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Leeds Juggling Convention 2016
Leeds Convention 2016
Having spent the night at Jenni & Jon's, I got up on the morning of Leeds Convention at 8.45 to realise I was the only one awake - slightly concerning given Jon was meant to be helping out. After a shower, breakfast and some poor excuse about alarms not going off, we were on our way and arrived at the venue around 10.30.
The new entrance was easy to reach with clear signposts, and the familiar hall was set up and in action. The hall was a little chilly for most of the day, and it took a good hour of juggling to start to feel comfortable. Not much can be done with a hall that size, just some honest feedback.
After my warm up juggling (no pun intended), I found myself in back to back workshops from 12 'til 3. First up was a balloon swallow workshop from Lawrence Turner. I was disappointed to find myself the only attendee, especially as Lawrence had prepared a great workshop and really taught the trick well. More people should learn unusual tricks like this, especially as it puts a lot of focus on the performance with the method being relatively straightforward.
Next, it was my turn to run my 5 balls workshop. A half dozen or so keen jugglers stuck with me for the whole hour, learning the building blocks that lead to the 5 ball cascade. Always a fun one to run, and thanks to all that attended - I hope it helped.
Then I headed to the tea room for a magic workshop. Unfortunately, the workshop leader didn't make it to the convention, but the few of us there managed a bit of an impromptu skill share. I taught a couple of my favourite coin and card tricks which I hope people could take away and use.
After a little more juggling in the hall (mainly 5 clubs as I'm amazed how well that's kept up despite not getting out to juggle so much this year) it was time for the games. Ross kept things rolling, though occasionally was difficult to hear due to the acoustics of the hall. I only took part in the 5 ball endurance, was pretty happy to come 5th after collecting when they started lots of kneeling challenges (I struggle to get back up again!).
With just the show to come, a group of Loughborough Fever people and myself took the chance to head for dinner - and where else could we go but the Wetherby Whaler? Superb fish and chips, excellent décor (loads of chandeliers) and a brilliant piano man playing some of the best showtunes and old time hits - just my kind of entertainment!
With half an hour to go before the show, we headed back and took our seats. The seating was nicely laid out this year, with angled sections at either side which were more prominent than previous years. Reminded me of the west end theatres I often visit - was good to see and I think gave better sight lines to more people.
The show kicked off with Alistair Leitch taking to the stage as compère (though I'm not sure how many others knew his name as he didn't introduce himself at the top of the show - a pet peeve of mine). Throughout the show though, Alistair did his job effectively and kept things rolling at a good pace. Whilst it might have been nice to see a little more from him in the segments between acts, for what I understand was his first go at compering I think he did a solid job.
First half featured three acts and felt a little short (as a rule, it's often better to make the first half slightly longer than the second). Kathrin Pancakes opened with her latest ring juggling piece - nice mixture of artistic choreography and technically demanding juggling skill. She was a little too droppy for my liking, especially in the 5 and 6 ring segments, I've seen her do better. Graham Milligan came next with a slick, stylish and suitably technical diabolo act - I loved it. To close the first half, we were introduced to "The Sorceror's Apprentice" and were treated with an excellent piece of theatricality. Tiff & Mike worked wonderfully together to produce a clear plot for some very demanding ball spinning tricks. My only slight bug bear was the long break in the middle of the routine whilst Mike attempted the 3 ball stack. Pausing the music and breaking character to speak to the audience was a shame as up until that point I was hooked. I appreciate he needed to hit the trick for the storyline, I think it just took a few too many attempts. Still, a thoroughly enjoyable act overall!
After the interval and raffle, we were treated to another four acts. Opening was John & Steph with a glow partner poi routine. Though nothing new or innovative, it looked professional and was very slick with top marks for good looking costumes. Brooke & Becky followed with what many considered to be the highlight of the show. A highly technical club passing routine with great tricks, alongside their characters as amusing robots which they never broke away from. Great choice of background audio too with voiceover that matched the actions of the routine - I loved this act. Steve the Magic Ball Man was up next and I thought was excellent. A really great contact juggler with a nice repertoire and well thought out routine - look forward to seeing him again in the future. Finally, to close the show was Laura Ivers, flown over from Ireland, with her hoop routine. Some great technical skill and a mixture of techniques used to create an engaging act, thoroughly enjoyable and I hope to see her perform again in future.
