On the weekend nearest to the 19th of October each year, the city of Bacolod in the province of Negros Occidental goes joyfully crazy with the MassKara Festival. First conceived in 1980 to add color and gaiety to the city’s celebration of its Charter Day anniversary, the festival has become the biggest annual tourism event not only of Bacolod, but of the entire province as well.

MassKara is a coined term from two words: MASS, meaning multitude of people or a crowd, and KARA, from the Spanish word for face, cara. Thus the term has a triple meaning: “many faces,” “mask” and “face of the masses” – meanings that best describe the 9-day celebration. During the festival, there are “many faces” who travel near and far to come to the city wearing be-dimpled, grinning and laughing “masks”, that show the real “face of the masses” which is happiness.

The symbol of the festival a ‘smiling face’ mask was adopted by the organizers to dramatize the Negrenses happy spirit despite periodic economic downturns in the sugar industry. The happy grins on the masks underscore the people celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans, USA and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The beaming faces molded in clay or papier-mache are the order of the day at the highlight of the festival, the MassKara parade where masked visitors join Bacolodnons from all walks of life, clad in colorful costumes, as they gyrate to the intoxicating rhythms of samba, disco, and Latin-American music while parading down the main thoroughfares of the city in a stunning display of stamina and coordination. The colorful pageantry is equaled in intensity by everyone's joining in the revelry with such abandon, fun and camaraderie as the sound of the MassKara music fills the air enticing everyone to join the fiesta mood of the festival.

Every sector of the society is represented in the MassKara Festival: civic associations, commercial establishments, schools, and even private and government organizations. They march out in enthusiastic throngs wearing their painted masks and elaborate costumes, all vying for prizes in judging that will be held in the afternoon of the parade day.

Throughout the week, people from all over the Visayas and beyond, flock to the city plaza as they join Bacolodnons in the non-stop round of festivities that also feature sports competitions, cultural programs, carnivals, trade fair, concerts, the MassKara Queen beauty pageant, highlighted by a street dance parade and merrymaking.

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