For the past 6 years, I’ve spent one weekend per year in Fayetteville, Arkansas, attending the Northwest Arkansas Juggling Festival.

A juggling festival is a really neat sight to see, whether you’re a juggler or not. Picture an open gym (with really high ceilings), but instead of basketball players or volleyball players, there are hundreds of jugglers, all throwing things in the air at the same time, many even throwing things to each other. It’s really a sight to see.

This photo was taken at one of the International Jugglers’ Association festivals, one of the biggest in the world.

The Northwest Arkansas Festival is a smaller one, but it’s still such a great place to be. Jugglers travel from all over the world for this festival, and for a juggler, there’s no better place to spend a spring weekend.

Many of us met up on Friday night, and we spent a few hours juggling and passing and learning new patterns. I left pretty early to see some non-juggling friends who live in the area, but most people stayed up until morning juggling with friends. On Saturday, the juggling continued, but we did more than just juggle.

Around 12:30, some friends and I set up a volleyball net and played a really fun juggling game called Volley Club. For this game, there are two teams (each player has two juggling clubs), a volleyball net, and one designated “volley club.” Just like a volleyball, the volley club is served over the net and then returned in a typical “volley” fashion. The catch, however, is that whoever catches the volley club must begin juggling it with their other two clubs before they return it. And if a player drops any club, he or she is out until the next point is made.

There are also some traditional games that we play at the NWA Juggling Festival every year. Some of these games are endurance games, where everyone does the same thing for as long as they can until one juggler is the last remaining (e.g. club balance endurance, five ball juggling endurance). We also played distance passing, where two jugglers pass juggle clubs (throwing the clubs to each other while juggling), but each time a club is passed, one juggler takes a few steps back. The winner is the team with the longest distance while still successfully passing the clubs.

Juggling with my friend Nick (this photo was taken at the 2015 NWA Festival)

One of the more intimate juggling games is huggling. Two partners hug each other, and while they’re hugging, they must juggle behind their partners back. Not all juggling games are this cute, however.

Combat juggling is a game where participants each juggle three clubs; the object is to be the last juggler still juggling three clubs. To make other jugglers stop juggling, one can steal a club from them or use a club to knock their’s out of the air. It can get very intense, as you can see in the GIF below (if you can’t see the moving GIF below, try opening this in a different browser; you’ll really want to see this).

If you look really closely toward the right side of the screen, you can see the bald juggler in the blue shirt as he’s hit in the face with a juggling club and still doesn’t drop (the club was kicked by the juggler in the white shirt and green clubs) — If you look really closely toward the right side of the screen, you can see the bald juggler in the blue shirt as he’s *hit in the face with a juggling club* ***and still doesn’t drop*** (the club was kicked by the juggler in the white shirt and green clubs)

My friend Jacob and I won distance passing (our passing distance was almost an entire basketball court), so I went home with a sweet trophy (a golden juggling club). Jacob also won the combat tournament (with no major injuries), which is why his trophy is a juggling torch instead of a club.

Every juggling festival also features vendors, so jugglers can try out and/or purchase balls, rings, clubs, yo-yos, unicycles, apparel, kendamas, and more! I bought a new set of balls: seven white, Russian-style juggling balls. I'm excited to start using them!

Saturday evening, there was a show, featuring a variety of performers from all over the country! Unfortunately, I had my own performance here in Central Arkansas, so I couldn't stick around, but if it was anything like the past shows at the NWA Festival, it was a great place for jugglers and non-jugglers to see some world class creativity and juggling.

If you have any interest in juggling at all, I urge you to attend one of these festivals some time. So many non-jugglers and beginners attend because it's the best place to learn how to juggle and improve their skills. Juggling festivals all over the world are great places for everyone to appreciate our art form, but the little festival in Fayetteville will forever be my favorite!