So, that was Beltane, that was.

[akicif]

Wow. Happy, tired and somewhat hollow. After a final three days of general up and down-ness (it seems that when there's nothing to worry about, I worry over less imnportant stuff, become positively elated when things work out, and then crash down at the next problem), we were in place behind the Acropolis more or less on time, and then the World changed.

I must've done a fair few walkthroughs of the Beltane Procession, and have walked around the route another dozen or so times, but this one thing gets me every time: in the normal world, the various locations are incredibly close to each other, and even when deliberately walking slowly, walkthroughs seem to be over quite quickly. On Beltane night, though, the Hill seems enormous and it seems to take forever to move from point to point. Part of this is the crowd (at 10,500 this year, it's creeping back to pre-ticket, pre-Curfew numbers) blocking the route, but I suspect there's something about torchlight that gives a pretty good view of close-up stuff, but messes with night vision so that the dimmer distant stuff is cmpletely invisible.

My torchies - if I can call them that - were totally brilliant. They did a hell of a lot of stuff (if you want to know how hard working, there's an almost complete log of what we did over on http://www.torchbearers.org.uk) and we were almost completely ready with days to spare (hence having time to research coloured torch balls). And the team building stuff seems to have worked, too.

I lost it a little in the last minutes before we got in position - trying to deal with too many things for me to cope with at once, I found myself shouting at people.

Aargh. I'm too tired to write up the rest of the Procession right now, never mind the highlights of earlier in the week, but I'm off tomorrow, so should manage a grand catch-up.

Comments

[wolfette]

it was a great night, Steve. I found myself several times trying to explain the basic principles of Beltane to some of the curious, but uninformed, observers. Amazing how complete strangers can get talking at events like this.

And later, talking to some of the police who were there, they said it had been a very quiet night for them, which is all to the good!

[kaiberie.livejournal.com]

You're lucky. I got the idiots who wanted to laugh and point and generally make everyone in the immediate vicinity miserable. I was gentle, and explained it was a real religious ceremony, and that they could find any additional information at the website.
*sigh* was a wonderful night aside from that. Kudos to the performers and organisers for sure.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about carrying a gurt big pole with a flame on one end, is that one can gently discourage such people! But yeah, they're a royal pain.

[kaiberie.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know...did you get those lads down from the trees (I think that was you at the Bower)...I was stood behind the steward watching you if so.

Anyway, my hands were quite literally, tied, I couldn't discourage nothing...hence the reason I appointed one of my freinds to stand with me the whole night :D

[akicif.livejournal.com]

<Blush/> - that was indeed me. Quite out of order I was, too - crowd control should really be carried out by people without torches. The crowd were mostly well behaved up until fire point, with special prizes for idiocy at the red men attack and stage, but by the bower I was getting quite teed off.

[kaiberie.livejournal.com]

I could tell. But you had nothing to be ashamed of. ALL of my bitches about the night, were about the idiots that I encountered not the parade. The parade was beuatiful, and kudos to you AND your fine team of participants/performers/ enacters to the degree that if i can swing it, I'd love to be allowed to help next year. I'll be able to tell nearer the time though. :)

[digitalraven]

Agreed on the time-dilation effects. felt like each torchball was lasting an hour or more every time we walked.

Yes, we are your torchies. If ever you step down, you'd still be the power behind the new throne anyway. And we're proud of it.

[zotz]

Terrific. You seem to have enjoyed it as much as I did, then. Thanks for all the work you did.

I found out what you meant about the dilation - the hill was vast.

[sibelian.livejournal.com]

Did folk carry on after Arthur's seat?

The torchies were superb this year!

[meico.livejournal.com]

I checked the site for more info on the coloured torch balls, but all it said was that you used them for the points and that they seemed to work...

How did the coloured torch balls work out? How intense were the colours?
How did you colour the flames? What chemicals, etc.

Need info... :P

[nickys.livejournal.com]

It was an excellent night.

Thanks for all your hard work.