Kurentovanje is Slovenia's most popular and ethnologically significant carnival event first organised in 1960 by Drago Hasl and his associates from cultural and educational organizations.

This 11-day rite of spring and fertility highlight event is celebrated on Shrove Sunday in Ptuj, the oldest documented city in the region, and draws around 100,000 participants in total each year.

[1][2][3][4] Its main figure, known as Kurent or Korent, has been popularly (but incorrectly) reinterpreted as an extravagant god of unrestrained pleasure and hedonism in early Slavic customs.

[5][4] In today's festival, groups of kurents or kurenti wear traditional sheepskin garments while holding wooden clubs with hedgehog skins attached called ježevke, the noise of which is believed to "chase away winter".

[11][12] Hasl, an indefatigable organiser of Kurentovanje from its beginnings until the 1970s, was strongly convinced that this event could help prevent what he saw as the extremely rapid disappearance of carnival habits and traditional customs in surrounding villages.

[citation needed] On Shrove Saturday, 27 February 1960, the first modern version of the festival, called Kurentovanje, was organized by Drago Hasl and friends in Ptuj, featuring traditional carnival costumes from Markovci.

The procession leaders were spearmen followed by ploughmen, "rusa" (a bear), fairies, cockerels, and Kurents, all dancing to the sound of music played by a local band.

In 1962 the event reached beyond local boundaries by inviting other carnival figures such as lavfarji (< Bavarian German Laufer 'runner'[5]) from Cerkno and borovo gostuvanje (literally, "pine wedding participants") from Predanovci in the Prekmurje region.

The number of participants and spectators grew over the years, with thousands visiting the Carnival events to marvel at the spectacular costumes and take part in the fun.

Each day features performances by individuals in costumes and many other types of entertainment which take place on the square in front of the town hall and in the carnival tent.

The name is probably derived from the common noun kurant 'messenger, lackey, footman', borrowed from a Romance word from Latin currens 'running'—thus sharing a semantic base with the Cerkno term lavfar.

Between 1962 and 1991, the program was scheduled in two parts: abefore noon there was parade of traditional costumes only in the city stadium, and the carnival was held in the town streets in the afternoon.

At the initiative of Branko Brumen, one of the main organisers of Kurentovanje and vice president of FECC, as he saw this folklore on other carnivals in Europe long before Ptuj.