The Flow Arts are a hobby that most people find to be utterly intoxicating and love to immerse themselves in. One of the ways we explore this art is through weekend-long retreats that happen all over the world, called flow or fire festivals and they represent an important opportunity to connect with a wider community, learn new skills or tools, and contribute to the wider flow arts world.

Why Festivals?

So, let’s say you’ve just learned to spin fire and you go to a local jam regularly. You learn from great friends, use online resources, and progress your skills, but somehow you just want more! The good news is that you’re not alone--people all over the country organize events that allow you to focus on your art in a special location where you can enjoy great music, workshops from well-known artists, and spin to your heart’s content.

These are fire or flow festivals and they give attendees an opportunity to experience full immersion in their art for a weekend.

I want to note real quickly that the term festival is often used generically to refer to a number of different events that include transformational festivals like Burning Man and its regional burns, music festivals like AllGood or Shambala, as well as festivals devoted exclusively to fire spinning. You may well encounter flow artists at any one of these festivals, but this blog is going to focus on the latter type.

A History of Flow/Fire Festivals

The first fire festival was called Firedrums. It was a small, informal gathering organized by a man named Sky Rockit that met on a beach in San Francisco back in 2004. It brought together fire spinners and drummers to explore their art and trade skills in a loose and improvised fashion. Within a few years, this festival was moved to a local Boy Scout camp and put more formal structure in place, including a workshop schedule and allowing fire prop vendors to come and exhibit to attendees.

Soon, other events popped up experimenting with this basic template while adding their own unique spin. These festivals began to spring up all over the country, including Wildfire in New England, FLAME Festival in Georgia, and Pacific Fire Gathering in Oregon among many, many others.

When I first started spinning, Firedrums and Wildfire were the only two festivals devoted exclusively to fire spinning in the country. Last year there were fifty!

The Festival Experience

Going to a festival is an experience unlike any other. If you’ve never been to one, here’s what to expect:

Festivals usually last 2-3 days and feature 2 full days of workshops with an additional day for packing up. They usually take place over weekends with either Friday and Saturday or Saturday and Sunday devoted to workshops.

Nearly all festivals are camping experiences. You’ll be pitching a tent and responsible for your own food for the duration of the weekend. A few events, like Wildfire and Fahrenheit, include meals in the price of the ticket--check the event site or with friends who’ve gone before to get clarity on the event you intend to go to. Some of the festival sites have water or electrical resources, but don’t count on either of these things! It’s never a bad idea to bring your own water or battery chargers with you. A few festivals have garbage collection, but you should really think of these as being leave no trace events--if you bring it in with you, you should bring it back out as well. All events, however, have bathroom facilities and some have showers as well.

In a few cases, festival grounds are far enough away from civilization that you won’t get cell phone service or wifi. If you need to be in touch with the outside world for any reason, you should double-check the coverage map for the area before you leave.

The festivals bring in a wide variety of teachers on a diverse range of tools. You’ll have the option of learning new things about your tool of choice or picking up a different one entirely. Many of the artists you may follow on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram travel and attend multiple festivals, giving you an opportunity to connect with people you respect and opportunities for collaborations.

You’ll also find many different types of vendors at these festivals. In most cases, these vendors sell fire or practice props, clothing, jewelry, or other flow-related merchandise. These events are a great opportunity to upgrade your old equipment, acquire a new tool, or just have an opportunity to try out a set of tools before you purchase them. Some festivals also have food vendors but again, unless it’s advertised before the event don’t count on this and make sure you come prepared.

At night, you’ll get to spin fire to music from local or national DJs inside of what’s called a fire circle. This is a large area devoted to letting attendees spin fire with their tool of choice as either a performance or personal meditation while a large, casual audience of people looks on. You can watch your friends spin until you get inspired yourself or, if you prefer, you can go spin or practice with glow props in areas adjacent to the circle.

Many festivals also feature performance showcases in which well-known artists can show off their stage acts or newcomers can cut their teeth for a friendly and receptive crowd.

There are also plenty of variations on this particular template: for example, some festivals occur inside of cities in large public parks or gymnasiums. These festivals tend not to have fire and don’t involve camping, but are a great way to inspire people who’ve never encountered the flow arts before. Examples include Florida Flow Fest, Monkey See Monkey Do, and Madskillz.

How to get involved

The flow and fire arts attract people with a passion for participation, so there is a strong volunteer culture at these events. You’ll be encouraged to help greet people as they enter the event, safety spot for other performers, or help with setup or teardown for the event. There are a lot of possible jobs that fit a variety of different personalities and skill sets. This is also a great way to meet new people or acquire new skills--many people report volunteer shifts being a highlight of their experience. See what volunteer slots are available at your local festival!

So what if you want to be more involved in running a festival? There are three major ways to do this:

First, you can sign up to be an instructor at one of these festivals. Instructors in many cases are like the lead singer of a band--a focal point at the festival that seek to inspire and share, but the number of available slots is much smaller than the number of teachers who want them. You’ll generally want to build up an audience first by uploading examples of your work online and developing a presence before many festivals will consider adding you to their schedule. Most festivals recruit their teachers through online applications. Check with your local festival for when their application becomes available.

It should also be said, very few festivals provide compensation to all their instructors. In many cases, teaching is considered a different type of volunteering. For those that do provide compensation, it is usually just enough to help with travel.

Second, you can sign up to be an organizer. All festivals require people to run them, after all. Ironically, this is a job that should be more or less invisible to festival-goers unless something goes wrong, but is incredibly rewarding. You get to create what potentially could be a transformative or life-changing event for hundreds of people. Being an organizer requires good judgement, patience, and skills at being a good manager. It is not for everyone, but is also a great learning opportunity for people wanting to be leaders. Just like with instructors, most festivals have an open application period for their organizers where you can see if there's a role to fit you.

Third, you could opt to run your own festival. This is definitely the hardest job of all as you’ll be responsible for assembling a management team, running finances, and coordinating with venues and local authorities. It is extremely rare that festivals don’t lose money in their first year or two of operation and this role requires the utmost in professionalism and responsibility. This role is the hardest one there is.

How to Find Festivals

Fire and flow festivals represent one of the greatest social tools we have for connecting with our artform and other people who share this love. Curious if there’s a festival in your neck of the woods? My website has a list of them for the coming year!

What are your favorite festivals? What’s something you wish you’d known before you started attending them? Let me know down in the comments section and help out some folks who might be thinking of going to their first festival.