12.03.2025
This year marks a hundred years since Tomáš Baťa came up with the idea that the Bata company would organise its own May Day celebration, which attracted thousands of visitors to Zlín every year. In the 1990s, the Thomas Bata Foundation continued this tradition, trying to stick to the original idea, namely that the celebration should still evoke emotions, stimulate creativity and also encourage sharing.
Many people still associate May Day celebrations, or rather parades, with the communist celebrations of the Labour Day. This raises the question of how the Bata Labour Day celebration came about. And it must be admitted that the initial impulse was - to put it bluntly - out of spite. As was sometimes the case with Tomáš Baťa, he simply did not like the fact that the Communist Party, which was his frequent opponent, was celebrating the Labour Day while he was the largest employer in the region. Therefore, Bata one day declared that it was necessary for the Bata company to have its own celebration of Labour Day, as a kind of thanks and tribute to the workers.
“Tomáš Baťa conceived the first May Day celebration quite distinctively, he decided to invite his co-workers to his home. On that day, the foundation stone was laid for the celebrations, which soon grew in importance and scope and became an integral part of company life,” explains Gabriela Končitíková, Director of the Thomas Bata Foundation, adding that individual workshops and departments had been preparing for this unique event for several weeks in advance. The celebrations began to take on a social significance not only with the day itself, but also with the preparations and the subsequent sharing of all the experiences.
The Thomas Bata Foundation, which was founded and inaugurated by Thomas Bata Jr. on 1 May 1998, has been trying to approach these ideals for a long time. “We are not a company that could let hundreds of people know how much we appreciate their work and thank them for it through a celebration. However, the May Day celebrations evoked emotions that people debated and reminisced about for a long time afterwards. We try to build on at least this part and add a second fundamental Bata idea, that emotions connect. Particularly in this day and age, we think it's very important to create opportunities for parents to spend the day with their children in different activities, in beautiful surroundings, and to create experiences that connect them. I am very glad that Thomas Bata Jr. thought it was important to renew this tradition, we continue it and the City of Zlín supports it,” says Gabriela Končitíková.
The May Day celebration at the Bata Villa is in the spirit of music, culture and fun for all ages. Every year, the Thomas Bata Foundation comes up with novelties that always make the May Day celebrations special. “This year's biggest novelty will be the 100% creative workshops where children will be able to make trinkets out of leather, put together a model of a Bata house, make their own tea or paint their own T-shirt. And when we talk about workshops, we mean it literally. The modules serving as workshops have been lent to us by KOMA Modular, a company from Vizovice, and after the May Day celebration they will remain in the garden of the Bata Villa and will be used for other programmes that will make the visitors' stay in our garden more pleasant in the summer,” adds Jakub Malovaný, Project Manager of the Thomas Bata Foundation.
In addition to the programme and activities for children, the general public can look forward to, for example, the exhibition ‘Bata to Himself‘, created by the artist Bára from Nikolajka in cooperation with the stationery shop Be nice, a relaxation zone, the introduction of a new Bata-inspired coffee, a performance by the magician Ondřej Sládek, or a concert by the Pop-Up group headed by the actor Štěpán Prince. The programme starts at 10 a.m. and the programme in the garden of the Bata Villa will last until early afternoon.
The traditional May Day celebration organized by the Thomas Bata Foundation, could not take place without the support of the Statutory City of Zlín and the companies Bata, Continental and Vitar.
