BY JON POPPELE

The 1996 edition of the MONDO juggle­fest in Minnesota's Twin Cities was by all accounts a resounding success! More than 300 registrants showed up Saturday, which helped sell out both t-shirts and the show. With that in mind, the organizers are looking forward to moving to a larger space for next year to accommodate future MONDO growth.

Open juggling began the fest on Friday night, with almost 100 people showing up to get the early drop in. Saturday featured open juggling, workshops, games and more open juggling from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Saturday featured Combat games with more than 100 players, including 1991 and 1995 IJA champions Mick Lunzer and Jon Poppele. Some dedicated players stayed in the ring for more than four hours of continuous play! The contests saw jugglers flash eight and nine balls and six clubs, and several teams qualified nine and flashed 10 clubs. In the festival's first club gathering contest, Leif Pettersen reeled in 29 clubs to take the prize.

It was great to have three major vendors in the gym on Saturday-Serious Juggling from Portland, Ore.; Air Traffic from the Twin cities area; and Pegasus Games from Madison.

Sunday featured a couple of hours of open juggling followed by a matinee edition of the MONDO Spectacular Variety Show. This year's show packed the St. Paul Student Center theatre, which meant that a few out-of­town guests were unable to get tickets. We apologize to them and promise to have a bigger theatre next year.

The show featured locals Leif Pettersen, Steve Birmingham, Gary Vice (twice!), the Starlights (tap dance troup, ages 10 and 11, and really good), Three Guys Named Ed, Twin Cities Unicycle Performance Group, new arival Ochen Kaylan, yo­yo guru Mark Hayward from Madison, Ben Schoenberg from Portland and our headliner, Minnesota-grown Tuey Wilson.

In lieu of describing the acts in detail, let's just say that they all rocked! Thanks also to Erin Kasper, the best stage manager in the business, for keeping everything running

so smoothly backstage.

If you didn't make it this year, you are missing out on one of the best regional festivals around, so mark your calendars for February 7,8 &: 9, 1997, and plan to attend MONDO Vlll!