This article was posted to rec.juggling by George Strain.

Groundhog Day Jugglers Festival 1992

 

Groundhog Day has come and gone here in Atlanta and with it the highlight of juggling in this town.  The 14th Annual Groundhog Day Festival was more fun than you could shake a stick at while juggling two balls in the other hand.  About 150 jugglers registered for the festival this year some from as far away as Texas, New York, and Colorado.  Others came from about 1/2 mile away (me!). 

 

Friday started off well with about 75 jugglers registering by the time we shut down open juggling at 10.  After a few hours of open juggling on Saturday with the gym filling up to about the point of maximum practice space saturation, the competitions started!  The field wasn't quite as deep this year as in some recent years but the winners were all well deserving.  This years winners were, in no particular order:  John Nations, Pat McGuire, and Jay Gilligan.

 

Phil winners Pat McGuire, Jay Gilligan and John Nations

(photo by Bill Giduz)

 

Pat did a lot of his Juniors act from St. Louis with a number of new tricks spicing things up, although he suffered from a few more drops than he would have liked.  Jay did some very nice ball work with up to 7 balls and than a hot club routine with up to 5 clubs.  He finished with a great sequence in which he first did 4 clubs with one balanced on his head, then stopped, dropped the club from his head to his foot and kicked up into 5.  He then pulled out his short unicycle and mounted it holding the 5 clubs.  I expected him to just do 5 clubs while idling, but NO, he pulled the unicycle out from underneath him so he was idling with his body on one side of the unicycle and THEN he did the 5 clubs!  That wasn't the last we were to see of Jay's unicycling.  Regrettably I left before seeing John Nations act.  Other competitors included Atlanta's own Will Howard, the ever present Captain Slow, Juno an act that I missed but hear featured devil sticking, and Ben Schoenberg who did some nice work with mixing beanbags and tennis rackets using the rackets as his hands. 

 

The weather was wonderful in town for the weekend so a number of people took time to move outside and practice.  Combat broke out in one corner of the floor.  Later in the evening while I was participating in a game of field ball, who should appear in the corner of the gym to break up the game but Mark Nizer!  Mark had a gig in Alabama earlier in the day and had driven over to make it to the convention. Thanks Mark! Well a couple of hours later the gym closed and people moved across the street to the Saturday Night Party.  A band was playing downstairs with drinks available.  A number of jugglers appeared to prefer continuing to practice upstairs at our regular club meeting place though!  At midnight things moved elsewhere in the building to the Horizon Theater where the Midnight Cabaret was scheduled. 

 

MC Dave Altman got off to a shaky start but things started moving well after the acts got started.  Local juggler Gumby did some neat tricks with soap bubbles, finishing up with making beach ball size bubbles.  Pat McGuire did a clean 3 ball routine.  Atlanta diablomeister Rick Purtee did a very nice diablo routine.  St. Louis teams runners-up :) Clockwork demonstrated some of their "precision entertainment" by locking their props in somebody's trunk.  So they had make do with a club passing routine of "tricks we can't do."  Roger French did his world famous semaphore routine with miniature signaling flags. 

 

Sunday got started late with the gym not opening until noon.  The public show started at 2 and hopefully even had a few people from the public in attendance.  The show featured Atlantan Steve Howard doing diablo, Pat McGuire doing a 7 ball lift bounce on a rola-bola with a finish he couldn't quite get, Jay Gilligan showing that he is an excellent unicyclist as well as juggler with a technical unicycle routine including a wide selection of odd wheel walks both forwards and backwards, Clockwork doing a delightful comedy routine which I will detail further in a minute, and John Nations doing with obvious ease ball and club tricks that make me green with envy. 

 

Clockwork's comedy routine was wonderful!  Rick donned a silly pseudo-artist hat and stated he had attended art school and was going to blend his finely honed artistic skills with juggling since he had bothered to learn both.  Picking 3 volunteers from the audience one became a model, another an easel, and the third a pen holder.  Jack and Rick then ran 3 clubs in a shower while Rick precisely created his piece de resistance.  Well, so it looked like something a 3 year old would do but you try drawing while running 3 clubs!  The routine was much much funnier than this write up but I hope you get some idea of it. 

 

After the public show and a five ball endurance contest which MIT defector turned Atlanta juggler George Strain somehow lucked into winning, people started exchanging farewells as things drew to a close and the gym closed at 5. 

 

Everybody come again next year!  I apologize for all the things I forgot to mention and all the people I forgot to name.

1992

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