Festival of Fools

I just discovered this recently-​ish. It is a lot of fun. There are many very good performances and it is nice to see Church Street buzzing. I had a lot of fun going to this the last few years and rate this, along with the Jazz Fest, as the best Church Street event.

For three days, Church Street and area become animated as street artists, circus performers, magicians, musicians and comedians take turns in entertaining the public. Now, these are not the usual folks who share their talent in the Marketplace during regular days. These buskers come from all over the world to join in Burlington’s Festival of Fools.
As far as I know, this is the Festival’s second year, held second weekend of August. And it is organized by the Burlington City Arts. Schedule of performances are written on a board outside the Firehouse Center for the Visual Arts, at the end of Church Street. Volunteers, I presume, hand out more info about the festival and encourage everyone to cast in their votes for their favorite performer. The festival culminates with the awarding of the King/​Queen of Fools.
Our family favorite was Brent McCoy, a local of Vermont. We agreed that he had the most carefully thought-​out gig. His ad libs were right on and they didn’t sound too desperate. Even when he asked for tips toward the end of his performance, the man had a speech of a confident orator. And yes, he was really, really good with his tricks, too! I think he has a video on
.
Anyway, the other performers were equally entertaining. There’s the usual fire-​eating trick, women in trapeze, unicycling, music with ordinary things, hula-​hooping and the like. Then there’s also the unusual scorpion-​in-​pants while catching a bowling ball with steak knives on fire using the head kind of stunt. Truly lots of clowning around going on here!