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British Juggling Convention 2005 - Perth
Review by Graham Benson

BJC Perth 2005

Britta and myself would like to thank all the people who came to this year's BJC in bonny Scotland and made it such a good convention. A lot of people helped out with little things here and there - you know who you are and we really appreciated your help! A special thanks from the fence dismantlers to Kevin from Community Circus for buying them a beer.

• A big thank you to Duncan Smith who organised the Public Show and to Gandalf who was responsible for the workshops and the parade.
• Mini - thanks for doing the pre-reg and the renegade!
• Jak - you did a great job organising the traders and encouraged them to come up all the way to Scotland, thanks!
• A big thank you as well to Andrew Farr who provided the sound system for the public show and the main hall.
• Thanks to Luke Burrage who not only performed in the public show but also organised and ran the Young Juggler of the Year Competition.
• Tim Marston did an excellent job organising the Fire Show, thank you very much!
• Thanks as well to Russell Wells who compered the games.
• And Thomas - thanks for organising the unicyclists.

If your name isn't mentioned here but you think it should have been - shame on
us, we'll buy you a beer at the Scottish and amend the list. We really enjoyed putting this event on for you.

If - for whatever reason - you missed it, here's a brief summary of the BJC.

Wednesday

10 am the first jugglers arrived, all the way from Italy. The fence was put up by a small dedicated team of early conventioneers and organisers and come 3pm the hall was open and the convention officially began. Wednesday evening was chilled with a lot of people arriving and settling in, juggling in the fantastic
main hall of Bells Sports Centre.

Thursday

The workshop list was put up and quickly started to fill. Main events on the Thursday were the Kids Open Stage, hosted by Nigel Roger and the Fancy Dress Disco later at night. Gordon Wilson in his fab and well admired Superhero-Outfit won the Fancy Dress Competition and got a bottle of bubbly for his effort. This was followed by Renegade/Open Stage/Renegade/Whatever you want to call
it.

Friday

By Friday most people had arrived. The Northern Region Yo-Yo Competition took place and we also had a Unicycle Only Show in the afternoon. 8pm the Fire Show started right opposite the Sports Centre. A lot of people from Perth joined the conventioneers for this show and enjoyed watching the impressive performances. In the evening we had a very well attended Ceilidh with live band `Last Tram tae Auchenshoogle' where a new Ceilidh Dance was premiered: The Unicycle Reel. During the interval of the Ceilidh we attempted to break the World Record for Haggis Juggling. and after about three hundred attempts it finally happened and we have new records for juggling three and five haggis. The record now stands at 5 haggis for 26.01 seconds and is held by Colin Soper. The 4 endurance was
not beaten and still stands at 1 minute 13 seconds by Luke Burrage. The 3 haggis endurance record is held by Paul Taylor who juggled for 12 minute 56.07 seconds. If you think you can do better, come to next year's Scottish Juggling Convention in Glasgow (3, 4 and 5 February 2006), where we will try to challenge these times. After the Ceilidh the Convention T-Shirt Competition kicked off the
Renegade.

Saturday

Saturday was jam-packed with events. Workshops in the morning, then at 3pm the Parade through Perth left from Bells Sports Centre in glorious sunshine. The weather was that good that we thought nobody would want to leave their sunny spot in front of the centre, but the Parade was extremely well attended and the people in Perth were already waiting for the parade to arrive in the centre. The parade was also followed by the kids of a walking club in Perth who used the event as their first ever kids outing. We gathered in St John's Street for the Games. Again this spectacle was very well attended both by conventioneers and residents. It was a bit cramped but the only area we could get. Compere for the games was Russell Wells from Wales.

The Public Show on the Saturday night, organised by Duncan Smith from Wick, one of the few people who had to head south for the convention, really was a public show, about a third of the audience was made up by people from Perth and the surrounding areas who thoroughly enjoyed the performances. After a leisurely stroll back to the centre and one minor foot injury the penultimate renegade started.

Sunday

From an organisers point of view Sunday was the best day of the convention. By then we knew we had broken even, it was laid back and chilled, people juggled while others started drifting off home, some workshops still happened, like Britta teaching the three German Pylonauts basic Scottish Gaelic. The convention meeting was brought forward to 2pm.

Sunday night was one of the most laid back renegades ever. No compere, no running order and no hassles. It just happened, was very well attended and lasted four hours. We were surprised to see around 70 turn up! We started at 10pm and enjoyed four hours of entertainment ranging from somebody who had just learned Mill's Mess to The Void and Luke strutting their stuff.

Monday

After enjoying such a relaxed Sunday, the Monday cleanup was a lot easier! The volunteers to bring down the fence did a great job and the work was done a lot quicker than expected. The campsite was cleared and left spotless to the great surprise of the local residents and the manager of Bells Sports Centre. The press, radio and TV coverage of the BJC Perth was extraordinary. Everyday numerous reporters tried to get a glimpse of the action and many articles filled the local papers. The people of Perth really enjoyed having the jugglers in town and we got a lot of positive feedback from them.

Some minor criticisms were made.

1) No signs to Bells Sports Centre
We were in close contact with the Roads Department to organise the parade and when they asked at the meeting if we would like them to put signs up we mentioned that we normally just put temporary signs up ourselves. We were advised that this was fly-posting and we would be prosecuted if we didn't have planning permission and professionally made signs. The cost of this would have been £500 minimum, money which we did not have. That's why we put detailed
directions on the web site.

2) No marquees
Again it comes down to money. We knew the numbers for this BJC would be well down and marquees, heating, lighting, generators, flooring, seating, delivery, erecting are very expensive. Also there was official complaints about the noise during the Disco and Ceilidh. If we had used marquees we would have been closed down on day one of the convention. We knew this beforehand, we met up with the local residents council who were very concerned about noise late at night. Hence the reason for the fire show finishing at 9pm.

3) Water on the campsite
We could have got water on to the site easily from the groundsman pipe, but getting the waste water off site was a problem. We would have had to have used very expensive plumbing or someone would have had to carry heavy smelly bins off. The campsite was close enough to Bells to use their water supply.

4) Bar and restaurant on site
We were promised a functional bar and restaurant. Unfortunately communication from the bar staff was lacking. Britta asked them repeatedly for a timetable of opening hours but they never gave us any. We had agreed beforehand with the management that there would be extended opening hours for the bar and restaurant. As far as the bar was concerned this unfortunately never happened. They were also warned that 50% of the conventioneers would be vegetarian. Again, they did not cater for them to the extent we would have liked to
see. Britta is vegetarian herself and complained a couple of times about not being able to get decent food on site.

5) Sound system for Young Juggler Competition
The (Fisher/Price)sound system used was Graham's own. He used it for the Scottish Juggling Convention Public Show and the Sunday Renegade - and funny enough it worked fine. There can be a problem when someone not used to a system is left with it.

Hope to see you at next years' Scottish, where you can sleep in the 24hour hall. SCOTTISH JUGGLING CONVENTION WEBSITE - www.btinternet.com/~graham.benson1/club/2006/con2006.htm

Graham and Britta.

 

British Juggling Conventions

2008 Doncaster	2007 Nottingham	2006 Cornwall	2005 Perth
	didn't make it to this one!
2004 Derby	2003 Brighton	2002 Whitstable, Kent

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