I am an author and am writing a book (my second) about coming of age customs and traditions among young males.

I am trying to obain information about a past and possibly present tradition involving a running event in Halmstad in which young males, possibly college students, wear nothing but large brown paper garment bags and run 1 kilometer as designated women attempt to rip off the bags off of them. It appears to occur during a heavily attended festival of some sort.

I need to know (1) who runs in the race, (2) when it takes place, (3) who sponsors it, (4) the purpose of the race (festival entertainment, fraternity hazing, fund raising, team initiation etc.), (5) whether it is a legitimate race or a staggered start event which has the boys running separately, (6) the exact distance (I assume it is exactly 1 kilometer which is the distance from Dressman's, south around the plaza, north down Kopmansgatan to Norrport and then south again on Storgatan to Dressman's), (7) how long the tradition has lasted, and (8) any on-line site or information source about the race that you can direct me to.

Thank you very much.