 The Niagara International Kite Festival is throwing a party and you’re invited! This years Niagara event is Thursday through Sunday 2~ 5 October 2008. A press fly is being arranged for Wednesday 1 October. Happy Birthday Revolution! There’ll be dancing in the streets! As the swift current of the mighty Niagara carries with it the spirit of the wind…iQuad embodies the spirit of Revolution. 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of the incredible Revolution kite. To celebrate, team iQuad will be masterfully demonstrating their poetry in motion at various locations at and near the majestic Niagara Falls. The fluidity of iQuads routine is like the flow of the mighty Niagara itself. There will be fire works over the falls on Friday evening 3 October…where we may just tempt iQuad to fly!
Can you see it…Niagara Falls, Fireworks, and a half dozen or more members of team iQuad getting their groove on? Also attending the party will be fantastic butterflies from Great Britain, remarkable arches and dragons from Switzerland, kap from Holland, plus stilt-walkers from Germany, to mention but a few! The Niagara festival tried to keep what worked from previous years, while at the same time adding a few new items to keep the event fresh and interesting. The morning of Wednesday 1 October will be a press fly at LaSalle Park in Buffalo, New York. LaSalle is a waterfront park that sits at the point Lake Erie flows into the Niagara River. As in previous years the festival has multiple venues, as well as multiple locations within a specific venue. We can’t be accused of taking the easy route, that’s for sure! Thursday and Friday 2 & 3 October the main venue (for those days) with registration, is at Terrapin Point, Niagara Falls, New York.
The permitted flying area will be from the brink of the falls, on both the Canadian and American side of the border, to a quarter mile north of the Whirlpool Bridge, again on both the Canadian and American side of the Gorge. The Whirlpool Bridge area is the original location of the 1848 Homan Walsh kite contest. (See the Homan Walsh article under the History tab of the web site http://niagarakite.com) The Gorge is at its most narrow at the Whirlpool Bridge location, measuring 800 feet across at that point (243.84 meters). It is a great honor that we are allowed to fly our kites in the immediate falls area. It is a tightly restricted no fly zone for both kites and planes. Yes, there are special permits for the local tourist helicopters, but it is highly regulated and monitored. The Niagara International Kite Festival believes passionately that there is no right or wrong way to fly kites. The variety available to kite flyers is one of the many virtues of kite flying, something for everyone; single lines, art kites, sport kites, team flying, traction kiting, maneuverable fighter kites, miniature kites, KAP, and kite history, to name a few. The relaxed schedule and attitude at Terrapin on the Thursday and Friday demonstrate the ‘something for everyone’ concept of kite flying more then most kite festivals have the opportunity to do. Some people enjoy the proximity of flying their kites adjacent to Niagara Falls. It is, awesome. The roar, thunder, pounding in your chest that you feel reverberating up through your feet as you fly your kites is a thrilling, once in a lifetime opportunity. Some people plot and plan and put together a team to try and re-create the Homan Walsh contest. They study the weather, geography, historical data; they assemble a plethora of materials, numerous kites, line strengths and lengths, along with the perfect team members. And if they are a smart team, they have at least a couple of good fighter kite pilots.
There are also those who prefer to join the arch team, who connect the United States and Canada with an arch of kites. It creates a beautiful symbol of peace and unity as the arch of kites connects the world’s longest undefended boarder in the world. The gorge is 200 feet deep (about 61 meters) and the width ranges from 800 feet (243.84 meters) across to over a couple of thousand feet across (600+/- meters). Traditionally a fighter kite is flown across the gorge, and the arch is then fed over the line. The most difficult part of flying across the gorge is getting the kite to come down on the other side! The first Homan Walsh re-enactment attempted following the 1848 contest was done by us in 1992. It was wonderfully successful. The arch connected the two countries at the Whirlpool Bridge location. When the festival was rekindled in 2005, due to changes in Homeland Security, we were forced to attempt both the Homan Walsh contest re-enactment and the arch in the proximity of the falls instead of the original location. It was not successful. This year, 2008, the Homan Walsh contest and connecting arch will most likely be attempted at the original location (Whirlpool Bridge). However, until the day actually arrives and we see what the wind speed and direction are, we won’t know the exact location, or the time, of the attempt. And knowing the wind, it may even change throughout the day! Registration and prior kite flying experience is mandatory for both individuals and teams flying kites in the permitted zones along the gorge, and there is absolutely no kite flying in non-permitted zones. This is not the place to learn how to fly; there is amble room at Reservoir for that. Saturday and Sunday 4 & 5 October the venue is Reservoir State Park in Lewiston, New York. It is a dream field measuring over a half of a mile by a third of a mile of cut grass. This location will have registration, a kite store, and kite making, etc. The main demonstration kite flying field will have a steady display of astonishing art kites, fabulous huge inflatable show kites, and multiple line kites doing team flying.
There will also be a free family flying field, which will be adjacent to the inter-active kite field. The inter-active field will have Bol Races, a Fugu, and of course flying monkey competitions. Back by popular demand is the Saturday evening ‘Thank-You Flyers’ dinner at the Central Terminal Train Station. It is a unique urban chic experience that is unlike any other venue. http://buffalocentralterminal.org It’s a dinner with the flyers, for the flyers and is all about the flyers. The Buffalo Central Terminal opened to the public on June 22, 1929. Built by the New York Central Railroad, the art deco style station was built to accommodate up to 3200 passengers per hour, or 200 trains per day. The Central Terminal Restoration Corporation (CTRC) was founded in 1997 to oversee the stabilization and restoration of the Central Terminal. It is hard to stress enough how this particular venue is not for everybody! There are ‘Out-Houses’ for rest-rooms. No on-site kitchen makes for a very resourceful dinner menu. The building is currently being renovated and is under going restoration that is by no means complete. It can be a little damp and menacing inside at times.
Yet for those of us who see past the broken glass and crumbling stone, it is absolutely beautiful. We see profound strength, character, and individuality in the stoic building. We see a building with soul that was created as a pivotal location in the United States. Thousands of people filed through the station daily. Trains took the adventurous out west; the business minded to the bustling streets of New York City, the honeymooners to their newly joined lives and the way too young soldiers off to war. The seventy foot high ceilings inside the main concourse scream out…”fly here, fly here”! The very progressive board of directors who have the immense job of restoring the Central Terminal love having the indoor kite flyers at the station. The station has a variety of quirky tenants, a sampling is; the avant-garde ‘Model & Artist Show’, the Oktoberfest, Model Train Show, Spencer Tunic mass nude photography session, and has acted as numerous movie sets as well as the movies Premier launch location! The schedules and numerous details of this complex production are a constant work in progress. Please check in with the web site (listed above) from time to time to see posted information and the updates on; maps, directions, history, registration, lodging, schedules, and the growing list of flyers attending. For those who like to plan ahead, also listed on the web site are the Niagara International Kite Festival dates for the next five years. This year, 2008 is the last year the Niagara event will be in October. Starting next year and going forward the Niagara Festival will be the last full week in September. There is no conflict with AKA’s convention date for this or next year, and AKA has not picked dates past 2009, and hopefully when they do there won’t be a conflict.
Niagara International Kite Festival is a small ‘Boutique’ event, so it was a tremendous surprise and thrill for us when, in the January 2008 issue of the Times of London prestigious travel magazine, they named the Niagara event one of the best six festivals to attend in the world!!! Now as the event approaches, all I can think of is, I don’t need the added stress or responsibility and oh boy do I have a lot of work to do. Let me leave you with one last though, be careful what you wish for, you just may get it!
See you there! Meg Robinson-Albers
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