After wrapping up at the convention site, we all headed back to Jenni & Jon's for the night.When it got to midnight and six of us were playing with tape measures to roll a Malteser from the stairs, across the room and into my open mouth we knew it was time for bed!
All in all, I had a great day. Thank you so much to everyone that made it happen, and please be assured any comments or criticisms in this review are far outweighed by the joy this event brings me every year. Thank you!
I also went to this convention and would like to add a few thoughts about it.
Myself and my son Peter took the 3 hour car journey to Leeds and this made me appreciate the people who travel that sort of distance to go to the Milton Keynes Convention. It was fairly good weather on the way up but got worse as we approached Leeds itself and by the time we had reached the convention site it was fairly grim. Not actually raining when we got out of the car but looking like it would do and fairly cold. That the venue is a large sports hall meant it took quite a while to feel warm and I had to do some juggling to achieve this. Something I generally avoid at conventions.
Most of the workshops were beginners this or that which didn't really appeal, so the only one I attended was Jon Peat talking about performing. Jon approaches acts in a slightly different way to myself (his acts tend to be set to particular music, mine tend to have no music or not choreographed to the music) so I knew that his way of looking at performing would be different and therefore interesting. It was very well prepared, with Jon having his laptop set up so that he could refer to his notes and also play music to make a point when needed. Many of those attending were performers who wanted to chip in but Jon was able to keep to his path without over running more than a few minutes. I did think it was a shame that there wasn't a room other than the tea room (which also doubled as a board games room) which could be used for discussion type workshops like this (and also similarly non-energetic workshops e.g. magic, balloons etc.).
After the workshop I met back up with my son and after lunch we decided to play games. We ended up playing OK, Jaipur, Star Fluxx (which I had to buy from Lazy Juggler in order to play this with someone who wanted to try new games suitable for a 10 year old) and Guillotine. They were all fun in different ways, I didn't win any of them.
We then collected our things from the hall and went for food, which turned out to be from Subway as I gave my son the choice.
We were in the hall for the show at 7pm and then had to wait for 30 mins for it to start. This delay seemed unnecessary.
The first half Mark describes very well in his review above. I would add that the compere was also very rushed when he announced the names of the acts so that half the time I didn't know their name and therefore am glad that Mark did such a great job of listing them. With the Tiff and Mike act, that the whole routine hinged around one trick which took about 10 minutes and 30 attempts or so to land made it so much less pleasing than it would have been if that one trick could have been landed quickly.
There were a few things that I would add to the second half acts. Mostly these thoughts came because of the workshop earlier in the day.
John and Steph, partner poi: Nice slick act, used glow poi with John having blue and Steph using pink. I did wonder if the choice of colours was something other than an aesthetic one.
Brook and Becky, club passing: This was my show highlight. Good technical skills but the presentation and humour were what made it. That they kept the characters all the way through the act and even to the final curtain showed how much they had thought about the act.
Steve the Magic Ball Man, contact juggling: This act was technically very competent but left me flat. Contact juggling is meant to mesmerise and amaze. I spent half of Steves act thinking about how he moved his feet and how difficult some of his tricks were.
Laura, hula hoop: Another strong technical act, the one hoop stuff was particularly good. For me I'd like Laura to have had a more defined character in her act. In general she looked very solemn as she performed (enhanced by her wearing an all black outfit). However when something went wrong you good see that there was a warm personality underneath and perhaps that could have come more to the fore.
My only other comment was that they ran out of doughnuts so I had to buy some myself, not a tragedy.
