World Cultural Festival

The Art of Living Foundation documents the first edition of the festival as 2006 in Bangalore. However, the event received little media attention compared to the 2011 and 2016 editions respectively.

In July 2011, the festival was organized at Berlin Olympic Stadium. Attendance were estimated at 60,000.[3]

In 2016, the festival was held on the Yamuna floodplains in New Delhi from 11 to 13 March.[4] It was organised by Ravi Shankar to celebrate the Art of Living Foundation’s 35 years in service.[5] Attendance was estimated at around 3.5 million people in audience and 37,000 artists over 3 days.[6] The performances were held on a 100 feet tall by 1,200 feet wide stage with an area of seven acres.[7] Around 1,700 officials were deployed for traffic management, during the festival, and around 300 were on standby for the other events (specifically marriages) to be held during the festival.[8]

Argentinean Performers on the World Cultural Festival's stage.

In 2016, the festival was chaired by Justice RC Lahoti.[9] Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali from United Nations was also listed as a co-chair for the event but he died prior to the event. Some other committee members included former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers; Nancy Pelosi, Katherine Clark and Ed Witfield from United States Congress; and former Lithuanian president Vytautas Landsbergis.[10]

Following the 2016 edition, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull invited Art of Living Foundation to Australia for the next World Culture Festival.[11]

In March 2023, AoL announced their next WFC event to be held in Washington, DC from 29 September to 1 October 2023.[12]

The 2016 edition was attended by various global and local religious and political leaders.[11] Participants included former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, Nepalese Deputy Prime Minister Kamal Thapa, Vice-President of Suriname Ashwin Adhin and Karu Jayasuriya from the Sri Lankan Parliament.[13] Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also in audience and compared the festival to a "kumbh mela" of art.[14] Other Indian leaders including Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Devendra Fadnavis, Raman Singh and Manish Sisodia attended the event on 12 March 2016.[15] The last day of the event was attended by many BJP leaders including Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Venkaiah Naidu, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.[16]

The event was also promoted as an interfaith meet and attended by religious leaders like Rev. Dr. Gerald L. Durley, Dr. Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, Mufti Mohammed Saeed Khan, Shankaracharya Vasudevanand Saraswati among others.[17]

President Pranab Mukherjee declined to attend the event after first accepting the invitation due to concerns about environment law violations.[18] Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe also pulled out of the event citing security and protocol issues.[19] A separate enclosure had to be constructed for Narendra Modi also due to a security threat.[20]

The festival was criticized in the Indian news media for environmental reasons.[21] The foundation was involved in a legal battle with the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which allowed the festival to be held after a fine of ₹5 crore (US$630,000).[22] The Art of Living Foundation questioned the findings by the tribunal and has since then submitted a plea in the Supreme Court of India.[23][24][25]

• Event Website