Hashtag Sannicola – Hashtag Saint Nicholas
The wait, the curiosity, the preparation. And then also devotion, folklore and selfies with the saint.
Every year, the celebrations for Bari’s patron Saint Nicholas, one of Christianity’s most beloved saints, attract thousands of people to the capital of Puglia. During those four days, huge crowds pour into the streets of the city center: the procession winds its way through the main streets of the city, the air is saturated with the scent of octopus sandwiches, roasted along the boardwalks, the nights lights up with fireworks that reflect onto the sea at the end of the evening and flashes from thousands of cell phones, ready to capture every moment of the festivity and to transform an event into a social-media happening that counts up to 90,000 hashtags on Instagram. The event is a complex union between sacred and prophane requiring a huge expenditure for a show which includes aerial dance, aquatic dance, video mapping and 500 participants, horses and riders.