Nigel
Leeds Juggling Convention
Managed to get a lift to harbour from a friendly ex-policeman with a most curious sense of humour. The sea was not too choppy and I then walked to railway station, station master was most apologetic about price of train tickets, but I assured him I didn't take it personally and certainly didn't blame him. The ticket collector on train was less chatty, and had to google from her phone to answer some of my train questions, the Traincare Presentation Team were no more knowledgeable but much friendlier. There was space for 3 bicycles and two wheelchairs, but I had neglected to bring either of these with me. I was amused that all the lasses getting on at Paisley had paisley-patterned leggings, perhaps such legwear is obligatory in that town?
Glasgow's winter lights made the streets appear a little sparkly, rather than just cold and wet; though they were let down by the ones in George Square which sadly looked a little christmassy. It was reassuring to see the Wellington statue in Glasgow wears a traffic cone just like the one in Edinburgh. The recycling bins in Glasgow Queens Street were optimistically labelled as half-full, though confusingly the milepost indicated that Platform 2 was 14 miles from Glasgow. There were a pair of lasses from Tracsis conducting a survey on the train but the questions left little room for interesting answers and the train tannoy regularly reminded of the mantra “See it, Say it, Sorted”
I had twenty minutes to spare between trains at Edinburgh so decided to do a bit of sightseeing, up Princess Street and back down Royal Mile. The 7' penguins on the roof of station are a new addition, and I discovered were fairly securely fenced in. There was a D'arcy Thompson exhibition at the Art Centre. Found another pen at Edinburgh station, with a sparkly pink butterfly which was surprising for the time of year and a quote by Walter Scott "I have rarely if ever found anyone out of whom I could not extract amusement or edification".
Olly and Harry, two Durham students who had skipped classes on Friday to go drinking in Edinburgh, were not daunted in the least by being in the quiet carriage and happily recounted their exploits on ski trips and at college balls this term with volume and gusto. I was anxious to finish reading my book left behind by a foreign student about a Scotsman's travels in Kyrgyzstan, so I could swap it with Jon Peat for another book to read on the way back.
Broke journey in York where I joined my friends for a very nice vegan chili. My sleep was disturbed by a smoke alarm that wouldn't stop, I couldn't isolate power source so managed to smother it with enough clutter to block most of the sound and (after a cursory look for any fire) went back to sleep. It seems there has been a spate of post code inspired graffiti in York, writing post codes on peoples doors in 3' high green spray-paint. The locals seemed to be leave it for a day or two in case they came back to write more address details, before painting over it
Wasn't tempted by the boil-in-the-bag “All Day Vegetarian Breakfast” so I had a very nice bowl of porridge instead.
Then we drove to Leeds, leaving the blue skies and autumnal colours of North Yorkshire to the more wintry climate of West Yorkshire. It wasn't clear if the under-dressed Xmas Vintage Fair lady in Huby was waving frenetically to keep warm or just very eager to greet passing motorists. We saw ten cyclists on the way mostly in the Wharfe Valley.
I arrived, found new entrance, swapped my money for a Rainbow Dash My Little Pony card with a length of wool attached. Passed clubs, drank tea, passed clubs, met jugglers, passed clubs, and ate doughnuts.
Went to a EJC 2019 meeting, which is all looking very promising. The BJC 2016 and EJC 2016 posters were still on the maths classroom wall (used as a tea room by the convention) from last year, someone suggested the posters had helped the school achieve its outstanding Ofsted inspection.
It was nice to see a full workshop timetable, though only the Improvising Passing workshop appealed to me. Unfortunately it was very hard to hear what Brook (who with Becky was leading the workshop) was saying due to the music machine nearby – apparently “twelve-time” can help slow down juggling passing patterns. Went to turn down music, but by time I returned Brook had finished speaking.
Did some more passing and tea drinking. Missed the games as I was too busy passing, but it was nice they didn't totally take over the hall as they do at other conventions.
The toilets had been renovated and no longer had the sign “Jesus is watching over you, please be aware images are being recorded” and the ceiling camera had been covered in toilet paper. There were none of the xmas signs like “Tis the reason for the season”, etc, we had enjoyed seeing in previous years, but being a church school they had made sure whatever direction you looked there would be a crucifix, bible quotation or slogan such as “Mercifully like my father”.
