PLAY 2007
Hi my name is Josh "Felixwah" Britton and I am going to tell you about my experience from Play Festival 2007. This year was my first Play but not my first festival. I have been to a few Leeds and Tidy Weekender 10.
First off I will explain a bit about Play and what it's about for those of you who don’t already know. Play is a 4 day and 5 night festival aimed at people who are interested in performing/circus arts i.e. poi and juggling. Not just to those people who are passionate about there hobby, the festival welcomes people of all skills no matter what level you are. Even if you don’t dabble in the arts but are interested it would still be fun to just go and watch and chill with people.
The Festival is basically held in one big field in Market Drayton, Shropshire, the site is in a really really nice area and even though it is next to a main road it still feels very secluded. Another bonus is that there are shops within driving and walking distance for all your needs.
On the actual site they had three tents, the main tent, the dome and the cinema. The main tent had the stage in for the performances plus a fairly large area for everyone to play in, the dome is basically the same as the main tent except it is dome shaped and does not have a stage both tents played some good music from both live and written music. In all the tents they had thick canvas sheets down on the floor to stop it getting muddy and you had to take your shoes off before walking on it which I thought was a clever idea.
They had a nice big dog walking area and opposite to that was the fire area. During the day and a little bit into the night they had two food vans one for vegans and one for us meat eaters. The vegan bar was brilliant the food was really nice (especially the cakes and banana milkshake) and there was a bbq for the meat eaters that served all your bacon needs. There were only two stalls selling toys both had an alright selection of toys and were reasonably priced.
Now I have to mention the toilet facilities... no word of a lie they were the best toilets I have ever been to at a festival you weren’t actually scared to go to them. The guys also had urinals with a handy chalkboard and chalk for writing drunken obscenities on the wall!
The field which the organisers hired was owned by a local farmer who makes his own produce and even sells it to you in his own farm shop which was a winner. Play festival runs workshops constantly from 11.30am to 6.30pm from Thursday to Saturday each one an hour long and there were three workshops going on within each hour. This basically caters for everyone and you are spoilt for choice. On a down note sometimes two workshops clash and you cant decide which one to go to, if it was raining they always found space inside the tents to run the workshop and when it was sunny we all went outside and basked. Another point about the workshops is that the play organisers do not hire people to run the workshops they depend on the people who are attending to volunteer to run one (this is all pre-arranged prior to the festival starting). I think this year they had trouble actually fitting in all the workshops as there were so many. There is also a good diversity between the workshops for example I ran one on crossers and straightjackets for poi,which is advanced and others ran contact staff for beginners.As well as workshops for skills there are fun ones like the hugging workshop and origami so if your not chilling there is always something to do.
On the Wednesday night they had an impromptu renegade night (meaning anyone can get up on stage and do there thang) which was really enjoyable. On the Friday night they had some performances from the ninjas, burnt toast, MCP, antti, fenfire all of which were amazing and on Saturday night chimaira performed I didn’t watch it as I was bezzed out (slap me later) but I was told it was amazing and after chimaira they had the proper renegade.
Now I’m going to go onto mine and my friend’s personal experiences from the festival from getting there to going home, (well what I remember anyway). Ok so I left my home town at 11.30 in the morning on the 25th July carrying a stupid amount of stuff with me I thought in my head the night before that it’s better to be over prepared that not, how wrong I was. So as well as all your usual camping equipment you have all your toys including fire equipment and that means paraffin. So all in all I had an 80L camping bag with tent and sleeping stuff attached to the side, a rather large hold all, plastic carrier bag and then a large wheelie case plus my staff. So three trains, one bus, some very tired shoulders and four hours later my four friends and I arrived at Play! We got our wrist bands and proceeded to find the closest camping spot which was like 20 meters away. After setting up our tents and sorting all our stuff out I think we spent the rest of the day taking in the atmosphere having a mooch around the site checking the workshop timetable and chilling with everyone, then later watching the renegade.
