Whatever the motive, they are fascinating festivals; and Fes in particular is, for my dirhams, the best world music festival anywhere.
If your idea of investigative journalism is uncovering the truth about Brangelina's break-up, perhaps it's time to re-evaluate with a visit to this fascinating week-long festival.
Where else can you ski indoors on real snow, enjoy the thrill of ultimate adrenalin-pumping water rides, shop-'til-youdrop at massive outlet malls and in the bustle of an authentic souk, dine at Michelin-star restaurants, snorkel and scuba dive in a vast aquarium and enjoy the culturally fascinating month long festival of Ramadan.
In a postscript to the Bard Festival's fascinating exploration of Debussy, Leon Botstein leads the American Symphony in the one big orchestral work it left out before: the superb "Nocturnes," whose freedom may be more manifest (but who knows?) in the context of works by d'Indy, Magnard and Charpentier.
As I watched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the quintessentially British spy story directed by Swedish film-maker Tomas Alfredson, at the Venice film festival, how fascinating it was to see how well a Swede had captured Britain and (a certain fringe of) British society in the early 1970s.
In addition, the shorts coming out of Mira Nair's film school in Uganda, including Moccasins and Zubu and the Photo Fish, were fascinating and gave the festival its broadest international scope ever.
The Vienna Festival, too, explores fascinating operatic byways, with Monteverdi's "Incoronazione di Poppea" and Schumann's "Genoveva".
Bard College dedicated its annual summer festival to this fascinating, ambiguous, sometimes staggeringly eloquent artist, who, around 1900, restored English music to the international stage after centuries of obscurity.
For British fans of The Killing, Stieg Larsson and Borgen, this Oslo-based crime festival offers a fascinating insight into the world of Nordic crime.