Didn't get my clubs (or my packed lunch out of my bag all day) as once I had put bag down by the wall, it got surrounded and less retrievable, but luckily there are always plenty of clubs at a convention. Tried to swap a sock for some fish, but Mark didn't have fish, so I just gave him the sock.
The food at the Hare and Hounds was quite unremarkable and not even very quick. People came out to find many car's windscreens had frozen up in the time it had taken for them to get their meals.
The show started promptly 30 minutes after the advertised start time, Alistaire was a great compare not spending more time than necessary on stage. The 18” space between rows provided sufficient leg room. And Chocfest flyers strewn over seats made useful projectile material. Sadly the stage at Leeds is only 11” high so any activity below the performers waist height is missed by anyone not in the front two rows.
The first half of the show had ring juggling by Kathrin Pancakes, diaboling by Graham and a very enjoyable ball spinning routine by Matthew Tiffany and Mike Parker to the Dukas's L'apprenti sorcier?, doing some of the tricks I had seen in their balluSpinnus video including attempting a three ball stack. After 25 minutes of first half it was time for interval and raffle featuring the pineapple star prize.
The 14 minutes of raffle gave an opportunity to chat and catch up with people I'd not seen during day, having had my raffle win last year disbelieved, it probably wasn't worth claiming any prizes this year
The second half had partner poi by Jon & Steph, contact juggling by Magicball Steve, hoops by Laura and an amazing club passing routine by Becky and Brook with humour, choreography and dedication to character as well as high skill level – their act was the definite highlight of the show for me, the only weakness was the introduction, but I would love to see it again.
After 30 minutes of second half the performers did their bowing whatevers and the show was over, everyone went outside to see how frozen their windscreens were, before disappearing into the wintry fog.
On the way back, train broke down as well as signalling near Darlington not working, adding another couple of hours to an already long journey.
A wonderful convention, many thanks to all the organisers and everyone who helped make it so special – looking forward to Chocfest in a couple of months time.
High 650 foot above sea level
Low sea level
Crush – the train on the way back where passengers from the two broken trains were squashed into a third train that was still working and then the signals failed
Goal – as a Hullabaloo aluminarté I hoped to volunteer more, but failed to find anything useful to do, as usual wished I could more club passing
Bane – smoke alarms that won't stop
Surprise – dropping in on some old friends on the way back from the convention (well two of them weren't that old) and enjoying a very pleasant cup of tea or two
#LJC2016
My favourite sign of this year was "pray to God during exam season", which seemed rather defeatist.
Thank you to all who attended, we have had really good feedback from the school caretaker.....
"He says that all involved were “pleasant, respectful, self-reliant and were a pleasure to work with.”
Hope to do it again next year
Alice
Helen and I arrived about 11:30, bringing the PA system with us, meaning Alice and Alastair were very glad to see us. Unloaded the speakers and amiplifiers in to the main hall, paid and got passes, then moved coffee things (filter machine, filters, and 750g of coffee grounds) into the tea room. We'd been asked to keep an eye on things here so we popped in frequently during the day - pleased to say it was kept clean and tidy (ish) throughout, so many thanks to you all!
Filter machine was just about working, but needed a thump or two to release the latch for the actual filter. It only gets used at LJC and was very cheap about fifteen years ago, so we'll see how it feels next year. (Helen doesn't take coffee so my daily drink is instead from an Aeropress, a Hario pour-over, or a cafetiére. Or the other cafetiére, the moka pot, or the cold-brew jug. Yes, all this is possibly excessive.) Doughnuts lasted a surprisingly long time, I definitely saw some hiding under the table well after lunchtime.
