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These tours allow tourists to get beyond the area of each community in which most of the celebration events take place (usually the central business district), and highlight other aspects of the town tour organizers want visitors to see. As such, these tours arguably put even more of the celebrating community on display than other celebration elements. Although these tours generally are less overt in their advancement of particular images, representations, and narratives about the town and its celebration than press coverage and promotional materials are, the particular sites and attractions singled out nevertheless serve to communicate fairly evident messages about the values and character of the towns being toured. For the most part, these messages echo or supplement the narratives and stories communicated by press coverage and promotional materials. I conclude chapter 5 by focusing on the narratives, stories, and representations of each celebrating community contained in the various pageants, plays, programs, parade elements, and other theatrical or paratheatical elements present in each of these festivals over the years. Once again, these performances, for the most part, supplement the characterizations of the meanings and effects of each festival present in press coverage and promotional materials. However, there are examples of these performances that start to get at more complex issues. This is especially true of the plays of Carol Van Klompenburg and Mary Meuzelaar that have been staged in Pella in conjunction with Tulip Time over the last fifteen years.
In chapter 6, I focus on examples of potential and actual disagreement, both apparent in, and concerned with, each of the five festivals. These examples serve to raise questions about, if not interrupt, the smooth narratives otherwise presented in the materials available for each festival. I examine three types of disagreement or discord evident in the history of the five festivals. First, I consider several examples of discord arising from simple differences of opinion among festival organizers. Next, I investigate examples of discord that have resulted from demographic changes that have taken place in Holland, Pella, and Fulton. Specifically, I look at the ways in which the non-Dutch-American populations in these communities have interacted, or have failed to interact, with the Dutch-Americans.