Café de Nuit

My DM needs some new ideas for the weekly festival held by the eccentric mayor of Vallaki. He's already used the starting theme of wolves' heads and then used the sun. An element of hope should be included. We're playing through the Curse of Strand, so themes are good for this topic while spoilers are bad. Thanks.

Ravens were considered a good omen in original Barovian lore. Other than that, maybe something to do with the seasons? The harvest? The moon to go with the sun? Or maybe specific dishes (cheese festival, blood sausage festival, pumpkin pie feast?)

kinda just depends on where you want to go and how dark his desperate attempts are. I mean you could have a Vistani "Pinata" as one of them where the crowd beats one of the spies of strahd to death, if the people believe they are. Maybe someone is too afraid to strike a vistani because of a curse, and it would definitely drive up the tension with the vistani outside the city. (I'd image they might think the girl Annabelle was stolen for just this purpose if it happened in the past)

You could so something with Bat's since they are servants of Strahd just like the wolves. Something to do with Fish since they live near the lake. (Maybe a fishing contest?)

FWIW, in the comic book, Shadows of the Vampire (Issue 4), we see one of these festivals. It's the "Parade of Purple" and seems to consist of people wearing purple with purple flags marching down the street ringing bells and shouting "purple! Purple!" At one point, they paint purple paint on the face of one of the heroes.
The mayor also says that last week's festival was the "Merriment of Music".

Here's the cover art depicting the parade:

Hope? Well, in the one I'm running there will be a witch burning. Good fuel to add to the wicker sun. That won't set well with the character that saw his family burned unfairly at the stake though.

Thanks for the great replies! My DM responded instantly to a couple of the suggestions. I'm looking forward to returning to Valaki, even though we're wanted fugitives there.