Sand festivals or festivals of sandsculpture are exhibitions of sculptures made of sand carried out in various places around the world. These events usually include a competition. Traditional sand sculptures are sandcastles. However, at sand festivals one may see virtually any kinds of sculptures you would expect to see in stone, bronze or wood.
Australia
The Sand Sculpting Australia festival has been held annually in Frankston, Victoria since 2008, and was held for seven years prior to this on the foreshore at Rye, Victoria. This event features a different theme each year, with the 2008–2009 theme being dinosaurs in an exhibit called "Dinostory".
Indian sand artistSudarshan Patnaik created a sculpture in memory of the victims of the tsunami disaster in Puri, south of the capital of the Indian state of Odisha, Bhubaneshwar. The determination of this man, support, and a consorted effort from his friends in Puri, culminated in the formation of the Golden Sand Art Institute 1995. The institute is an open-air institute with no boundaries and limitations. It is located on the seashore that spans between Hotel May Fair Beach Resort and the Panthanivas in Puri. Goa Sand Art Festival is an annual event hosted in Goa, in association with Goa Tourism. The ‘Goa Sand Art Festival’ is a three-day festival held at Candolim beach, which is one of the pristine beaches in Goa. It is a three-day art festival held in December on the weekend before Christmas with different themes to highlight a particular issue. The Goa Sand Art Festival conceptualized and organized by Jerry Jose is one of its kind art festivals involving the students and upcoming artists.
Since 2011, Sand Castle Contest has been an annual event held every year in Karachi at Seaview Beach by Lets Build On under the theme of "Clean Beach; Clean Karachi" which has 10 events annually around the beach in its loop & all are led by Dr Zsuzsanna Fajcsak. This year in 2012 on 9 September, the 2nd Sand Castle Building Contest was held where around 250-300 participants including families, kids, students & foreigners joined it. Many innovative & attracting sculptures of dolphins, octopus, castles, monuments & other things were made at the contest but the center of attraction was the sand sculpture of a mosque that was made by Syed Arif Shah, a young Pakistani who is an expert of Sand sculpture making and can make any design in couple of minutes only.
International festivals of sand sculptures are organized in Russia. Since 2001 an event has been held in St. Petersburg in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Fourteen teams from ten countries participated at the first one. In 2002 an international festival was held in Anapa. On September 1, 2005 the event was held in the Moscow Zoo with the participation of artists from Russia, Sweden, Latvia, Finland and Ukraine. The motto was "Animal World".
Switzerland
The yearly Sandskulpturen takes place in Rorschach, on the coast of the Bodensee.
Turkey
Antalya International Antalya Sand Sculpture Festival
There are several master level sand sculpting competitions in the U.S. Many of them like Sand Castle Days on South Padre Island, Texas or The American Championships on Fort Myers Beach, Florida have been around since the late 1980s. These events bring in sand sculptors from around the world, hosting between 10 and 30 sculptors. The US also hosts many amateur level competitions on beaches around the country. Savannah College of Art and Design hosts a Sand Arts Festival every April.
