Berkeley Juggling and Unicycle Festival

General
1

The Berkeley Juggling Cooperative is doing it again! We are planning our third Berkeley Juggling and Unicycling Festival, scheduled for Friday October 5th to Sunday October 7th, 2007. Last year we had roughly 500 jugglers, unicyclists, performers and artists attend the festival and we hope to have as great a festival this year as last year.

Unlike most juggling festivals, ours has a whole lot of pure unicycle content, including MUni rides, a big-wheel party ride down to the Berkeley Marina, unicycle basketball and lots of other unicycle games and workshops. This year we’re also going to try to find a place to do fire juggling and flaming puck hockey after the public show on Saturday night.

The show was great last year, and included performances by Kaori Matsuzawa, Ryan Woessner, Irene Genelin, and Jeff Groves; we expect we’ll have another outstanding lineup this year.

The festival will be held at the same venue as last year (King Middle School, 1781 Rose Avenue, Berkeley, CA). The schedule will be:

Friday 10/5: Open gym 5pm to 10pm
Saturday 10/5: Open gym 9am to 10pm, big wheel ride, MUni ride, fire juggling
Sunday 10/5: Open gym 9am to 5pm, MUni ride, unicycle games

The festival is open to the public, and free except for the Saturday night show. We hope to see you there!

For more details visit our webpage which will have all the up to date information: http://www.berkeleyjuggling.org/festival

Note that the festival is the weekend before California MUni Weekend, which will be in Santa Cruz, just over an hour’s drive away. Since we expect there will be a lot of unicyclists in town for these events, we’re also planning to have a number of informal rides and activities during the week. Let me know if you’re coming in from out of town and need a place to crash.

2

Hi Tholub

I’m very interested in the muni rides as your event is just a week before the California Muni Weekend. Is it possible to ask in advance about a “rough schedule” of your planned informal muni-rides so I can plan staying at relatives’ homes nearby? I’ll be coming from Los Angeles & would like to make the most of these two wonderful festivals !

Thanks a lot !
Eric

3

The three biggest uni events planned for the festival weekend are the big wheel party ride, My First MUni ride (an easy MUni ride for beginners), and a hard-core MUni ride. We haven’t started scheduling yet, but probably what I’ll aim for is to have the big wheel ride Saturday morning, the My First MUni ride Saturday afternoon, and the hard-core MUni ride Sunday morning.

Last year there was also an unofficial big wheel MUni ride on the following Monday for anyone still in town, and someone might organize something like that again. There will be unicycle basketball on the following Tuesday, and there’s talk of disc golf on the following Thursday (the day before CA MUni Weekend).

4

That’s great…a beginner’s muni & a hard-core next morning. I’m sure other newbies like me would be able to fit in as well as strive for more improvements. You guys are really doing a whole lot to make this wonderful sport more enjoyable !!..I just hope others would come up w/ more local events so we have a year-round choice & not be forced to rely on the bigger but too far national events. Thanks Tholub!!

5

last year their was a muni ride right before the show. (pretty sure) is that the hard or easy ride level?
i will probably make at least the harder ride. maybe all 3 days.

6

We did the harder ride on Saturday last year, due to some other scheduling issues. This year, the easy ride will probably be on Saturday, the hard ride on Sunday.

As with most MUni rides, the easy ride also has some places for stronger riders to get off the main trail and play around for a bit, so if you can only make Saturday you can still have some fun.

7

We now have details up on the Schedule and Workshops page. I would particularly recommend:

Friday
7pm - Unicycle basketball demo game (in gym) (Berkeley unicyclists)

Saturday
10am - Big-wheel rolling party to the Berkeley Marina
7:30pm - Variety Show, King School auditorium
[There is rumored to be another, completely unofficial activity after the show, involving hockey sticks and kerosene.]

Sunday
10am Mountain unicycle (MUni) ride, Joaquin Miller Park (carpool/shuttle)

Hope to see a bunch of you there!

8

i am their. i am sooo going to be their for that.
i would assume that it is at the same place as last time.

9

Yes, the festival is hosted at King Middle School in north Berkeley, same as last year. (1781 Rose Street).

See you next week!

10

Its not going to be the same muni ride as last time right? That was really fun and I wouldnt mind doing it again but I was just wondering.

11

Both MUni rides will be in the same locations as last year, and will be on some but not all of the same trails. The Joaquin Miller MUni ride will include a trail we discovered this year (Castle Park Trail) which has two super-gnarly log bar sections, along with last year’s Chaparral Trail.

12

Sweet. I can’t wait!!!

Tom – I may drive my truck up and toss some “trials stuff” in the back to play on. Hopefully that is okay.

–corbin

13

That would be awesome. You could even do a workshop if you’re so inclined. The amphitheater area outside the gym is kind of a natural place to add some trials toys.

14

Reminder: The festival starts today! We had a warm-up uni basketball game last night with some of the folks who are in from out of town, and it was totally intense; the games tonight in the gym should be fun. The weather looks perfect for all the MUni and big wheel rides over the weekend. Come and join us, it should be a blast!

15

is the big wheel ride on saturday or sunday?

16

http://www.berkeleyjuggling.org/festival/workshops.php

Saturday.

–corbin

17

The festival was a TON of fun. A big thanks out to Tom for doing a lot of the uni organization.

corbin

18

Thanks creeper Tom!!

19

Yes it was a blast! Thanks to Tom and all the other volunteers who made it happen. Here are some photos and videos of the unicycling stuff we participated in: http://nhoover.smugmug.com/gallery/3610523

—Nathan

20

I thoroughly enjoyed myself even though I had to skip Sunday.

The thing I hate about these types of events is that I always feel a bit disoriented on the days after because there’s no scheduled ride. :wink: