I’ve never been much for programmes. It always seems more interesting to walk into a concert and either recognise the piece being played (cue smug pat-on-the-back) or decide it wasn’t worth knowing anyway. However, after attending this year’s festival of excess, Valletta’s Notte Bianca, I think it might have been a good idea to use the guide – if only to know what to avoid first.

If Notte Bianca were to streamline itself, it might stand a chance of attracting more than idle curiosity

Which isn’t to say there weren’t some very worthy events andexhibitions (more on them later), but little could make up for the basic mismanagement of people pouring into the city.

In a scene that could have been choreographed by DeMille, hundreds of people surged through City Gate, or rather the hole in the wall which currently serves as a gate, against a downward tide of visitors trying to leave Valletta. The crush and swell continued all the way through Republic Street.

Still, perhaps this wasn’t something the organisers could easily deal with. Maybe it’s not their fault that there wasn’t an adequate plan for an entrance to/exit from the city during peak times – but the events lineup was entirely in their hands.

Certainly, I didn’t visit every single event but must admit I made a valiant effort to walk up and down as many streets as possible before fatigue (and a vague sense of despair) led me to a café near the Lower Barrakka, where I spent the remainder of my evening.

Outside St John’s Co-Cathedral, to the jangling sound of Lady Gaga and Beyonce, a troupe of girls (barely) dressed as cancan dancers flooded the square with sound. How appropriate this was, and what it said about Valletta as a culturalcapital, was left up to the viewers’ imagination.

The same can be said forMerchants Street and the psychedelic synth ‘authentic’ Peruvian and/or Native American, beaded and feathered and endlessly reverberating extravaganza. It is always a pleasure to enjoy the enriching traditions of other cultures. But to use such an opportunity to peddle CDs (don’t these people know that nobody buys CDs anymore?) and create some commercially neutral pseudo native music (playing off people’s ignorance), all the while calling themselves ‘Indians and co’, just isn’t on.

However, a highlight of Notte Bianca had to be the Design Week exhibits housed in the Old University. Ċeramika Maltija presented a display of ‘lace scraffito’, with designs based on 1930s lace patterns in kaleidoscopic colour. An interesting take on an old concept.

The University’s Foundation in Design Studies, and Mcast proved themselves to be hotbeds of new talent with a broad selection of work from former and current students. Especially interesting were Miriam de Giorgio’s suspended wire faces, twisted into Cocteauesque shapes, and Sarah Marie Scicluna’s variety of collage sketches.

Further along, Michaela Said’s pictures worked threads into variations on stag-headed women, wearing a voluminous period dress. The predominant aesthetic was a dream-like, wicked beauty. A book of work by Adrian Grima featuring ink and photomontage pieces rounded off the series of surreal dreamscapes. Certainly highlights of the show.

No one wants to see it go down

The St Elmo fosos were equally exciting with a street art exhibition that featured, somewhat surprisingly, a spray-painted pterodactyl. The work was accomplished by Daniela Attard, Chris deSouza Jensen and other members of their group The Troglodytes.

This is the sixth instalment of Notte Bianca, and it’s about time some things started to run more smoothly. The official website reads, “It is this diversity tat (sic) makes Notte Bianca such an interesting and unique experience,” and while it is true that experiencing a wide variety of things can be interesting, it’s also a little bit like sampling a lot of different foods allat once (the result of which isinvariably indigestion).

If Notte Bianca were to streamline itself, rather than be crammed full of everything (the good, the bad and the downright diabolical), it might stand a chance of attracting more than idle curiosity and those huge crowds of people, starved for any reason whatsoever to visit Valletta.

The huge numbers of people are a testament to what can be achieved by offering free events and free entrance to Valletta’s treasures. However, the city and the people would be better served by a less bloated programme, and a more finely tuned understanding of what belongs in a selection of truly exemplary theatre, music and visual media.

No one wants to see Notte Bianca go down, or doubts the work that goes into staging the event every year. But it would be nice to see that energy applied where it would do the most good.

To divorce Notte Bianca from everything else that Valletta could offer is to miss the point. What it needs to do is get in touch with Malta as an innovative and living culture. I’d invite a change in perspective, a shift in the way these sorts of festivals see themselves and would like to be seen by others.

There’s always room for new material – just leave all the tacky nonsense at the door.