BJC British Juggling Convention

This weekend I visited the British Juggling Convention, BJC, to spend a whole weekend of juggling and juggling related activities. It was my first juggling convent ever and it was really fun.
Then convent is open until Thursday so if you want more information visit www.bjc2014.co.uk.

The BJC 2014 took place at Darton college in Barnsley. To me this was a nice venue (even though I have nothing to compare with) because the school felt modern and there was a lot of good spaces. There was a 24 hour-open juggling hall, and main space, an auditorium, lots of space outdoors and classrooms for workshops. The visitors could either come for the day, or camp around the football pitches next to the building.

The camping area.

I was busy juggling and doing other things most of the time but at least I managed to take some photos:

From inside the juggling hall on Friday

 The main juggling hall was full of jugglers most of the time. It was fun to practice with so many jugglers around us, but i could also just sit and watch what everyone else was doing. All the jugglers where really nice and happy to pick up and throw back your juggling equipment when you lost it somewhere in the hall. Jugglers are nice people.

At BJC with friends

Here I am with some friends. Behind us there is the area where there where some workshops and shows and things. I participated in workshops of three ball multiplex throws, genocide diabolo and lasso spinning and they where all very good and inspiring. The multiplex one was quite easy speaking of technique, but gave me some nice ideas about three ball juggling that i hadn't thought about before. The diabolo workshop was fun because I hadn't done this type of trick where you let go of the sticks in this way. it was quite hard and I never managed to do the trick, but I got a good start with an encouraging workshop leader. The lasso workshop was unexpectedly fun, and I was glad I did it because I don't think I would have tried lasso or figured out how to spin it myself.

At the same time as BJC there was also some other mini conventions like The Balloon Modeling Convention, which was a room full with baloons! We entered a competition where thay drew what the participants would try to make and how many minutes they got. We had 17 minuets to make a Mignion. I have never really done balloon modeling so here is my result, and I am quite happy with it.

Just a picture of people hanging around.

 There was also a traders room of which I didn't take any pictures, but it was like being a child in a toy store there! I have never seen so many props at the same time and it was so fun and nice to actually be able to touch, throw and feel everything! It was a thousand time better than just looking at things on the Internet, which is often the case for jugglers. It is also so hard to find out what you like just by looking at pictures and reading descriptions, compared to actually hold the equipment in your hands.  I got some juggling balls after trying almost all of the balls in the traders area. I realized that I like quite firm balls that are not like beanbags but with a softer surface, so I bought that kind.

From the fire show

 I saw a lot of performances and shows too.
The first one was the Youth Circus Five Rings Circus cabaret. They had made some research of the circus history in the Newcastle area and then done a show inspired by this. I liked it because it was a quite unusual approach to creating acts. My favourit act from they show was a unicycling act about a video game galled "unicycling wars".

I also saw a fire show that gave me a lot of inspiration for fire spinning. They had all the fire equipment including fakit fire, poi, staffs, fans, whips and clubs! The final was great with "fire work" staffs.

Late in the night there was a renegade show which was a little bit random but fun to watch too.

Giant baloon made my the audience waiting for the Gala show to start.

The best show was the Gala Show that took place in Sheffield city hall. The show was fantastic and all the acts was awesome! There was two Swedes performing; Gustav Rosell who did some funny clothes and ball juggling and Emil Dahl who did arty juggling with white clubs. My favorite was the MHD Crew who did a very nice group diabolo routine.

Five ball challenges

There where also "Olympics" which was some funny games for everyone. I couldn't take photos of the one I participated in. The best things with these was that everyone could participate. There was one "Throw the diabolo in the box" competition, "coin juggling", "unicycle gladiator", "club balancing" and many other funny games. It was also possible to take impressive photos with so many jugglers doing the same thing.

Unicycle gladiator

Club balancing game

 The most entertaining game to watch was the "Fight Night" game. The rules where like this: Try to make the other person stop juggling while you continue and you win one point. First to three wins. The equipent used is clubs and the two participants are juggling three clubs each. Then they make a high throw, and while the club is in the air, they had the time to try to use the other clubs to hit the patters of the the other juggler. If they both lost their clubs after an attack, noone won a point and they had to restart. The audience was very engaged in the fights and it was fun to watch because it was quick, dramatic and dynamic. I am up for recognizing this as a sport!

 After visiting BJC as my first juggling convention I really liked it and could recommend a visit.