September 28, 2004

Photos

Gauley Festival Weekend is like a Neely Book in full color and live. The Festival itself is an unreal, imaginary party scene, created from the activity of kayaking, and artificially spiced with crazy games, plenty of beer, and New York style overcrowding.

This year was the Jackson families first year with our own booth, which was simply our RV parked in the middle of the field, with the awning out, a grill for burgers and hot dogs, and two kegs of beer, Bass Ale, and Magic Hat #9 (VT micro brew). Add 180 hats to give away, and plenty of t-shirts and you have a party!

Our goal was to make sure that all of the people who wanted to check out our new boats, like a Fun, or All-Star, or even a Star, Super Star, or Fun 1.5, could do so. I also wanted to make sure that nobody went hungry or thirsty. We ended up making a hundred or more burgers, and even more dogs, as well as keeping the kegs flowing, all while sitting more people in or new boats than I could imagine. Colin Kemp from Valley Mill Kayak Shop (currently #2 in the USA in their first year in business) was instrumental in getting people fitted, as well as delivering the beer. My good friend Danny Stock was on site all night long, describing in detail to anybody who asked, just how to use the Happy Feet, as well as which boat is for them. Most of our employees, like John, Josh, Jase, Brian, and Tanya were there to make sure anybody who cared got the information and attention they needed.

My job was to arrange for 10 hats every ½ hour to be passed out from the top of the RV to the crowd below. Each hat was numbered from 1-220. At 10pm a drawing was done to choose which person who got a numbered hat, would also win a brand new Jackson Kayak of their choice.

What a fun time. There was big kids, little kids, and adults of all sizes and shapes lunging for hats and t-shirts as they floated into the crowd, or were sometimes rocketed straight into the group.

At 10pm, I threw out the last of the swag and immediately did the drawing. Number 216 wasn’t present, oops, then number 72 was pulled and the nice guy wearing tie die came on to the RV. I asked what kind of boat he wanted, and he replied, “The Silver one!”. It was apparent that we just created a new kayaker! He also won a new Lotus lifejacket earlier in the evening.

It was 2am before the beer was dry and the party was over, and I could go to bed. Clay Wright, thought for sure that I would turn into a pumpkin by midnight, since he is the night owl and I am usually in bed by then. The real deal was getting up early and paddling the next day, which we did, of course, and the Gauley Festival was complete, once again!

EJ