Fasnacht – Swiss carnival traditions

Switzerland – February / March

In Switzerland, you will find two types of people. The first kind loves carnival and celebrates it as the fifth season of the year. The second kind despises everything to do with the carnival and makes sure to escape to the mountains for skiing during this time of the year. My family belongs to the first group of Swiss people and I have been attending “Fasnacht” ever since I was a toddler. But let’s start at the beginning.

Carnival, or “Fasnacht” as we call it here, usually takes place in February or March. The exact date depends on when Easter is celebrated. Legends say that it started as a tradition to send away winter with a lot of scary masks and loud music. Later it became an excuse to indulge one last time before the 40-day-fast leading up to Easter, which starts on Ash Wednesday. And nowadays it’s a huge festival on the streets of different Swiss cities which is deeply embedded in our culture.

Now within the spectrum of carnival aficionados, there are several subgroups. First, they are divided geographically. Every big carnival city has its own traditions and program during the days of festivities. The biggest and most popular of which are taking place in Basel and Lucerne. I myself am from Lucerne and therefore will talk about how we celebrate it here. The other division of carnival-goers is made by if they dress up or not, if they participate in music groups, build a float or just looking for an excuse to day-drink during the week and get completely wasted by 6 pm.

I had my first carnival experiences with my family and my parents’ friends. We used to meet up during summer for a barbeque and pick a theme for next year’s carnival. These could be political, completely made up or represent actual people. In autumn my dad and the other guys would start with the built of the float and my mum and the ladies would get to sewing the costumes for everyone. Every Saturday we’d meet up in the garage of my dad’s workplace and spend the day cutting wood and fabric, sewing, hammering and glueing. My brother, sister and I were the only kids in the group and were in charge of fun distractions and setting up lunch. I LOVED it!

As I grew older and became a teenager, the focus shifted to partying and questionable costumes. My friends and I started to go to the pre-carnival parties in the suburbs and the countryside. It’s basically like any other party, but everyone is wearing costumes and from time to time the DJ has to leave the stage to the local carnival band. During the actual carnival days in Lucerne, we would be drinking and dancing at the riverside, with all the other 15- to 21-year-olds – missing out on the colourful parades due to hangovers.

At 18 I was finally old enough to participate in my village’s carnival band. I bought a cheap trumpet, printed out the sheet music and went to practice once a week from late September to when the carnival would take place. I now got to attend the pre-carnival parties as a musician and struggled with playing the songs from memory. Again, we’d pick a theme in summer for the coming carnival and I now sew my costume myself. Usually, I finished it around 2 days before the carnival started. Participating in a band is by far the most exhausting way to experience carnival.

We organize our village’s carnival festivities with a parade in the afternoon and a big party in the evening. It’s a weekend with little sleep and lots of walking. During the Lucerne carnival, the program is very strict. Starting on Thursday at 4 am almost continuously until Ash Wednesday at 4 am, you are playing somewhere, waiting to play somewhere, drinking, or looking for a place to pee.

Nevertheless, whenever I can’t attend a carnival in Switzerland because I am abroad, I look for a similar tradition wherever I am. In March 2019 I was in Perú for example. We witnessed carnival preparations in an amazon village and in Cusco. Even within the country, the festivities varied a lot – but both were lots of fun.

Now that you have some background knowledge about the Swiss carnival “Fasnacht”, check out this post with my personal recommendations if you visit Lucerne during that time of the year!