was held from July 25 to July 28, is necessary because several years ago the festival did not only become the largest gathering of kite enthusiasts, but also an annual source of irritation, particularly for motorists and traffic police.

The nuisance, in the form of enormous, paralyzing traffic jams, was caused by the seemingly misguided competitive spirit of the festival's participants, who were mostly from traditional customary youth organizations in numerous customary villages in Denpasar and Badung. Each participant tried to outdo the others by making the biggest kite possible and also by assembling the largest entourage of local enthusiasts to escort the kite to the festival ground. Then, these groups of young men, all donned in traditional costume and T-shirts of their respective Sekeha Teruna Teruni, took to the streets, proudly displaying their kites all the way to the festival ground. The result was all too predictable: Hours of traffic jams in most parts of the city.
Some of the groups went by foot, accompanied by the blaring tunes of their own traditional Bleganjur ensemble. Others carried the kites by trucks, tightly escorted by the participants' convoy of motorbikes.

The situation was even worse around the festival's ground in Padanggalak. Thousands of kite enthusiasts from all over Bali flocked to the area and the traffic was virtually brought to a halt. Road users responded to this problem by repeatedly lodging angry complaints at the festival's organizing committee.
'Objections did not only come from the general public, but also from traffic police officers, who were frustrated with the traffic jams,' said the festival's chief of the board of judges, Susila Patra.

Finally this year, the committee decided to do something about the problem. 'There was never a size limit for kites at previous festivals. This year, however, we have had to do it, otherwise people would keep blaming the committee for causing the traffic jams,' the committee's chairman, Rai Andayana, said.

The newly introduced regulation stipulated that the size of any participating kite must not exceed seven meters in length and four meters in width.
'Any larger than this and the kites would take up too much space, causing traffic jams when they are being transported to and from the festival ground,' Rai said. The committee also strongly urged each participant to carefully time their departure and arrival time at the festival ground to prevent encountering other participants at the same time, thus causing severe traffic jams.