I hosted four workshops at this year’s festival. That’s quite an escalation from last year’s two, and next year I will probably do five. I’ll probably go at it all a little differently, though.
The nature of my first three workshops required that they be in a particular order, and on the same day. I taught a basic energy work and circle casting class, followed by a class on conjuring spirits, and culminating in an actual conjuration of the spirits of the Sphere of Venus at their appointed hour on their appointed day. Nescessarily, then, all three were Friday. That was kinda tiring. Also frantic.
The 101 course was sparsely attended – just two people – but they were very enthusiastic. It was intimate and effective, and I will definitely teach it again next year.
The conjuration workshop drew about eight people, twice as many as last year and more than all my other workshops combined. There was a good mix of experience levels, and people had a fun variety of their own stories to share. Almost all of them went on to participate in the actual conjuration that night, along with a handful who hadn’t made the workshop. Definitely a success.
The final workshop was a discussion on being queer and pagan. Relatively few people showed to that one, which had the misfortune of being placed at the same time as workshops by both Sede and Lupa, two of our guest speakers. In particular, I was interested to see if there was an interest in hosting meet-and-greets to help queers attending the festival to find each other and create a sub-community, and I think there is definitely enough interest in that. Hopefully some younger and more radical queers will attend next year, and we will have a more lively discussion.
All in all, I think the workshops went well, and putting them on was a very rewarding experience for me. I will definitely try to spread them out more, next year, if I can, but I will probably do them all again. I may even do two queer and pagan workshops: a meet-and-greet at the beginning and an after-action discussion group to air any problems that people had.