The Militant's 2012 Lotus Festival Report!

This past weekend, The Militant, along with thousands of other Angelenos, enjoyed a weekend in wonderful Echo Park for one of Los Angeles' best outdoor Summer traditions - the Lotus Festival. The Militant has covered it year after year, and this year is no exception!

Though it was kind of humid the entire weekend, that didn't stop Angelenos from going to Echo Park and partaking in Asian/Pacific Islander culture for the weekend. There were wonderful music and dance acts that wowed the crowd the entire day.

As you can see below, a large number of people sat on the grass being entertained, while a row of clothing and crafts vendor tents stood between them and the northern edge of the lake, with the park's trademark lotus flowers in full bloom! Don't they look beautiful?

Unlike past years, The Militant made it a point to get to the festival early enough to catch one of the festival's most cherished traditions -- the Dragon Boat Races!

Here's an action shot of a couple of dragon boats skating across the water, their respective team members fiercely and passionately rowing away:

The Lotus Festival is pretty much the same every year, but the smiles on the diverse array of Angelenos' faces never gets old on The Militant. And to see an urban jewel such as Echo Park Lake shimmer under the summer sun, with tens of thousands of people encircling it, it's such a sight to behold. May we never see anything that strays from this sheer beauty.

The 2011 Low-Dose Festival In Echo Park

OMG! THE LOTUS PLANTS HAVE FINALLY RETURNED TO ECHO PARK LAKE!!!!

Pysch. :(

Los Angeles has many cultural festivals, but The Militant is particularly fond of The Lotus Festival, for several reasons. First of all, he's been going to it ever since he was a Lil' Mil, it symbolically marks the middle of the year and most of all, its attendees reflect the total diversity of all that is Los Angeles.
Recently, the ups-and-downs of the Festival almost seem to be a direct reflection of the City government's financial health.

And of course, The Militant Angeleno has been covering The Lotus Festival every single year.

So here we go with the 2011 edition...

Right after The Militant arrived in Echo Park on Saturday, the whole thing was summed up in two words: SCALED DOWN.

Hey, the bird vendor exhibit was really popular though.

Though no one's boycotting The Lotus Festival, like nearby Dodger Stadium, crowds were visibly smaller. Not as packed, and the Festival grounds were a lot more compact. Even the entertainment wasn't as loud as it usually is.

The food court was sorely lacking in variety. You had like eight Thai food stands, four Mexican food stands and one Korean BBQ stand (Guess where The Militant ate at...nothing against Thai or Mexican food, he loves them too, but give us some more choices, sheesh!), and that was it. Gone were those crazy USC students selling Okinawan dangos. The Vietnames banh mi was more like banh M.I.A. And likewise for anyone looking for Indian, Hawaiian, Filipino or Chinese food...you were out of luck this year.

The two most fun events of the Festival - The Saturday night fireworks display and the traditional Dragon Boat Race - were absent from the Festival for the second year in a row, for obvious budget reasons.

Even though the Festival is no longer exclusively run by the City's Department of Recreation and Parks, the Lotus Festival Inc. nonprofit that operates it now isn't exactly oozing with money either. The fireworks display, normally performed by a Rialto-based pyrotechnics company, costs over ten thousand dollars to produce.

The Dragon Boat Race, a benefit event raising scholarship money, run by participating local businesses, nonprofits and offices of elected officials, using privately-owned boats, is also a victim of the budget crisis. According to one operative, the City's Rec and Parks Department charges the boat race organizers $4,000 just to use the Echo Park lake's jetty, and an additional $2,000 to tranport the boats out of storage.

Sure the City needs some extra cash, but will $6,000 in revenue really make a difference in the $336 million budget deficit? And why all that money just to use the dang jetty, when the lake will be shut down on Tuesday for a 21-month rehab project anyway (more on this next week)?

Speaking of which, this will be the last Lotus Festival until at 2013 or 2014. The organizers have previously toyed with the idea of moving the Festival to either Lincoln Park or nearby MacArthur Park, but have decided it's best to just go into hiatus again and stay put.

Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. is your last chance to enjoy the Lotus Fest (and Echo Park Lake itself) for quite a while. This year, the featured culture is Thailand, and on Sunday only they will have a muay thai kickboxing ring set up in the park (According to another operative, it's not the same ring as the one at the Songkran Thai New Year festival). So get your kicks while they last.

Lotus Fest, The Militant will miss ya, but do come back strong.

