue all through the path that the march follows, and upon reaching particular locations, volleys of confetti and even fireworks are let off from rooftops.   Like a stream running through the streets, the revellers will follow the band, singing and dancing with marches and chanting slogans.  Dramatic audio-visual presentations marking the village’s history or the feast are nowadays a common way of ensuring that the collective memory is celebrated during the festa.

While the outside celebrations are handled mainly by the organisations and groups mentioned above, other teams will be responsible for preparing those facets direclty related to the church and the procession.   The festa season often means draping the church’s interior with fine damask, rich vestments, lectern scarves and precious laces, all of which radiate reverence. Additional ornamentation such as crystal and silver candelabra and candlesticks,  silver bible stands, gilded statues,  ornate altar frames and splendid monstrances are taken out of storage, dusted and polished to be used during the church services.   Relics and devotional items are placed on display.  Dressing up a church in all this finery and trimmings is not a day’s work, and many volunteers are dedicated to this task. Specialist florists will handle fresh flower arrangements adorning the church.     Besides all this, one has to factor in the aspects related to the procession and the statue of the saint.  Inside the church, the statue is displayed on a wooden pedestal often adorned with significant sculptures and lavish bouquets of ganutell flowers. These are artificial flowers created by twisting wire, thread and beads.  During the procession, the statue is carried by confraternity members in their typical dress, which includes a habit or tunic along with a cincture, white gloves and a mozzetta (short cape) with a colour and trim that reflects the patronage of the saint.  Altar boys take part in the procession carrying the processional cross, acolytes, the incense thurible and boat.  The saint’s relic will be handled by one of the clergy, who will be part of the procession wearing special capes.  This   procession is the most significant aspect of the feast.

The village feast is not a sporadic event but involves acute planning all year long.   Various groups and committees consisting solely of volunteers will work in the background.  As volunteers come together to prepare for and organise the feast, all the camaraderie culminates in the week of the feast with activities such as the traditional village dinner, the typical band concert in the main square, the novena and the triduum happening inside the church and the final three days of the feast where celebrations peak. The charged celebrations exalt the patron saint and the whole village, keeping the community alive and giving Gozo its authentic, vibrant summer identity.

Check out the full list of Gozo feasts here.