People from countries far and wide gathered together in Circus Square Park to celebrate the world community during the annual International Festival on Saturday.

Throughout the day, people were exposed to different aspects of several cultures including attire, food, basic information, and physical objects pertaining to a particular country.

At the festival, travel guides were given out at the information booth. As a person visited a booth, they could collect stamps or other trinkets to show that they have been to that particular booth.

During the festival, music and dances hailing from different cultures were performed on several stages.

One of the performers at the festival was Feckless Fear Dearg, an Irish Pub band formed in Bowling Green. This was the band’s second time performing in the festival.

Zach Daugherty, who performs lead vocals and guitar for the band, said he formed the band because of a lack of Celtic music.

“There were no purveyors of Celtic music around so I decided to fill the void,” Daugherty said.

Daugherty said the international festival allowed for others to enjoy different things about different cultures.

“I think it’s great,” Daugherty said. “Just being able to see everybody come out and celebrate their own culture because one thing that’s good about our country being such a melting pot of other cultures and having that around our local community, Bowling Green, being a college town houses a lot of different cultures just right here locally and it’s really cool to get out there and have a day just to celebrate that.”

Another group that performed was the Chinese Music Club, a group at WKU specializing in performing music from China.

Cincinnati, Oh., junior Kelli Hogue, president of the Chinese Music Club, said she enjoyed the international festival because of the diversity.

“I think the international festival is great because you get this little small town in Kentucky, but you get to try stuff from all over the world,” Hogue said. “I wish that my own community had something like this.”

Graduate student Sowmya Karamcheti of India, who attended the International Festival for the first time, said the international festival was a good thing.

“It’s a beneficial thing to have the international festival so that we could get to know all the different cultures from all the different countries,” Karamcheti said.

Freshman, Victoria Phung of Vietnam who also participated in the festival as part of the Vietnamese Student Association for the first time, said much the same.

“This is great,” Phung said. “This is like the spirit of Bowling Green.”