Lists of performers, sponsors, volunteers, photos, videos and other details of the festival
Winners of the coveted PHIL trophies this year were:
"Screamingly Fresh" - Galen Harp
"Most Whimsical" - Tohm Pace
"Playfully Clever" - Caleb Black
Festival Report by Charles Shapiro
One hundred and ninety-six registered jugglers made the 2025 Groundhog Day Jugglers Festival a big success this year. For the 18th year the festival took place at the Yaarab Shrine Center’s spacious recreation hall in downtown Atlanta. The kind folks at Warung provided delicious Indonesian (and Halal!) meals on-site.
Friday started off pretty quiet, with room to use unicycles and other arm-breakers indoors. Natalie Hazen produced the Glow Night on Friday in the darkened stage area where twenty jugglers played with LED props to music. By 11am on Saturday the hall was packed. This year for the first time we saw more two-handed club passing than the old right-handed method, a welcome changeover. Some of the locals got to teach out-of-towners the preferred method. Ray Stern setup and managed the Kids Korner for the entire weekend to the delight of many kids and their parents.
The festival featured sixteen official workshops and innumerable informal teaching sessions. Logan Pearce as Workshops Director developed an app to coordinate signups for workshop leaders and then published the workshops and festival schedule. Several of the sessions were welcome repeats from last year, such as Andrew Austin's Coin Walk, DrewBob’s Ring Tricks and Ball Bounce workshops and Don Lewis's Basic Club Tricks and Chops workshops.
Sean Tessier's "Death to 4-Count" club passing workshop advanced an interesting and radical approach to teaching beginners to pass clubs. Other notable activities included a raw beginning unicycle class by Ziggy, some fun hooping techniques by Natalie Hazen and Graham Daniel's Contact Juggling 101. Other excellent classes were Alan Tidwell’s Kendama workshop, the Creativity in Juggling discussion by Chris Jost, and an introduction to the "Doctor Attack" family of club-passing tricks by Logan Pearce and Kerstin Fogerstrom. Once again Richard Kennison presented our favorite class on How to Juggle 5 Balls.
Spencer Schwab MCed the festival games with Madelyn Dinnerstein's able assistance. Highlights included Karstyn Fletcher jumping for joy at her win in club balance, some truly blood-sport club and ball combat and a tense final between the two winners of the 5-ball endurance competition.
Kelly Macklin from Charleston SC ably handled sound engineering for the festival and shows. Andrew Austin designed the shirts and programs as well as professionally videotaping the Competition and Cabaret.
As it has for the previous 46 years, the Saturday Competition and show opened with the Seed and Feed Marching Abominable Band playing four numbers: Fireball, Pump It, Bad Romance, and Gimme some Lovin'. This community band is now in its fifty-first season, and has spawned copies in several cities across the US. Six contestants vied for the Coveted Phil trophies. Winners were Galen Harp ("Screamingly Fresh"), Tohm Pace ("Most Whimsical"), and Atlanta's own Caleb Black ("Playfully Clever").
Galen's act included juggling with balls and clubs which sprayed colorful sand as they flew, leading to a unique piece of art that dissolved before the audience's eyes. Tohm did a strong street set with balls and clubs, and Caleb's routine included some tricks even his parents didn't know he could do. Other highlights included Ziggy Zaptacular's flow routine with brightly colored scarves and acrylic balls, Louella Whitaker's clever routine to Bobby Pickett's "Monster Mash", and Atticus Abraham's strong technical routine which concluded with a credible run of 5 clubs and a glimpse of 7 balls.
Emcee and Competition Director Dan Howard presented John Nations with the first ever Nation's Award for his many years of assisting AJA with his comical and skillful stage routines in the Cabaret and at the Competition while the judges deliberate. This year Uriah Keith "The Champ" entertained the audience while the judges made their decision on the PHIL trophies.
Cabaret Director Bruce Plott provided yerba-maté at the snack table all weekend and produced the evening show. The Cabaret was MCed by Just Joey. Mike Garner started with an amusing take on Billy Joel's Piano Man, with audience members of widely varying talents joining him for parts on stage. Elegant members of the UGA juggling club performed an ad-hoc but fun skit showing their various skills. Kit Summers juggled and spoke about motivation. Tyler and Jojo did a mind boggling synchronized sign-spinning demo.
Ziggy Zaptacular took the stage next with some beautiful flow work, different from what she did for the Competition. John Nations juggled and spoke at length and amusingly about the performing jugglers' life. Paige Mamolejo worked some remarkable multi-hoop tricks. Tohm Pace closed the show with a bravura display of balance and juggling on a stack of excitingly unstable props.
We appreciate all our volunteers who worked so hard to make festival a success. Austin and Kelley Childs managed the registration table for the entire festival along with several helpers. Austin also coordinated the Vendors and the Raffle, plus he transported all the lights and boxes of festival stuff to and from our room at the Little 5 Points Community Center. Treasurer Jay Jones handled pre-registration and funds. Joyce Howard coordinated with the Shriners and managed publicity of the festival. Alan Tidwell was the House Manager. Many members of the club helped with moving equipment to and from the Shrine Center, putting out signs, plus moving chairs and tables during the festival.
About 40 jugglers went to the post-festival dinner at Manuel's Tavern. We broke up around 7 pm with promises to meet again next year.
Photos of the festival by Joyce Howard and others
