Threads tagged #scsc

JonPeat - 2016-07-11 22:10:27 UTC #

Sheffield Circus Skills Convention 2016 (UK) – Review

Saturday 9th July saw the return of the Sheffield Circus Skills Convention, here follows my convention review and ramblings of the day.

I did expect to get thoroughly lost as we navigated the centre of Sheffield, but surprisingly we managed it without a problem.
We chose to arrive early in order to bag a parking space as judging by the maps provided before the event the parking looked a bit sparse. As it turned out this was not a problem as there were a number of car parks within a short walk of the venue. I got a spot on free on street parking on Brunswick St next to a fairly large university car park which attendees of the convention could use for free on the day. I would head there next time.

When we arrived the convention crew were in full swing getting things organised so we kept out of the way and chilled out in the lounge area (sofas and little tables) where Ron was to later have his Lazy Juggler games area.
The passes were very swanky, plastic tokens of many colours with SCSC cut out on them. I always like a good pass and these scored pretty highly!

I had never been to this venue and a Like it a lot! I did spend far too long counting the walls to make sure it was eight sided (it is!). The main convention space is a very large octagonal hall with a large stage set up against one wall. The lighting and sound in the hall is pretty good. Overhead lighting was a bit bright in places but there were plenty of gaps to juggle in. I need to find a good way of measuring the hall sizes for my reviews, but it was a great big hall! Nice and clean too. The angled walls made it difficult for me to orient myself to juggle, I am one who insists on juggling at right angles to the walls...

The workshop board was well populated with beginner workshops across a variety of disciplines and some other interesting looking workshops.

I spent the morning enjoying a good ball juggling session. Lots of my harder tricks were not feeling as hard as usual so I was very encouraged and made the most of the session. I broke off to speak to various people as they arrived including magical Mark who Me and Jenni then convinced to come out with us for lunch (11.30, we had got up early and were v hungry!). I was hankering for burritos so we headed out to the burrito place and found it to be closed on weekends! Very sad!
Mood improved when we found a fish and chip shop with some exciting meal deal combos listed on the window. Just a point of note, a ‘+’ in Sheffield actually means ‘Or’. I had to restrict my choice to mushy peas OR gravy OR curry sauce with my meal. Again sad times. Also strangely the server boasted when handing over the food that I had a chicken sausage rather than a pork sausage, “you won’t get them anywhere ese” I was told. This caused a lot of discussion amongst ourselves especially when I found it tasted identical to traditional fish and chip shop sausages. More questions than answers…

After lunch I sat and chatted with Brook and also Jenni’s brother and watched Mark and Callum playing 3 club gladiators. Mark retired and then Brook joined in, then I joined in and we played for a long time until we were all pretty shattered. I didn’t expect to play any gladiators at this convention but as it turned out I ended up playing more than at some conventions where there has been a tournament! Funny how things turn out.

We all sat outside and cooled off in the breeze and chatted before heading inside where the games had just started. We had missed 3 ball Simon says but saw a nice range of games and took part in a few. I royally sucked at hoop gladiators and laughed during the balance endurance which took me out. I won juggling limbo which was great fun, I normally make a simple drop early on and crash out of the running but I managed to hold my cool and keep it together and was awarded with a mini twix. To the victor the spoils!
Me and Brook did a tiny bit of one count passing between games until the gladiators started so we both joined in and played that for another hour or so…

The hall closed at 5pm for show tech running, although the other workshop rooms were open and free to use for more juggling. We elected to go out for some food. There are lots of places to get food within a short walk of the venue so we gathered up Mark and set off to a nice Indian restaurant a sort walk away which we had espied earlier. Turned out to be pretty good, although there were some unusual choices on the menu. I won the joke meal award again (chicken sausage fiasco) with my strange flaky bread served with my curry. Never mind.

We waved Mark off after our meal as he couldn’t stay for the show and we made our way back.
Lots of seating arranged in front of the stage, professional lighting and sound, pretty impressed.
While everyone was taking their seats Rachael sang us all a song whilst doing cup percussion as accompaniment, it sounded very nice and I would have liked to have heard more.
Miark sat with us and introduced us to a great variety of people who were sat around us who Miark hadn’t met before either. He was also invaluable in helping me with my notes on the show, so thank you Miark.

Ross did a good job of compering the show with lots of energy but someone needs to confiscate his joke book.
Shaun and Amanda opened the show with some nice club passing and some good club stealing all performed with smiles and little gags. It was slightly droppy which was a bit of a shame although they coped very well with the drops and performed well.
Jenny Collins performed a bicycle themed hoop routine with bicycle tyres. It was great fun, I really liked it. She broke on of my cardinal rules of performing which is that you should never perform to a Queen song as the music should never be better than your routine. HOWEVER, she did a great job and I need to rethink that rule of mine. I would have liked to have seen her performing in either full cycling attire or a Freddy Mercury eske outfit to bind the routine together, but even so it was good fun and well performed. Miark marked her down for not putting her cycle helmet back on when she cycled away from the stage, safety first!
We then had to turn in our seats to back of the room to watch Doris perform her unicycling routine but this time as a green alien! It was very entertaining and she hit all of the big tricks. It was a good ending having Ross as a Man in Black shoot her down with a ray gun. Good fun.
The interval was long and contained a really drawn out raffle (geddit?).
The second half opened with Tom Crosbie performing some Rubiks cube feats as well as performing some magic. I enjoyed his patter and presentation very much as well as the numbers trick he did, that was my favourite.
Thomas bounce performed a really nice bounce routine. I think I enjoyed it more than I did his routine from the BJC this year. Very solid and smooth skills, a pleasure to watch.
Cindy Steele performed a fantastic mix of robotic dance and contact ball manipulation. So smooth and amazing to watch. I always desperately want to see even more footwork though as I love watching the gliding across the stage along with the manipulations.
The finale act of the show was a poi juggling routine performed by Keith Marshal and Antonia. Having tried the poi juggling at Cumbria convention and seeing how hard it was I really enjoyed the routine and was very impressed. The music choice was right up my street as well and I especially enjoyed the fact that Keith sang along to most of it. Good routine!

After the show I chatted with Tomas Bounce for a long while discussing marble slabs and the perils of various venues, before collecting Jenni and piling into the car for the journey home.
Of course no convention would be complete without a necessary section of the motorway being closed forcing a long detour through Wakefield city centre…

I enjoyed SCSC much more than I thought I would. The venue was excellent, the hall was large and clean. The team seemed well organised and knew what they were doing. The games ran smoothly. The show was very good despite some last minute drop outs from the line-up.
My only real suggestion for next year would be having a ‘day only’ ticket in addition to the other ticket choices to allow for people who were unable to stay for the show. Saying that there were around 70 people through the door during the day with 100 or so turning up for the evening show.

This was a good convention, there is lots of room at this venue for even more people, you should come next time and see for yourselves.
Thank you to the organisers for putting on such a good event, I hope to see you again next year!
Cheers, Jon

(My goodness, what a long review, I hope you enjoyed it. If you did or didn’t then join the discussion. If you attended the event add you own review of the day too!)

#SCSC #conventionreview

Teapots - 2016-02-26 15:30:05 UTC #

Introducing...the Sheffield Circus Skills Convention! Set to be the best juggling convention in Sheffield this year.

Get ready for the huge eight-sided venue, variety of workshops, amazing show, games with a twist, multiple rooms, ariel rig, unicycles allowed and above all else, free tea and coffee!

Prices TBC

https://www.facebook.com/events/1678681482380029/

#SCSC