For jugglers not on facebook; update from BJCIC and deadline for potential BJC 2026 organising teams:It’s update time!
We wanted to release a statement to both introduce ourselves formally and to provide a little more info/context on what we’re doing and why.
Past
The British Juggling Convention has been running since 1988! It started as a 2 day event with a handful of jugglers and has grown into a much bigger event, encompassing juggling and circus skills as varied as unicycle, aerial and German wheel to name but a few of the skills on display over the years. Hundreds of people regularly attend juggling conventions across the UK and the British Juggling Convention is the largest in the UK attracting 500-1000 people every year.
We are a community who get together and pass the baton round, rather than a group who regularly attend a commercial event. The only way the event succeeds is with community members contributing their time and skills to make it happen.
Over 35 events, the BJC has been organised by 30+ different teams. Each year at the business meeting, during BJC, we have gathered to choose who will run the following event. Every event has been run independently, usually with a small box of ‘stuff’ being passed to the next team. The location changes with the team, and has taken place across the country (See map: https://www.jugglingedge.com/groupmap.php?GroupID=1 ).
In the past, local groups like clubs or juggling/circus companies would band together to form an organising team and put together a bid; more recently bids have been led by a smaller local core, with a wider team coming from further afield.
Present
2025 has been a difficult year for BJC. Venue problems meant the planned team had to pull out. Subsequently, a number of parties expressed an interest in taking the event on. In order to maintain the openness of BJC, Jak managed a tender process to enable multiple teams to express interest. In the end there was only one party willing and able to take on the responsibility. Revel Puck stepped forward with a viable plan, tying the BJC into a site they were already using.
Once Revel Puck won the tender process they decided to run the event fully independently as a commercial, rather than volunteer, endeavour. They decided they wanted to pay their professional staff and do it differently to how it had been run in the past. Multiple offers of help from past organisers were not accepted, with the team implying that they felt they had the requisite event organisation skills, and that they would ask for help if it was required. Unfortunately, this approach was not successful; learning which will be taken forward.
We have now officially formed the British Juggling Community Interest Company (BJCIC). Assets and data from BJCs will now be held by the BJCIC so that there is continuity between years; the BJCIC will seek to find grants which previous BJCs have not been eligible for; and the BJCIC will exist to help future teams, it will not exist to run BJCs. We feel it is important that BJC belongs to the community and that its culture is supported.
BJC 2026
Any teams interested in running BJC 2026 will need to submit a tender ASAP.
A tender guide can be found within the British Juggling Convention facebook group or by emailing britishjugglingcic@gmail.com
Tenders due by: 27th of June
Voting opens: 30th of June
Voting closes: 6th of July
Future
We’re excited about the future of BJCs and have formed the BJCIC to make it as easy as possible for a new team to step forward and run a successful event. We’re creating guidance documents, writing policies and collating data, in the hope of enabling teams to focus on creating their event, rather than reinventing wheels.
We also hold the assets from the past few BJCs (radios, PA system, tills, office supplies, etc.) which will be available on an ongoing basis to future teams. It is our hope that we will be able to build up a significant holding of assets, helping to save BJC more money every year. We also plan on making some of these assets available for hire to the wider juggling community at significantly less-than-market price.
Touching a little more on the data, each new team is a separate entity with no access to past events’ data. This data falls into 3 main camps:
1) Jugglers - who’s been before and is interested in attending future events? And who’s interested in helping at future events?
2) Suppliers - finding competitive suppliers (from venues to passes) can be time consuming and can result in teams over spending.
3) Operational - social media, information on budgets, safeguarding, etc.
The BJCIC currently comprises 4 directors:
Jak Bodicoat Elyard
Sam Hardwick
Lucie Ludar-Smith
PJ Perkin
And 3 Associates:
Anna Bodicoat Elyard
Sadie Sareen
Andrew Ludar-Smith
The directorships are on a rolling expiry (with one post up for re-election each year) with a maximum of 2 consecutive terms. Our hope is that, over time, others within the community with the relevant experience will step up as directors in the future; enabling the BJCIC to continue indefinitely as a part of our community, rather than being tied to specific individuals.
from: https://www.facebook.com/britishjugglingconvention/posts/pfbid022xphyMVo15dsrCe36oBLSnHs4gqzDrsMDfuWyvCkDuhrfJxGazTcTuoL6podHYCYl
#BJCIC #BJC #BJC2026
Link to tender guide: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U6DQJxUH7KjXt0VuBoA-Ufx9f9JcX4Ng/view
Hello, this is Saskia from Circus Amersfoort and just back form the NJF (Dutch Juggling Convention) and looking forward to the EJC in Papendal (close to Arnhem) the Netherlands and hope seeing you all there.
