March 28, 2014: With only six participants at the first annual Holi Festival at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Mormons outnumbered Hindus — 4 to 2.

In the past 25 years, that ratio has widened exponentially.

At next week’s festival — the largest of its kind in the U.S. — Caru Das, the temple’s priest, expects up to 70,000 revelers, most of whom will be students from LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University in nearby Provo.

“It’s an opportunity for young LDS kids to come and celebrate their spirituality,” Das says, “without alcohol or drugs.”

The two-day event, which Das dubbed the “Festival of Colors,” derives from an ancient Hindu tradition, celebrating the end of winter and the triumph of good over evil. It is common in southern India for friends and neighbors to gather in small groups around a bonfire and throw colored corn starch in the air.

For his Utah version, Das added “kirtan,” which in Sanskrit means “to glorify or spread the name and fame of God’s love,” he says.

Those lyrics can be used in any form, including techno, soul and rock. He set the date at the last weekend in March and invited the entire community to make merry together.

Now, even the priest acknowledges the show he created is more like a rock concert than a religious exercise. After all, it features daylong performances by live bands, plus yoga demonstrations and dance numbers.

Every hour is punctuated with a 10-second countdown and then the tossing of colored corn starch in the air and on audience members. Before long, participants are covered in colors and nearly indistinguishable from one another.

“The throw did not originate in India,” Das says in a video posted on the temple’s website. “Spraying is a metaphor for rejuvenation or renewal, to leave aside the past, to move with a great positive vision into the future.”