Festival Weekend

The Greystones Arts Festival was on this weekend. There were street theatre and performance acts in the park and at the harbour pretty much all day long from Saturday to Monday. This was the first year I really took advantage of the free shows. It seems I’ve been missing out. Some of the acts were very entertaining, and all of them were better than sitting at home playing video games.

I find it quite an odd experience watching the juggling and similar shows. Since the general public (Joe Anybody and Mrs Anybody and their kids) have no way of knowing what tricks are difficult or dangerous, and since the visually appealing tricks don’t necessarily overlap much with the difficult ones, the performers have no motivation to try to perform anything technically challenging. I can watch a whole show thinking "I can do that" and yet I wouldn’t have the first clue how to draw or hold a crowd, or how to interact with them when they were there. I just find it a bit odd that the skill that the performer is supposedly demonstrating is very much secondary to their ability to captivate an audience.

The fireworks show to end the festival was as always effectively the same as last year’s. I still go every year, if only because I can be guaranteeed they’ll use a particular piece of music I like that I don’t know the name of. At least no-one tried to steal my car this year.

I’m not certain of this, but I suspect that the festival is meant to symbolise the end of the summer. The weather doesn’t seem to agree with that assessment right now.

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