Panmankey

Thoughts on various festivals the last couple of weeks.

Wiccan Fest (an hour or so north of Toronto Canada)

Wiccan Fest was my favorite festival this summer.  Just full of nice people, enough to do, and a couple of really great stories that I will end up sharing over the next few months.  It's great when a festival knows what it is.  Wiccan Fest is a small festival designed for 300 or so people with an emphasis on community and shared experience.  It's the only festival I've ever been to where people have yelled at me "We love you Jason" for no real reason.  A little validation now and then goes a very long way.

It's not a very busy festival (though I was kind of busy) but there was generally enough to do to keep Jason entertained.  There were small concerts every night, and mostly featured music familiar enough that I didn't hate most of it.  For those of you who know me well, you know that such a ringing endorsement of Pagan music means that there were no bands or performers featuring a "dash of funk."  ("Dash of funk" is generally the kiss of death when any band adds that description to their festival bio.)  

The best part of Wiccan Fest is their drum circle.  It's not that the drumming is leaps and bounds better than the drumming at any other festival, it has more to do with the community that gathers there.  You can dance, you can drum, you can just sit and observe, and people will be friendly towards you no matter what.  I was camped near the drum circle and the community that camped around there was just freaking fabulous.  Great people, great drinking, great other things for most of them, and everyone was nice.  

I did five workshops at Wiccan Fest in three days, which is a pretty good amount of work.  It all went well, and I sold a decent amount of Horned God books as a result of it.  I did miss the late night rituals that have generally gone on there in the past, but that's a small point and nothing to quibble about.

One of the things I noticed this year at Wiccan Fest versus other festivals was how accessible the staff was.  I can go to some festivals and never run into an organizer or anyone with any authority or ability to offer me assistance.  At Fest I had people fetching me power cords and doing everything in their ability to help a blonde boy out.  Nice.

Starwood

I really enjoyed this year's Starwood.  Going in I thought I it would be a giant clusterfuck, and while some things didn't work out quite right, for the most part it went very smoothly.  Wisteria (the new campground) is great, lots of beautiful trees and hills, and I can see why Ari totally fell in love with the place.  It was nice.  That's not to say it was perfect.  The showers were rather dirty, and there were no flushable toilets.*  I was also a little bit disappointed with the restaurant on site.  After eight years of the Blue Lady and Phil's Grille at Brushwood it was difficult to adjust to something new.  (When it's 95 degrees outside, bottled water should NEVER cost 2.50 a bottle.)  And in a lot of ways I didn't even get the chance to adjust since they closed the kitchen rather early, 8:30 or so.

As far as the festival its self goes, what I loved the most about it was just how laid back it was.  After tension so noticeable you could cut it with a knife at the last few Starwoods (held at Brushwood), it was nice to visit a Starwood where that was blessedly absent.  Everyone seemed to check their ego at the door this time around, and the whole campground seemed to delight in each others company.  I did things I've never done before, like sit in the ACE (Association for Consciousness Exploration-the organizers of Starwood) tent, talk to other presenters, and just relax.  

When I said there were problems, I wasn't kidding.  Starwood Radio barely got off the ground.  The area picked for midnight rituals lacked any sort of lighting, and was extremely inaccessible that late at night.  Raquy and her Cavemen thought that drumming over Ivan Stang's annual devival showed good manners, so yeah, problems, but they were overshadowed by the good that was there.  

Some of that good was Ivan Stang making fun of me and my workshops three times over the course of a rant, what an honor!  Seriously, that made my day.  The drum circle that people went to (I think it was called Paw Paw?) was gorgeous if a little cramped.  Camping and dancing in a small clearing surrounded by trees is simply magickal.  Hell yeah that was a good spot.  My workshops were pretty well attended for an outdoor festival too (especially after I heard the average attendance was about five people, I was lucky enough to score about 20 per talk).  

Starwood featured some of the best music they've had in awhile.  I managed to sit through an entire show for the first time in forever as Ari and I really liked the band Coyote Run.  Coyote Run is mostly a Celtic-type act, and they played with energy and passion and were just a delight for their entire two hour set.  We really liked them.  I hope they come back one of these years.

So all in all, a very good Starwood spent with lovely friends in a beautiful setting.

Brushwood's Summerfest

Brushwood will probably always be my favorite Pagan (or Pagan friendly) campground, though Summerfest was my least favorite festival of the last few weeks.  Visiting Brushwood is always special, I have so many friends who are seasonal campers there, and the lank speaks to me in a way that few others have, but with very few exceptions I found myself bored a lot of the time.

Those exceptions were some of my favorite nights of July though.  I loved Brushwood's "Party Like a Rockstar" and for two and a half hours i had a blast playing Marilyn Manson, Weezer, Snoop Dog, and Dio.  What was kind of a bummer was starting a good solid hour later than planned and being moved to a new location just six hours before our start time.  It gave the whole thing a very unorganized feel, and that's not something I'm used to from the folks at Brushwood (who are generally on top of things).

The other thing I loved was the Bellydance Showcase Ari (and our friend Laura) put together.  I also get to MC it.  How can you go wrong MC'ing an event full of hot women?  That's great.  The attendance was great too, they had fifty or so people show up, more than what showed up for the big concert going on at the same time that night.  The only downside was that it was held at 10:00 pm, in a location without any real lights.  Hopefully that'll change next year.  

In a lot of ways Summerfest felt like a continuation of Sirius Rising, which is the festival at Brushwood the previous week, and that was either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective.  I was hoping that it would be a little more Starwood-like:  midnight rituals, some parties, etc.  I can certainly understand Brushwood's desire to distance themselves from some of those elements** but to move away from all of them might be a mistake.

It was a good three weeks on the road, but right now I'm happy to be home.

*There are just certain things I do not like doing in port a johns.  It wasn't a deal breaker for me about going back, but no place can be my favorite campground without some flushers.

**People have constantly described Starwood as a "rave" for the past ten years.  I have never felt this description was accurate, or even close to accurate.  Starwood has attracted a few undesirables over the years, but the amount of parties and overall craziness has been exaggerated.