In 2024, it will be a hundred years since Tomas Bata came up with the idea that the Bata company would organize its own May Day celebration, which subsequently attracted thousands of visitors to Zlín every year. In the nineties, the Tomas Bata Foundation continued this tradition, trying to stick to the original idea, namely that the celebration should still evoke emotions, stimulate creativity and also sharing.
Many people still associate May Day celebrations, or parades, with communist Labour Day celebrations. Therefore, the question arises as to how the Bata Labour Day celebration actually came about. And it must be stated right away that the initial impulse was somehow – in popular terms – out of spite. As was sometimes the case with Tomas Bata, he simply did not like that the Communist Party, which was his frequent opponent, was celebrating Workers' Day, while he was the largest employer in the region. That's why Bata declared one day that it was necessary for the company Bata to have its own Labour Day celebration, as a way of thanking and paying respect to the manual workers.
"Tomas Bata took the first May Day celebration quite differently, he decided to invite his colleagues to his house. On that day, the foundation stone of the celebrations was laid, which soon gained in importance and scope and became an integral part of corporate life," explains Gabriela Končitíková, director of the Tomas Bata Foundation, adding that individual workshops and departments had been preparing for this unique event several weeks in advance. Celebrations began to fulfil social significance not only with the festive day itself, but also with the preparations associated with it and the subsequent sharing of all experiences.
The Tomas Bata Foundation has been trying to approach the mentioned ideals for a long time, which was founded and ceremonially opened by Tomas Bata junior on May 1, 1998, how else than as part of the May Day celebration. "We are not a company that could let hundreds of people know how much the company values their work and thanks them for their performance through a celebration. However, the May Day celebrations evoked emotions, which people subsequently debated and remembered for a long time. We try to follow up on at least this part and add another fundamental Bata idea that emotions connect. Especially nowadays, we think it is very important to create opportunities where parents can spend the day with their children in various activities, in a beautiful environment, and create experiences that bring them together. I am very happy that Tomas Bata junior considered it important to restore this tradition, we continue with it and the city of Zlín supports it," says Gabriela Končitíková.
The May Day celebration in Tomas Bata's villa is in the spirit of music, culture and entertainment for all age categories. Every year, the Tomas Bata Foundation comes up with novelties that always make the May Day celebrations special. "This year's biggest novelty will be 100% creative workshops, where children will be able to make trinkets from leather, assemble a model of Bata house, mix their own tea or paint a T-shirt. And when we talk about workshops, we mean it literally. The modules that function as workshops have been lent to us for a long time by the Vizovic company KOMA Modular, after the May Day celebration they will remain in the garden of Tomas Bata's Villa and another program will take place in them, which will make visitors' stay in our garden more pleasant in the summer," adds Jakub Malovaný, project manager of the Tomas Bata Foundation.
In addition to the program and activities for children, the general public can look forward to, for example, the exhibition Bata To Himself, which was created by the artist Bára from Nikolajka in collaboration with the stationery shop Be nice, a relaxation zone, a presentation of the new Bata-inspired coffee, a performance by the magician Ondřej Sládek, or a concert by the Pop-Up group led by the actor Štěpán Prince. The program starts at 10 a.m. and the program in the garden of the Bata Villa will last until the early afternoon.
The traditional May Day celebration organized by the Tomas Bata Foundation could not take place without the support of the statutory city of Zlín and the companies Bata, Continental and Vitar.
