In late September 1989, Hurricane Hugo blasted its way through the metro Charlotte area, flinging all kinds of things into the air. So it was only natural that the Lake Norman Jugglers, around that same timeframe, named their local juggling festival after that historic event.
On Friday and Saturday, Sept. 2-3, the annual Hurricane Hugo Festival and Vaudeville Extravaganza will return to Davidson and Davidson College, orchestrated by Davidson College communications specialist extraordinaire Bill Giduz and his merry band of jugglers.
“I don’t know why Hurricane Hugo, but it was that same year we started the festival and we had to name it something,” says Giduz. “Hurricane Hugo came through and we thought about it slinging things all over the place, kind of like juggling, so we just named it the Hurricane Hugo Festival and built it around that.”
Labor Day weekend isn’t the anniversary date of Hugo, but it’s close enough. Giduz says the holiday weekend is ideal to accommodate some of the 75 participating jugglers who travel a long distance for the event. And they do come, he says, from as far away as Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
There are about 50 such small weekend festivals held by juggling clubs across the country, according to Giduz, and they all include some sort of evening show. For the local event, that’s the Vaudeville Extravaganza on Saturday, Sept. 3, at 7 p.m. in Davidson College’s Duke Family Performance Hall.
The Great Fettucini (a.k.a. Steve Langley) will emcee the show and introduce a lineup of talented entertainers including Austin Bruckner, a 15-year-old juggler who attends the Community School of Davidson, who will perform a fast-paced juggling routine with as many as seven objects. Star yo-yo tosser Ed Haponik, a science and physics teacher at Davidson Day School, will also perform along with championship juggler Tommy Curtin and award-winning comedy magician Craig Stone.
Another highlight of the weekend will be an attempt to establish a Guinness world record for the largest crowd of paddleballers in one place at one time on Saturday morning at the Davidson Town Green. Langley, also known as “The Paddleball King” because he holds the Guinness record for most paddleballs manipulated at one time, will orchestrate the effort. The attempt will be made at 11 a.m., and participants should be on the Green by 10:30.
The first 250 people to sign up will be provided a paddleball and instructions on how to use it courtesy of sponsor Active People Toys. Participants can take the $12 paddleball home at no charge. The record attempt will be part of a festival on the Green from 9 a.m. to noon. Juggling balls and lessons will be available to all throughout the morning.
General admission for the family-friendly Vaudeville Extravaganza costs $10 for adults and $5 for ages 11 and younger. Tickets can be purchased online anytime at www.davidson.edu/tickets, or by phone at 704-894-2135 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. Proceeds from the show will benefit the Davidson College Chapter of Building Tomorrow, a charity that builds schools in Africa.
The weekend’s events are sponsored by the Lake Norman Jugglers, the Davidson College Union and Ben & Jerry’s of Davidson. For more information about the show and festival, contact Bill Giduz at 704-892-1296 or at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
