Katie invited me to Camvention while I was on traffic duty at BJC 2013.

Orinoco - 2013-10-27 22:15:41 UTC #

Katie invited me to Camvention while I was on traffic duty at BJC 2013. She asked me very nicely so I had to go.

I left home at 6:30am expecting bad weather on the way up but was pleasantly surprised. Even with a minor deviation from my planned route that took me to a crematorium I still managed to arrive not long after 9:00am.

There wasn't much sign of a convention at this time so I asked a passer by who asked with surprise, "A juggling convention? In Cambridge? Can the public come & watch? I've been taking my kids up to Circus Space in London & was going to jack it in after Christmas because it's too expensive." I heartily invited her to come along & told her that there are two clubs in Cambridge so hopefully one or t'other at least will see her & family.

I think I was the first punter through the door where I found several Cambridgians busy organising the reg desk. On the opposite side of the hall Oddballs were laying out their wares. The hall was four badminton courts worth of space with good light. A short walk away in another building a brasserie was selling drinks & snacks for most of the day.

For some reason the convention was a slow starter so I did most of my juggling in the first hour before everyone else turned up. By 11am the hall was pretty packed out. I stretched & warmed up to do some handstands four times but never managed to put my hands on the floor because there was always someone to say hi to. Curse you friends.

Constricted by space Peter was pulling off some exceptional runs of his dual balance. Lewis Kennedy had a go & did pretty well too I thought.

Bungle showed me a nice trick where he dropped a single club flat but with a slight angle to the floor so that it bounces to stand vertically where he trapped it to the floor with his foot cross behind one leg.

Mïark was pleased more than one should reasonably expect when I passed on a couple of cow photos from BJC 2000.

I enjoyed watching but kept a safe distance away from a chap leaping onto his staff & holding a balance similar to the flag in acrobalance. The staff stands on the floor at an angle being pushed away by one foot near the bottom & pulled back by the other foot hooked around the top.

In the afternoon I went to the gladiators workshop presented by Brook & Dave Leahy which was very energetic & lots of fun. We worked through a number of exercises highlighting particular attacks & blocks in a structured way. I didn't have a partner so Dave kindly agreed to let me practice on him which was a very enjoyable challenge. In between bouts I asked lots of questions about his technique too which was very useful.

The games were a bit difficult in the echoey hall without amplified sound but the hosts did well & shouted themselves hoarse to get instructions across. I broke in my new Uglies that I had just bought from Oddballs in the 5 ball endurance & dropped shortly after the standing back up again stage.

The 3 club high jump was fun to watch (although at first I thought the Cambridge crowd must be *really* good at limbo if they are starting that low) & included both spectacular fails & successes.

The best game of the lot was the sponge game where everyone had to balance a washing up sponge on their head & had to blow the sponges off each other. SJC Jack did very well having both a very powerful puff (complete with very manly chest expanding build up) & a defensive quiff. I can't believe that no one had a fan with them?

After the regular games there was a gladiator tournament with 16 competitors. We started off in 4 groups within which everyone played everyone in a best out of 3. I was in a group with Lewis Kennedy who is simply hilarious & so much fun. In our position our group also had to battle with some hula hoopers who were far more successful at taking us out than we were. In the quarter finals I played Ben in a first to 5 points, we certainly covered a lot of distance before I made it through. I was completely trounced in the semi finals by Brook, I was disappointed because I made some good strikes but just couldn't hold onto my clubs afterwards. Not that it would have made any difference to who went through though. The final was a fitting match between the workshop leaders Brook & Dave. Interestingly the "don't throw too high" advice from the workshop went out the window in the heat of competition. It was an epic battle which Dave finally won 6-4.

After the competition & a brief rest we played some more games just for fun where Jon Peat amusingly took the piss out of my footwork. With only four of us left we also had a few games of group combat which included a fantastic moment when my team mate Jimmy decided to take me out at the most inopportune moment for no apparent reason.

By this time in the day people were starting to make their way into town for the show, although sadly a lot of people went home early which is a great shame because it was a really good show. I wonder if that was down to offering a convention only ticket for only a little over half the price of the convention plus show. I've not been to many one dayers so I don't know if this is a common pricing practice but it is the first time I've come across it. From a punter's perspective it's excellent to have a good value for money choice, but would more people have stayed if that choice wasn't there?

Both Glyn & I had left our microscopes at home so the map of how to get to the show venue printed on the welcome leaflet was of little use to us, but Glyn had a sat nav so I, along with Walt from the Netherlands who hitched a lift, followed him into town. Glyn also managed to find us two easy & free parking spaces. Well done that man. We grabbed a bite to eat in Subway before making our way to the show venue, Centre at St Pauls.

Hopefully someone will be able to help me out with the name of the compère who I have shamefully forgotten. He was enjoyably crotchety & ridiculed the acts as much as he built them up which was fun.

Opening the show was Roy Clarke & his trials uni, wheelwalking a slalom between some cones & performing various trials jumps & tricks. I enjoyed the bop it themed section of the routine where his assistants held signs with the various bop it instructions which Roy enacted on his uni, although I primarily enjoyed it for the cheeky adjusted signs when he fell.

Next up was Abi Cooper with a nicely put together hoop love story. It wasn't the most spectacular act but her character really shone & she held the whole routine together very well for a very enjoyable act.

The up & coming Ronnie Slowinski wowed everyone with his spectacular diabolos again including complex genocide sequences with one, suicide combinations with two, a lovely reverse cascade with three & some nice runs of four even if he only came agonisingly close to pulling off a three diabolo sun under the fourth thrown high.

Chazz Parham retaliated against his derogatory introduction with his very slick contact staff skills. Another favourite of mine were Alan & Sadie with their side by side ball passing. I've seen them perform half a dozen times now. I still like them.

New for me was Keith Marshall with some very highly skilled spinning of one to four poi. I thought the section where he created loops by holding both ends of one poi then swang another with the handle caught in the loop all the while switching poi & creating new loops was fantastic & something I had never seen before.

Dave Stone parodied some of the more arty acts that have come out of circus schools. A cheap shot maybe but it's funny because it's true. I chuckled a lot.

Luke Hallgarten was pleasingly the best I have ever seen him & fortunately managed to avoid the stereotypical arty circus school product. Lots of very slick 3 to 5 club manipulation & juggling with a winning smile that beats pointing your toes in angst every time.

Closing the show was Shaun Clarke who unfortunately was for me the only low point in the entire show. The devilstick juggling was slow & shaky. The hat juggling was underwhelming too. Catching the hat in a balance on a cigar was impressive but the only trick I liked. Things picked up a bit with the cigar boxes but I have been spoilt by the output from Japan. Sadly the material was just a bit too old hat. In a show where Ronnie, Chazz & Keith in particular were massively pushing the boundaries of what is possible Shaun's act fell flat.

It was still a great show though. Glyn & I lamented the lack of material to snark about. It was very smoothly run at a good pace, the variety was excellent, there were lots of things to laugh about & there was a lot of genuinely spectacular stuff to go ooh & ahh at. It was an excellent finish to the day.

So all in all well done to main organisers Katie, Ceri-Anne, Brook & Roy. Thank you very much for a great day.

#camvention2013