Spent lots of money at the traders as Hullabaloo were collectively embarrassingly generous at our recent wedding, so we had vouchers for Butterfingers and Lazy Juggler, and have lots of new shiny. Diabolo and handsticks for me, two new hoops for Helen, and several new games including Battle Sheep and Sushi Go!. Didn't play anything except Guillotine with Nigel and Peter though, and chatted a little about MKJC as I didn't manage to visit this year. It was a good game, and Peter has a definite competitive streak.
Lunch at Weatherby Whaler.
Missed virtually all of the games.
Got in the way of the fight night prelims while attempting 7 balls. Couple of very messy qualifies. Meh. Same applied to attempts at 5 clubs. Gave it up and went to drink more coffee.
Mamph and Martin's delightful child was in the tea room! Said hullo and held her for a bit. She tried to eat my hall pass, but didn't complain about having it gently taken away. D'aw, baby.
Tidied away the tea room from 5:30 till 6:20, put things in car, scraped ice off car, went to get pizza. Returned with pizza pretty much at 7 and ate hurriedly. Helen's pizza was missing the promised fresh rocket, bah.
Show ran 7:30 to 8:50 with one interval. Raffle in the interval. I'd bought cake instead of raffle tickets so didn't follow the raffle closely, or at all.
Show: Alastair Leitch (compére). Kathrin Pancakes - three to six rings including some very nice flat backcrosses, 5 ring pancakes, flash of 6 rings to close. Graham Milligan - single diabolo. Grey tweed waitcoast over white shirt, neat and sufficiently theatrical. Lots of neck and body wraps, pirouettes with diabolo both on and off string, close to dropless (one tangle, I think) - very nice. Tiff and Mike Parker closed the first half with a ball spinning act. Sorcerer's apprentice theme, polished presentation, capes and shiny waistcoats. Tiff managed five headbounces and a catch to a stable spin. I think he may be an actual witch. Mike took a large number of attempts at the big finale, as noted by Nigel and Mark above, but I have never seen anyone stick a three ball stack on stage before, even for the few seconds it lasted, so I'm a bit more forgiving! (Tiff was filling in with five balls and an animated hat, so it's not like there was nothing at all for the audience).
Second half: John Godbolt and Steph Hale-Allen in a LED poi routine. Tight and well synchronised interweaving and good use of the whole of stage, including dancing across the stage. A couple of acrobalance poses to finish; nicely done and helped keep interest going. Not sure about the nearly-but-not-quite identical costumes. Brook and Becky - club passing. Comedy robot routine with 4 to 8 clubs and technical passing and takeouts; splendid use of a metal colander. I do hope the tomahawk that hit the colander was planned, it's too good not to keep in! Steve Bullen - contact routine with 1 to 4 acrylics. Almost dropless, very clean isolations, very smooth dynamic moves and clearly a professional and well practised act, I liked it. Laura Ivers - hoops. Little black flapper dress, beaded headband to match, and fantastic embroidered tights. One day it would be nice to see an act in vintage or vintage-effect costume also use vintage music, twenties jazz or thirties big-band, but that was not today. 1 to 5 brilliantly taped hoops in stage uplighting so that persistence-of-vision trails were all over the place. Deserved more applause than it got and I felt there weren't enough applause points - we didn't want to interrupt! One excellent moment when she broke character and mouthed "Yeah!" after a catch, which did get a tonne of applause.
All acts very good on staying in character / in performance mode all the way offstage, and during the bows. This may have something to do with the showrunner, Jon Peat.
Thanks to Jon, Dr Alice, Ross, Alastair, Bryony on the show doors, Emily on tech, Helen, all the volunteers and all the performers. Fun day, fun show, let's do it again next year!
Leeds Juggling Convention 19th Nov
1 week to go, same place as last few years. yes there will be doughnuts,workshops traders and games, yes there will be tea and coffee(bring a mug), yes a show as well
St Mary's School Menston LS296AE
Open from 10 am
One minor change for anyone who has been before, in previous years we have gone in through the school main entrance down to the gym. This year we will be entering directly into the gym from the back door. Signs will be out. The main entrance will be open for the show in the evening.
Hope to see many there
Alice
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