Scandinavian Festival in Ephraim: 50 Ways to Intensify the Scandinavian Vibe








Here's A.J. and a random viking that we met at Scandinavian Heritage Festival.  Even though we had a blast, we have to admit that the festival was 95% non-authentic-Scandinavian.  Sad.  So... here's an unsolicited list of 50+ ways that next year's event could be SO MUCH better.



50+ Ideas For Making Ephraim's Scandinavian Days More Scandinavian




Invite Real Laplanders



Paint some houses red and white



Sell some manly Scandinavian stuff

Have an Abba tribute band and a family dance.

Abba- Bjorn Again!

Family dance-- all ages welcome!



The whole community dances together around the midsommar-stang




     

1.   Have a committee of REAL scandinavians who speak the language(s) and are enthusiastic about the cultures. 



        

Have rich cultural images everywhere.







Show Scandinavian Films outdoors or indoors, all night long.









2.       Have a food sampling  --like a marzipan, leverpastej, bulla
lutfisk or chocolate sampling, possibly aboard a viking ship
 or viking home replica.



      




--Or... make it a pancake-eating

  


contest. 

   Serve only Scandinavian treats;

 

for example, Ikea might supply

  


pickled herring, pink caviar in a toothpaste tube, Swedish hard bread, juices of elderberry, lingonberry, or

cloudberry---

Fladersaft - Elderberry juice

Lingonberries



Saft





Hjortron (cloudberries)



Danish Cheese

   


 

     

                                            --and sweets!




     Next, host a crayfish fest... with dill, crayfish & lanterns!

Before you can hang up the crayfish party lights, you need to catch the crayfish.

 

Crayfishing is easy, fun and cheap.

If you just use a piece of string and a piece of raw chicken, you can get the crayfish to clamp on to your lure by the edge of a cold, rocky lake.

      Then, have a troll hunting game.







      



(You can do this in the forest, in a corn maze, a field, or indoors)


 


Have lots of real trolls dressed up, haunting people, or waiting to be found.





  

After the troll hunting, try some viking games:


Viking He-Man contests



Viking He-Man Contest Ideas





      Have some viking He-man contests:  throw logs,




  




capture people and throw them over your shoulder and run across a field; eat a chicken barehanded without silverware. 

Viking he-man eating contest

He-man viking contest:  down a tube of caviar in one gulp

OR...

Real royalty invited to participate by Skype or in person

 Invite real princesses, princes, relatives, RM's, or other royalty to come and have a fundraiser for their favorite charities, or to participate by Skype or video recording.

Real Scandinavians Performing

Real Scandinavian Emcees

  



  Have real Scandinavians emcee events, so we can hear their accents and stories.

Have clog-wearing historians tell about the Scandinavian settlers of Sanpete county.



Scandinavian genealogy committee

                            Have a Scandinavian genealogy booth.

Have a live musician or two wandering, playing Scandinavian folk music.

 

Because who can resist Mumin?

And then there are the Moomintrolls from Finland

     

Have a Mumintroll Booth

 

Have Scandinavian flags waving everywhere.

Have the storytelling contest be troll, viking, or Astrid-Lindgren themed.
  Play ONLY Scandinavian music!  Rock, folk, classical, kids', jazz-- but make it only Scandinavian.

  Have a dalahast painting booth for kids.  Supply wooden horses

 
and paint; let the kids go crazy on it.

18.   Have a dalahast painting booth for adults.

Have prizes for the dalahast that shows great beauty, creativity, historically accurate design, or is







funny.

      

People could also paint wooden flags, or other Scandinavian


 traditional items.






   Have a pepparkaks-breaking booth.  Break it into three and you make 3 wishes. 

 

  Have a large screen with Skype directly connecting Ephraim to cities     in Scandinavia so people can make new friends. 

Scandinavian images should be everywhere!

Encourage foreign exchange student sign ups

Read Scandinavian Folklore

  Encourage foreign exchange-student sign ups.  

 


  Invite Scandinavian airlines, embassies, businesses and tourist companies to Ephraim.

 

   Have Scandinavian folk dancing lessons and shows.

  Accept Euros and old Kronor and ore, as well as dollars
and cents.

 Have postcards and stamps for sale, so people can send off a letter to a new Scandinavian pen pal




ot.

 Have a service project to benefit a Scandinavian charity

  Have a polkagris-making booth, and let people pull their own peppermint candy


        

Have a game show:  Lutefisk Survivor or Scandinavian Idol

   Have a trivia contest:  who's the current soccer hero in Denmark?    What's a famous sandwich from Sweden?

