Xperience the Xhilaration!
- Xtraordinary passing.
- Xciting workshops. (Hot tubbing, sunset hiking, border patrol, and surfing... in January!)
- Xtremely different from any other festival you've ever attended.1
- You have no Xcuse to miss out!
Site
Thousand Trails Pio Pico
The site is 30 minutes drive east of San Diego, 130 miles south of Los Angeles, in lovely rolling hills. (Detailed directions.) There are lots of opportunities for hiking and other outdoor recreation (horse riding, fishing, boating, skydiving, etc.). There are various amenities: sauna, pool (the adult pool is not open but we're hoping to negotiate for a couple of days), billiards, wifi, etc. There isn't much nearby in the way of shops, restaurants, and bars, except for a very small store. San Diego, of course, is a major city with lots of attractions.
If you want to take a longer vacation around California or Mexico (which is only 10 miles away), this is a good chance. You can rent a car for around $200 a week. California has almost unlimited recreation possibilities: beaches, surfing, mountains, desert, rockclimbing, Hollywood, Disneyland, etc.
If you're coming from afar and want to combine two excellent passing festivals, check out Madfest the following weekend.
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Dates and preparty
Monday-Sunday, January 7-13, 2013. If you're coming from afar, we might be able to supply crash space around Los Angeles the previous weekend in exchange for helping us set up.
We'll have a preparty for early arrivals at Will and Rhonda's pad in Long Beach (1344 Lee, 90804) at 7pm on Saturday, January 5. Let us know if you can come!
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Cost
Cost will be around $200 per juggler. (Children under 8 are free.) This includes camping, basic food, all amenities in the park, and a ride to and from San Diego airport.
We have space for 50 people, and it's first-registered, first-served, except that we will reserve 20 spaces for non-North Americans until November 1. We have to be a little strict about preregistration, because previous festivals have lost money when some people registered and didn't show up.
If you just want to come for a day or two, day passes are $40 for any 24-hour period. This covers juggling space, camping space and all meals served in that period.
Let us know when you're coming so we can make sure there's space and food for you!
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Midweek Xpedition
It's Thursday, and you've been juggling your arms off since Monday. You need a break! We'll take a boat cruise out of San Diego's historic harbor to go whale watching on the Pacific Ocean. On the way home, we'll hit a local restaurant for pizza and beer. (The pizza is covered in the registration cost, but you're on your own for booze.) Come back rejuvenated for three more days of passing!
If you want to skip the outing, we can still pick you up for the dinner.
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Young jugglers and pets
Jugglers under 18 should be accompanied by an adult. Children under 8 are free. Sorry, no pets!
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Directions and transportation
The site is at 14615 Otay Lakes Road, Jamul, CA 91935. Map it here.
LAX is the largest airport in the area, but San Diego (SAN) is very big too and has lots of international flights. There is very little ground transportation in the area. At the beginning and end of the fest we'll probably run twice a day to SAN to collect people, and we'll maybe run once to LAX. If we get lots of volunteers, this service might improve. Amtrak also runs from Los Angeles to San Diego.
Update: Your humble organizers will be in Los Angeles until Sunday, January 6. That's a two hour drive north of San Diego. So if you're flying in before Sunday, please do one of the following:
- Fly to LAX (or one of the smaller airports, LGB or SNA). LGB is by far the closest to Will and Rhonda's house.
- Plan your own transportation (probably rental car or Amtrak) up to LA, where we can find crash space for you until Sunday.
- Take care of yourself in San Diego until Sunday.
Thanks!
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Weather
San Diego is warm and pleasant year-round. When we checked out the site it was beautifully sunny, perfect for juggling outside in shorts and T-shirt. Slight breeze, but not too strong for most juggling.
The average January temperatures for the site are nighttime low 42 (6 celsius), daytime high 68 (20 celsius), and it doesn't vary much. Do bring a coat for the evenings and a warm sleeping bag or companion! There is also a chance of rain in January.
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Juggling space
There is an indoor space to juggle. Some nonjugglers will be able to pass through, so jugglers might not want to leave their props around when there are no jugglers there. The ceiling is plenty high. The space is 55x63 feet (17x19 meters). (For comparison, a basketball court is about 50x90 feet.) We can clear the tables in the hall. There is also a pleasant chill-out space for games and puzzles nearby.
There is also an outdoor patio right next to the indoor space that has a roof, light, and two walls, and is 73x60 feet, but that's only open until 10pm. (The indoor space is open until midnight.)
Outside, there is plenty of field space around the park. There's even a volleyclub net, although that's not so close to the cafeteria.
It would be possible to organize a show in the cafeteria, and the nonjuggling campers at the site would enjoy it, but your humble organizers aren't show people, so someone else would have to do it.
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Night owls
The cafeteria space closes at midnight, and the outside space must be quiet by 10pm. We might be able to negotiate later hours on the indoor space, but we shouldn't plan for the normal Passout all-night time shift. (You'll be nine hours shifted from European time anyway!) Of course, we're welcome to socialize and drink at the campsite all night, provided we aren't noisy enough to disturb other campers.
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Sleeping
Most people will sleep in tents at a site about 200 meters from the juggling space. We can loan out a few tents, but most people should bring them. There are restrooms, showers, fire grills, and a large sink nearby. This is a campground resort where nonjugglers will have large camper vans around the site but the tent space will be jugglers only and this is not a busy time of year for the facility. The jugglers will be all together in one area. Other campers tend to be friendly, and they'll enjoy seeing the juggling. Theft shouldn't be a problem, but don't leave anything very small and valuable around.
If you want more coverage, you can rent a trailer for about $75 a night. A trailer sleeps six people and has a shower, stove, cooking utensils, and fridge. We will rent one or two trailers for the fest team so everyone can use these to have a place to throw bags (if it rains hard) or anything requiring extra security.
You can also rent a studio cabin ($95/night) or one bedroom cabin ($115); each sleeps five people.
If you're interested in sharing a trailer or cabin, let us know and we'll try to hook you up with others. As of October 10, we have a group of three people looking to share a trailer.
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Food
We will put out basic stuff for breakfast and lunch: bread, cereal, milk, juice, coffee, tea, spreads, cold cuts, fruit. The campground cafe also sells a small selection of hot breakfast food on the weekend for about $5. We will contract with various local restaurants to give us a big hot dinner. (We know who gave us the best meals last time, so we'll get more of those!) We can't guarantee vegan, but we will have veggie and carnivorous options. We'll set up a cash minibar so you can enjoy some of that world-famous American beer. For other luxuries like chocolate, we can take orders or you can come with us on a food run and buy it.
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Local organizing team
Right now, the team is Rhonda, Aidee Castro, and Will. There are lots of other nice jugglers around Los Angeles, and we're hoping to recruit some of them to help.
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1Unless you went to Passout VII, in which case it will be Xtremely similar.