Here are all the links posted during May 2025:
The following hashtags were used:
Adam Brown - #
#sfjuggle
Greetings folks! Adam Brown here, head of Juggling Club over at Circus Center in San Francisco. Updating our listing as we meet every Sunday from 5-8pm in the theater. More folks should know about it! Suggested donation of $5-$10 supports Circus Center. Feel free to email me with questions at adam@circuscenter.org.
Hi all,
Didn't know if there were many people that juggle until my neighbor caught me in the front yard. Known the guy for about 10 years and didn't know he could juggle.. I was just trying to re-learn away from my puppy. She's a rottweiler, all ball dog.
Picked up some "dog tennis balls" to play with. Sold two to a pack, I tossed her one... Those things are not rotti-rated and part of ball #4 came back as less than half of the hide. Now I have to play outside to keep for getting mugged...
Anyway would like to meet up with fellow jugglers for tips etc.
73's
J
Hi Jay, welcome to The Edge. Check out the Clubs section in the menu (that’s clubs as in societies, not as in juggling props) to see if there are any clubs near you. Good luck with the training.
Hi Jay, welcome to the Edge. ... not easy to find a ball that a rotti can't "do".
Nick Huxley - - Parent #
Hi Jay,
I feel this thread needs to evolve towards a discussion on dog proof props. I am not a dog person and had cats when I was first learning to juggle. I am now coming to terms with owning a Cardigan Welsh Corgi puppy who is teething like mad but does seem to enjoy picking up clubs and could potentially be trained to collect them and bring them to me. At present she just picks them up and runs madly around the garden before placing them down again. Seeing as I have 500 or so clubs I can afford to let one or two get trashed and I have also developed a habit of leaving the plastic wrapping on them and juggling them like that and so the dog can teethe off the plastic over time.
I have not tried juggling balls anywhere near her yet. Plastic Mr Babache stage balls may be okay as they are probably bigger than she can get her mouth around but bean bags are probably not a good idea. I don't practice numbers juggling anywhere near her at the moment preferring to do this at the UCL club or the stair well in my work. I think I need to investigate if a Kevlar bean bag would work.
Hi everybody,
I know that it's a shame but I'm finally here, now :-D
I'm looking forward to the upcoming Passing Meetings and conventions in Germany and I can't wait to see you again!
Here are all the links posted during April 2025:
The following hashtags were used:
Buses to EJC 2025. The EJC 2025 organisers are organising buses to European Juggling Convention 2025 in Papendal in The Netherlands; from Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg and London. The buses will take you direct to the EJC site and you also get to experience the joy of travelling in a coach full of jugglers.
For these buses to be viable they need 50 people to sign up before the 30th April (today) - this gives people time to make alternative travel arrangements if there aren't enough people for the buses to run. If 50 people don't sign up the buses won't run.
More details can be found and tickets bought at: https://tickets.ejc2025.org/
#EJC2025
Hi!! I'm Claire from UCSD and I'm part of the 333Jugglers club here. I mainly do temoto and I'm going to Isla Vista & IJA this year!
Hi!!!! Welcome to the Juggling Edge. I had to look up what temoto juggling was and it looks quite fun.
There seem to be quite a few juggling clubs in California, but the IJA festivals tend to be on the east side of USA, is there a reason for this? Have a great time Isla Vista and IJA!
Eliza Bent - #
THE REGULARS seeks experienced jugglers for show in Chicago next month, May 8 – 2, at Barron Mind Gallery (7765 N Sheridan Rd, Rogers Park)
Juggler will be outside of the art gallery from 6:45pm – 7:15pm as the audience arrives.
Ideally the juggler can juggle pins! Experienced / fluent juggling also works.
$25 per performance.
Sign up slot Google Drive link here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WNDlYTXfHn01vzYM2yafeb4YxQeyVXIFG4cYNGZpYL4/edit?usp=sharing
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