More than 25,000 expected to attend Daikin Festival on Friday
Apr. 30—Fireworks, home-cooked Japanese cuisine and traditional Japanese folk-dancing are in store for the public this year as employees of Daikin America in Decatur prepare to host their annual festival on Friday.
The free festival will be held at Point Mallard Park from 6:30 to 9 p.m. and will conclude with a fireworks show. Vu Pham, informational technology director for Daikin, is overseeing the event this year and predicts attendance to be at its peak.
"Last year we had 25,000 people and we're hoping to have a larger gathering," Pham said. "From a traffic standpoint, Point Mallard is the best location because it's easy access in and out and we're not really disrupting the traffic on the Beltline and Sixth Avenue."
The first Daikin Festival was held 30 years ago, in 1994, at their plant off Alabama 20 with only a few thousand people attending.
"The last festival we had at the plant was in 2000," Pham said. "We started having the rest of them out at the fairgrounds in 2002 and we moved to Point Mallard last year after the fairgrounds were sold."
Daikin Industries is a Japanese-based company specializing in air conditioning manufacturing and heating solutions. According to Daikin, the Decatur plant is the world's foremost developer and manufacturer of fluorochemical products.
The festival is modeled after the Japanese Obon festival, where every August, Japanese citizens honor their ancestors, somewhat like the Hispanic Dia de Los Muertos in November.
Crystal Brown, president and CEO of the Decatur-Morgan County Chamber of Commerce, said festivals like these highlight the growing diversity in Decatur.
"What a diverse culture we have here and it just makes us that much more special," Brown said.
Brown said she has attended several Daikin festivals in the past and said her daughter volunteered last year and will be there this year. She lauded Daikin for striving to support and unify the community every year.
"The fact that they are so intentional about having this festival to better understand the Japanese culture kind of unifies us," Brown said. "It is such a great celebration and Daikin has given so much to our community."
The festival will feature Japanese folk dancing along with Japanese cuisine like yakisobi, which is grilled buckwheat noodles served with beef and sauce, and yakitori, a charcoal-grilled chicken dish served with a special sauce. American dishes will also be served like pizza, barbecue, chicken fingers, jambalaya and hamburgers.
Attendees will have the opportunity to learn Japanese calligraphy, or shodo, and Daikin's Taiko Force drum team will perform as well. Pham said the first 2,500 to 3,000 people to arrive at the festival will receive a free happi coat, a traditional Japanese tube-sleeved garment.
Jeremy Nails, CEO of the Morgan County Economic Development Association, said ever since Daikin built a plant in Decatur, community involvement has been a priority.
"They want to be involved and they want to be engaged," Nails said. "That's Daiken in a nutshell. From the people here locally, to those over in Japan, they are really appreciative of the relationships they've built in Alabama, so it's important to them to be an outstanding community industry."
Pham said Daikin's festival is traditionally held each Memorial Day weekend, but officials decided to host it earlier so as not to conflict with the Alabama Jubilee Hot Air Balloon Classic, also held at Point Mallard, which will be May 25-26.
Pham said a five-minute fireworks show was added to the festival last year and this year, the fireworks show will be extended to eight minutes. The festival will also feature local rock band Natchez Trace, which also performed last year.
Prizes will be given out and Pham said visitors will experience a new surprise event as well.
"There's also a special event that's been kept quiet to only a few people, and I'm not aware of what it is," Pham said.
— wes.tomlinson@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2442.