LotusNotes 2010: A Frugal Fest Of Firsts

When the Militant first heard that the 2010 Lotus Festival was a go (first reported on this here blog back in March), he was excited to hear that one of his favorite City festivals made its return from its 2009 hiatus due to That City Budget Thing.

So the Militant hauled his ass down to Echo Park on Saturday and observed as such:

• This was the 32nd Lotus Festival to take place, although the inaugural festival took place in 1972, which means there were no festivals for six years (1978, 1979, 1986, 1987, 1988 and 2009) during that 38-year history.

• This was the second Lotus Festival where there was an total absence of the eponymous aquatic flora in Echo Park Lake (pictured above).

• This was the first Lotus Festival to be organized independently from the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, this time organized by the nonprofit LA Lotus Festival, Inc., based in nearby Historic Filipinotown.

• This was the first Lotus Fest in the Food Truck Era; The Lee's Philly truck was parked inside the food vendor plaza, while The Manila Machine Filipino truck was parked in the lake's vicinity.

• This was also the first Lotus Festival where it rained. You heard right. Rained. At about 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, the normally-hot, sunny Lotus Fest weather on that day was a cloud-covered, humid atmosphere, and drops of rain (no metaphor here, it's the drops-of-water-falling-from-the-sky kind) fell down for about 15 minutes. So let this go down in history: 2010 was The Year It Rained On The Lotus Festival.

Though the Festival was back, the looming shadow of That City Budget Thing was plainly visible everywhere. There were no Dragon Boat Races (a traditional aquatic competition held on the lake pitting City departments, offices of elected officials, nonprofit groups and local businesses against each other) and most unfortunate of all, there was no Saturday night fireworks display (So if you missed your July 4 pyrotechnics last weekend, you're S.O.L. this time around). Efforts by the Militant to confirm the fireworks yielded ambiguous answers, though it should have been obvious when he discovered that the Yoki Daiko taiko drum ensemble was not booked as the finale act on Saturday evening.

But despite the Lotus-Fest-On-A-Budget this year, it was a real Lotus Festival, the same one that celebrated Asian/Pacific Islander Cultures (this year, China was the featured culture) and not the surrogate Echo Park Community Festival, which, judging from its entertainment, was more of a celebration of the newly-established gentro culture in EP.

Still, none of that was able to stop the Militant from having a good time, hanging out with operatives, enjoying great music and dance performances and getting all freaked out when the rain came, all in the company of several thousand fellow Angelenos (though attendance was markedly down from 2008 - as evidenced by the very short food lines in the booths).

As you may or may not know, starting next year, Echo Park Lake will undergo a two- to four-year , $84 million renovation process, which will result in the draining of the lake (which was originally a natural lake, having been fed by a nearby underground spring) and closing of the park. The intention is to improve water quality, which will ultimately mean the re-planting of the lotus bed, once the largest outside of Asia.

But this also means next year's Lotus Festival may or may not still happen. According to LA Lotus Festival, Inc. organizers, they are currently looking into temporarily moving the 2011 (and later) Lotus Festival(s) to another location, such as Lincoln Park or nearby MacArthur Park.

Hmm...A Lotus Festival in The Real Eastside? Or Go Metro Rail To The Lotus Festival in Macarther Park? What would you prefer? Stay tuned, Angelenos!

Lotus Festival To Return In July

After a depressing one-year hiatus, the City of Los Angeles' Lotus Festival will be back again this year, returning to Echo Park Lake on the weekend of July 10-11.

The Militant learned of the festival's return thanks to an operative's tip after the said operative received paperwork from the festival organizers for entertainers to perform at the fest.

As it turns out, the paperwork comes not from the City's Recreation and Parks department, but from "L.A. Lotus Festival, Inc," an assumed non-profit entity with an address of 2001 W. Beverly Blvd in the Historic Filipinotown neighborhood. Apparently the organization of the festival is now off the hands of the City (which has more pressing matters these days), although the City does appear to remain involved in the Festival to a certain extent.

The website to the festival points to a dead link on the City's website, which may or may not change into a dedicated domain name in the near future.

As to the fate of the now-absent lotus flower bed -- once the largest lotus bed outside Asia -- it is still in question. Analysis of the lake pointed to a combination of contaminants and the end of the natural cycle of the lotus bed as the reason for its demise. A total renovation of Echo Park lake is proposed, which will involve draining the lake's water, and must be done before any lotus restoration takes place, but with the current state of the City's you-know-what, the timeline for the project remains in question.