The Lake Toba tourist area always holds a lively event every year, namely the Lake Toba Enchantment Carnival. This event is centered in Balige City, North Sumatra. The 2020 Lake Toba Enchantment Carnival is planned to take place from 3 to 5 July 2020.

This carnival is not an ordinary carnival, because every year there are always important people/state officials who join in enlivening the carnival. In fact, the 2016 Lake Toba Charm Carnival was attended by Mr Joko Widodo, the number one person in Indonesia at the moment.

The Lake Toba Enchantment Carnival is an event to preserve cultural arts and to increase people's love for regional arts and culture. As we all know, the North Sumatra Province region is multi-ethnic, so local cultural creativity needs to be preserved and developed, one of which is holding a carnival.

The Enchantment Lake Toba Carnival has officially become an annual event for Toba Samosir Regency which refers to the Presidential Instruction at the 2016 Enchantment Lake Toba Independence Carnival. There are many activities that are always eagerly awaited at the Lake Toba Enchantment Carnival, such as a parade of colorful floats going back and forth in the Lake Toba area, traditional clothing displays, and typical Batak culinary competitions. The following are some of the activities that usually take place at the Lake Toba Enchantment Carnival.

Carrying Culture and Tradition

Carnival participants will wear ulos, sortali headbands and traditional Indonesian clothing with dark red, black and white ornaments. This carnival will be attended by at least 2,500 participants from 8 districts, namely Dairi Regency, Karo Regency, Simalungun Regency, Samosir Regency, North Tapanuli Regency, Humbang Hasundutan Regency, Toba Samosir Regency, and Pakpak Bharat Regency.

Decorative Vehicles

One of the long-awaited parades is the floats, in the form of decorated cars and decorated rickshaws. There are at least 50 decorated cars carrying cultural images from 8 districts that will cover a distance of 2.7 km starting from Soposurung and the carnival finish line will be at Bank Sumut Balige. Apart from decorated cars, the parade also features decorated tricycles and hundreds of manghunti tandok (upholding tandok). The atmosphere will be even more lively and lively because it will be accompanied by participants playing trumpets and other traditional musical instruments.

Multiethnic 10th Parade

After the floats, the next parade will continue with a multi-ethnic parade not only from the 8 districts around Lake Toba. There were several parade lines from Nias, Javanese, Malay, Indian and Chinese ethnicities. The aim of this parade is to make the carnival warm, friendly, communicative and able to share happiness.

Carnival Parade Line

The carnival parade not only presents floats and 10 multi-ethnic parades, but continues with a variety of other performances. In the parade there will be a dance line of 5 tribes from the Sultan Agung Pematang Siantar College, a Paskibra troupe, Little Police, High School Marching Band, 300 Manghunti Tandok women, a Toba Batak traditional clothing parade, Balige District Village Head, 30 people from the Sangkakala music group, Mossak Group, OPD and District Decorated Pedicabs, BUMN, Bank, OPD and a number of other mass organizations.

Culinary Product Exhibition

There will also be a Culinary Product Exhibition at this carnival. Last year a culinary product exhibition was held at Tugu DI Panjaitan and Sisingamaraja XII Balige Field. The presence of the Lake Toba Enchantment Carnival certainly has a fairly large positive impact. Hotels, restaurants, car rentals and souvenir vendors will be splashed with blessings from the ongoing Carnival.

Folk Entertainment

People's entertainment is usually held in the evening. In previous years this event was held at the Sisingamangaraja XII Balige field. In this activity, there will be performances from many artists, both national and local artists.

The holding of various activities at the Lake Toba Enchantment Carnival is proof of dynamic harmonization and ready to interact with all groups. Thus, tourists will be amazed by the cultural harmonization of the area. This Carnival will continue to be held every year with alternate hosts from the districts around Lake Toba. Each region prioritizes its own culture and maintains unity and unity. The progress of tourism will of course create new jobs for the community.