Liverwurst and pickle on Swedish bread - traditional meal

   Offer Scandinavian chocolates,


  



hard breads,   herrings,  


 

caviars,         liverwursts,






Algkorv - Moose sausage

 smoked reindeer and moose meat, 

Reindeer meat

                     cheeses,  





 drinks,
      T-shirts,

    


flags,           

postcards, etc.

-- I honestly didn't even see a bag of Swedish fish for sale in Ephraim this year!

  And by royal decree, allow a maximum of 5% of the art and food booths to sell non-Scandinavian themed items, not the other way
around.

 Reward visitors and sellers who are dressed up



in traditional folk costumes    

of Scandinavia, or who dress up as vikings, trolls, Scandinavian flags, or who at least look like they tried



 

to dress in the spirit of Scandinavian Days.

 Give them prizes,   or free passes to the Viking Feast or to the Smorgasbord.

 Invite LDS returned missionaries to man a food or decorative booth from Iceland, Norway, Finland....  


Barn Leker!

   Have play-in-scenes, with kid-sized red-and-white painted cottages, Scandinavian story characters for children to play with.

  And a petting zoo next door to the kids' red cottages.  Trolls can hand out feed.  A few goats can be wearing viking helmets.

   Have a karaoke contest, with all Finnish lyrics.  Hilarious for anyone.

   Have some competitive Scandinavian contests:  tug of war,



discus throwing, etc., with teams of Swedes vs. Norwegians, for example. 


Make them wear the T-shirt of the team they want to represent.


And please remember...

 
  We must have Bulla with pearl-sugar for sale on every corner.  Sell waffles with fruit and cream on every corner.

   Have a midsommar-stang!!!! (I should have put this very first. This is a midsummer pole, decorated with wildflowers). 

Teach people how to hold hands and dance around it, while the fiddle and/or accordion player plays the traditional tunes.

Have a sitting sing-along for those who can't stand and dance around the midsummer pole.  This is a traditional summer activity in Sweden.  Pass our phonetically-written songbooks in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Finnish--- and let people take turns with the microphone.  Great fun!

  Have an Abba lookalike contest. Of course!  

   Read aloud or watch Astrid Lindgren and Moomintroll books and movies (Pippi Longstocking, Ronja Rovardotter, Karlsson pa Taket, etc.)

  Have a showing of Kristina fran Duvemala, the great Swedish Immigrant musical by Ulvaeus and Andersson.



Baby H. in his viking helmet

 Have a cute baby contest, with the babies/toddlers dressed up in Scandinavian themed costumes

   Have an arm-wrestling contest,


 

with the host dressed up like Pippi Longstocking, the world's strongest girl.

  Have an old pioneer cottage painted with a "Villa Villekulla" sign.  Have Pippi out on the porch, with her horse, Lilla Gubben, and her monkey, Herr Nilsson.


. 
Give out gingerbread cookies



(pepparkakor)  or bulla to visitors, at Villa Villekulla.  

Everyone should be in some kind of Scandinavian costume

 Outlaw fried twinkies, fried oreos, fried coke, Texas twisters,  Peruvian hats, Himalayan dresses -- or at least

 make them a small, small part of the festival.

 Have  a Scandinavian-languages game show 

-  i.e., Scandinavian Idol, Troll Charades, Viking Win, Lose, or
 Draw...

Smorgastarta (Sandwich Cake)

 
  Name everything with Scandinavian names.  Even the pioneer exhibits can be labeled "Danish Pioneer Weaving," "Norwegian Pilgrim Happy Cooking Hour", "Finnish Pioneers' Guns" or "Swedish Pioneer Smorgastarta Stomp".


       


Have a playwriting competition with the winning play being performed by an acting troupe.  Possible play themes:  Utah Scandinavian Pioneers, Vikings, Trolls, Mumintrolls, Astrid Lindgren stories, Scandinavian historic heroes, etc.



 

  Have tons of stuff for kids:  a lingonberry necklace stringing booth,  a flags-and-vikings-face-painting booth...

  ... barkboat making, lilypad art, wood troll whittling,  Scandinavian flag decorating, and painting    


        for kids.

Offer Scandinavian books, clothes, toys and art.







The possibilities are as endless as a Scandinavian summer sky.





Does anybody else have some great ideas to bring a Scandinavian event to life??