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Promotional Considerations - Anyone Need A Devil Stick?

The raffle was full of lovely prizes donated by generous, community-conscious vendors, including the IJA, which sent a nice package of goodies, and Ben Schoenberg's Serious Juggling, which sent the new illuminated batterypowered hackysacs (threepack for juggling). The raffle was conspicuously lacking in the traditional silicone, much to the disappointment of everyone present; sadly, raffle ticket sales reflected this. The paternal Todd Smith did donate a couple of glossy rattling devil sticks and two sets of rings, but the grand prize was clearly the newest product on the juggling market, a sweet set of the new Renegade 85 millimeter club.

Hot New Property

Renegade seems to rely on pharmacology and a spirit of rebellious anarchy against the status quo for inspiration in prop design. This has resulted in such innovative successes as the Renegade Club, Diabolo, the Fat Ring, and the Portable Rolling Globe, and failures like the Fathead Club (reputedly used by the Gandini Project, as Radical Fish have become commonplace). Now Renegade has THE state-of-the-art shop in juggledom, as design in catalogue and prop production is computerized.

Because a CAD design drives automated machining, Renegade clubs are available in proportional sizes - the regular club, which is 95 mm at the body's widest, a 10% upscale in all dimensions at 105 mm, and the sweetest club I have ever juggled, the 85 mm, which, if it didn't have that Renegade knob (and all the flaws associated with it), would be gosh darned near perfect. The Renegade numbers club which Anthony Gatto made famous is 75 mm, a 20% scaled-down model of the standard Renegade club.

We all wanted to win the Renegade Clubs. But Gary Shapiro showed up only to win them, and so he did, keeping to tradition by buying the raffle and collecting the clubs. I passed 'em over, tomahawks. Henry Radcliff took time off from zooming about on his unicycle to collect a lot of raffle prizes. Henry didn't buy many tickets, but he was selective, only buying winners.

Everyone who donated a prize to the raffle was issued a ticket as well, and Tom Renegade won a complete set of Karamazov Brothers posters, kindly donated with other stuff by Tim Furst at Vaudville Central. Chasley sent a bunch of stuff, as well as amusing e-mail. Morty didn't win the scarves he wanted, but he did win the Penguini.

Infinite Illusions bowed to some persuasive nagging and sent us a devil stick. Dube' once again sent a big box of goodies, including clubs, rings, devil sticks, t-shirts, and lots of catalogues. I had my heart set on the certificate for an autographed Donald Grant diabolo book, which I didn't win, but I traded for it. I await something nice from Scotland.

Tricks casually on display in the gym include a three ball stack of spinning balls (Sean Blue), and three high people (Mortel). Hansen as the base, Fritz Grobe as middleman and Erin DeSoto). Kathy Glynn was doing two diabolos, and Peter Kaseman went her one better doing three, as well as 5-club back crosses (NOT at the same time!). Mark Hayward's yo-yo interpretation of Fritz Grobes diabolo routine was highly amusing. Morty did an impersonation of Boppo juggling six and seven balls as Mark Hayward called out siteswaps; I think he was reading them off of his siteswap necklaces.

The five ball world record was almost broken Saturday night by Canadian legend Steve Holditch, immortalized on the Burlington video coming in second in the five ball endurance. Perhaps he dropped in Bloomington after 33 minutes and 58 seconds because he had his shirt on... At least seven people in attendance could do five ball Mill's Mess, but Steve cruised it solid.

Throughout the weekend artgod and fest-sweetie Mark Hayward traded innumerable dumb little tricks with Morty. Erin DeSoto was audibly present with giggles and squeals of delight. There was no shortage of laps for her to sit on, and she didn't have to walk anywhere, thanks to all of the piggy-backs, and her propensity for tumbling runs. Impromptu rounds of Simon Sez broke out in the gym at night.

The Annual Last-Ever Euro-Style Bloomington JuggleFest provided a plethora of raffle prizes, free use of gym and gymnastics studio, 24 hour gym access for nocturnal juggling, crash space for everyone, spectacular jugglers on hand showing off and giving instruction, a well-marked map including all relevant locations (parking, restaurants, groceries and 24 hour food places), and the attendance of a lot of people who came to have a good time hanging out in Bloomington. Which we did. The legacy will live on!