| Sumario: | In the study of urban events on the boundaries between the religious and the secular, an underdeveloped theme is the facilitation and performance of sacrality. Two questions should be asked: to what extent is an event ritualized and sacralized and how is religion involved? A further question is how these events succeed in performing the sacred. This article uses ethnographic research into the Saint Martin's Day Parade in the Dutch city of Utrecht, a festive procession of children and parents, to clarify how the interplaying fields of religion, art, and, urban governance facilitate an event that may acquire the qualities of a "holy play," depending on the fulfillment of performative requirements on one hand and the balance between sacralizing movements and particular strategies on the other.
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