What Could Possibly Go Wrong At A Festival?

[dr_pretentious]

Okay, festival-going folks, I need to collect potential incidents for the Sebastian novella. What are the weirdest, most high-stakes, most improbable, most hilarious and/or most dangerous things you’ve seen happen at a festival? What interesting disasters have you seen averted, or had a hand in averting? Please don’t use names or identifying details, because I don’t want to be party to accidentally upsetting, embarrassing, or libeling anyone. I just need some ingredients to zizz together in the Cuisinart of my fictioneering brain so I can make some story pesto. If in doubt, please respond privately.

Comments

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

Continued . . .

One year at PSG the druids did a workshop about cattle raids and why they took place -- because the cattle were the primary wealth of their various communities, it was explained. Then they instituted a game involving stuffed cows being stolen back and forth between campsites, but at some point someone decided that the true wealth of any campsite at that site was whether it had a picnic table or not. So then people started stealing picnic tables from one campsite to another under cover of darkness, or sometimes in the middle of the day, and it got so bad the organizers had to put a stop to it.

And here's one that only makes sense with some extra detail: at Heartland in '93, the theme was "Carnival" (in the European Mardi Gras sense) and they were trying to give a carnival/voodoo vibe to the main ritual; they had drafted Janet and Stewart Farrar to represent the God and Goddess, symbolizing that by crowning them king and queen of Carnival. They also had elaborate arrangements in the quarters, with dancers and pyrotechnics, including fires (central and quarters) that were rigged to dramatically self-ignite by remote control. So of course, two of the four quarter fires fail entirely to light, and have to be lit by hand, and then the ignition on the central fire sent sparking pyrotechnics skittering across the ground, coming awfully close to setting Stewart on fire in the process. So by the next day, the rumor mill had turned all that into "and then they crowned Janet and Stewart king and queen of the witches and tried to set them on fire as a ritual sacrifice." >:-)

(One other Janet-specific story from the Heartland two years prior: they did a workshop where the participants were split into the four tribes of the Tuatha de Danaan [some of the history was a bit loose, here], guarding the four treasures in the four cities, and the goal was to get the treasures all in one place -- but the tribes weren't allowed to talk to each other. One woman was appointed as Danu, who was allowed to pass messages (true and useful messages) between the tribes, and then Janet acted as The Morrigan (in a kinda-Elvira outfit), moving among the tribes passing false and manipulative messages. For "special effect," she did some weatherworking beforehand [and Stewart kept it up during], which was the most obvious example of real weatherworking I've ever seen [wind literally whipped around her body on cue, swirling up the dust at her feet], so that the impending storm would create a sense of urgency. Trouble was, she'd never poked at a weather system the size of the ones in middle America before [Ireland's are much smaller], and the wind got rather badly out of control, and did a lot of damage in merchant row -- though the successful resolution to the workshop problem also shifted the storm away before it broke (no, I am not kidding, it was impressive as hell and I've never seen anything like it since). And then she spent the rest of the summer apologizing, telling the story to all her other venues, and telling people why they should never try to affect the weather anywhere they don't actually live full time. >:-)

If I think of more I'll send them on. . .

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I hope somebody wrote an epic poem about the picnic table raids. That's just so beautiful!

See above regarding true story about mistaking ritual theater for real attempted human sacrifice.

I may need to scour the internet for tales of festival weatherworking gone awry. I know there are several B* standards, but since I wasn't present for any of them, I'd love to hear them again.

And of course, the Asatruar always want to yell "Hail Thor!" just at the moment when we're hoping the thunderstorm will veer away from us. Hail Thor! Have some mead! You're really awesome! And please refrain from trashing the campsite again!

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

It is my understanding that it did, in fact, make it into the Henge of Keltria's book of modern myths and legends, cast in appropriate legendary language. (Steve Posch and the Babylon camp, one of the main players, ended up cast as invading Faeries from Underhill, if I recall correctly. >:-)