Thursday morning the first time I had stayed in bed past 9.30 for a few months n was a great feeling, I think the sky was overcast so we weren’t hopeful of good weather but even if it did rain I don’t think it would dampen everyone’s spirit. Anyway after eating a nutritious breakfast of beans and noodles I went to my first workshop which was a contact staff for beginners run by flameboy. He was a mint teacher breaking the moves down and helping you individually. In the afternoon I ran my own workshop with the help of fellow spinners Timmi, Spart and Irish and I was quite surprised to how many actually turned up, but it was my first run workshop and was a good experience being able to teach to other people. Straight after my workshop me and my friend went to go to the shop following the instructions of “it’s in that direction”. Just as we were about to set off the rain came so being the prepared people we were we whacked on our waterproofs and preceded on our mini mission. Now what was meant to be a half hour round trip took us the best part of a hour and half mainly due to the fact we took a wrong turn and nearly ended up on the motorway towards Newcastle. Returning back slightly soggy we went to the last workshop of the day. This was run by Nick Woolsey of playpoi, I have to say that Nick is a really nice guy who takes the time to appreciate everyone’s styles and the guy has some seriously interesting concepts and thoughts about poi it was beyond me but he ran a very interesting workshop on bending space and time with poi needless to say my head hurt after coming out of that one. As the rain subsided and the sun started to set over the field creating lovely silhouettes on all the tents I sat down and appreciated the scenery for a while, and as it got darker you could see glow equipment starting to be lit and as it got darker more people joined and from the distance it looked amazing. Also that night we decided to do some fire, Not many people were up there and the safety officer was in a more than questionable state but I found that rather ironic and quite frankly hilarious. But the ground was good and we had a good fire spin for about an hour before returning to watch the play hop amateur performance of the year. There were some amazing acts but kudos for ozzy Chris who traveled all the way from oz and did double contact staff blindfolded whilst wearing pajama’s now that’s entertainment! Then after that we went socializing until we fell asleep.
Woke up a little tired on Friday but was far to excited about the day to come mainly because I knew what I had to expect with the workshops, there were going to be performances and three more of my good friends were coming down. That day I went to some really good workshops one especially on hybrids but I cant for the life of me remember the guys name who ran it but he was a very good teacher and he was French so whoever you are nice one bud. The weather was really nice and it was well hot so lots of people were out on the communal field chilling and playing. I remember I felt very content watching so many people who were so talented at what they did coming together in one place or I might have gotten over excited and had to sit down I cant remember. That day I also went to another contact staff workshop and another one of Nick Woolsley’s mad ones. As we witnessed yet another beautiful sunset everyone waiting in anticipation for the fire shows to begin! I cannot remember the order they came in but I was amazed by every one. The ones that stuck it my mind were antti who did an amazing contact staff routine, Meg did another amazing contact routine and as well as doing normal staff she did had staff and the whole thing was on fire she didn’t manage it for long as she only had a flimsy pair of gloves on but it was impressive non the less. Burnt toast did a really nice staff routine with three people and Fenfires choreography was insane but I had to cut short watching them as my friends had just arrived and had to meet them. That night we showed my mates the site and went to watch some people doing some fire performing I didn’t participate as I was happy just to watch is was mesmerizing watching them with the music playing in the background. We stayed up till the early hours having a laugh with everyone which was wicked.
By Saturday morning I was feeling a bit rough and starting to feel the aches from playing especially in my shoulders from doing staff but it was nothing a good bacon buttie and a stretch couldn’t sort out. Saturday was more chilled for me I was happy to watch people playing and having a bit of a spin myself but by this point I don’t think head could mentally take in anymore learning it actually hurt. A good part of Saturday was the play games these were fun to watch they had games like fishtail gladiators and 5 ball endurance and the winners even got prizes!! The sun was still strong and I could feel myself burning but I wasn’t really fussed as I was having so much fun. They then had performances in the main tent we watched it half way through but it was so packed and was a bit squished and my legs and bum hurt to much to carry on sitting but the performances I did watch were wicked Durbs and Meg were wicked and Steve the ballonatic was hilarious. By 10pm that night I was exhausted it had started to rain quite heavily I tried so hard to keep myself awake but I couldn’t and fell asleep by 10.30. The next day I kicked myself so hard for missing the chimaera show and the hard core partying that followed but I was filled in on the details and was quite happy.
On Sunday morning I went down on to site to grab a coffee and retrieve the shoe I had lost in the hordes of crowds at the previous evening’s performance in the main tent. Even though everyone was leaving they were all still happy so that day was spent packing our stuff up at a leisurely pace and chillaxing saying goodbye to all the lovely people we had met. I was so happy the sun had decided to shine as packing up all your stuff in the rain isn’t a pleasant experience. I was sad to think it was all over but at the same time I was happy that I was involved in such a wicked event. So you will be happy to know that I blagged a lift off my mum (bless the mums) to come and pick me and my friend up, this was such a relief because to be honest I could not be bothered to get the train carrying all my equipment and bags with sun burnt shoulders this wasn’t appealing to me at all.
So 45minutes later I was home with my family who I had missed so much, a little bit smelly, sun burnt and sore but not to worse for wear. So now I was back to reality work and bills etc but I really didn’t mind I can honestly say that it was the best festival I have ever been to. Everyone has a mutual respect for each other and the site on which we stayed. The festival was small enough for it to be personal and big enough to have a good time. So I would like to thank all the organizers for making it possible and everyone who went that made it really enjoyable experience for me. So now, whilst I’m at work typing this, all I can think is... ROLL ON 2008 :)
