Tangomarkkinat

The Tangomarkkinat is the world's oldest tango festival. It is held early every July in Seinäjoki, Finland. As well as competitions to find the country's best tango singers, composers, and dancers, the festival features public dancing to live music provided by the best Finnish entertainers. Music for public dancing is not restricted to tango: it includes all the dance rhythms popular in Finland: but tango content must, according to the rules, be at least 40%.

The festival had its origins in a Finnish sauna. Lasse Lintala, the director of the Ilmajoki Music Festival and his wife were in the sauna with the director of the MTV3 TV channel Tauno Äijälä and his wife Katja. Lintala was hoping to get the festival on TV. Äijälä suggested incorporating tango into the festival and perhaps a musical based on tango singer Olavi Virta. The idea was developed for a couple of years, but Ilmajoki was not interested. Lintala travelled to Helsinki to tell Äijälä the bad news. On the train he got into conversation with Matti Nuolivirta, the Mayor of Seinäjoki, and his deputy Risto Hakala who were keen for the festival to be held in Seinäjoki.

Seinäjoki city council approved the venture, and in January 1985 the Tango Music Advancement Association was established. Backers were Seinäjoki city council, Seinäjoki's Maila-Jussit pesäpallo team, and the Marit and Mikot choir.

About 18,000 people took part in the first Tangomarkkinat in July 1985, and over 1½ million people watched the TV broadcast. Seinäjoki city invested 60,000 marks. For the first three years of its existence the Tangomarkkinat was plagued by bad weather, and in 1988 it made a loss of 100,000 marks, exacerbated by the lack of success of the Olavi Virta musical, which premiered that year. In 1989 a combination of excellent weather and the immensely popular new Tango Queen Arja Koriseva put the event back in the black. The most successful year was 1999, when attendance was a record 130,600 and the profit was 805,000 marks. President Tarja Halonen attended the 20th Tangomarkkinat in 2004, when 34 past and present Tango Royals were gathered together for a special radio concert.

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Wikipedia