Move over Oktoberfest and make way for the original harvest fest!
MABON FIRE FESTIVAL!
We are almost one month away from our first big event at Triskelion, the Mabon Fire Festival. While I still have your attention, let me tell you a bit about Mabon (pronounced May-bun), the second harvest festival of the year.
Mabon is the Celtic celebration of the Autumn equinox. The September equinox (or Southward equinox) is the moment when the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator, heading southward. It can occur at any time between the 21st and the 24th day of September. This year, it goes down on the 21st.
At the equinox, at the equator, the Sun rises directly in the east and sets directly in the West. Before the Southward equinox, the Sun rises and sets more to the north, and afterwards, it rises and sets more to the south. What this means to me, particularly, is more glare on my computer screen because I have a huge southerly window behind my desk.
At this Celtic festival some choose to wear all their finest clothes and dine and celebrate in a lavish setting. It is marked by the drawing together of family as we prepare for the winding down of the year. It is time to finish old business and ready for a period of rest, relaxation, and reflection.
Asleep yet? I’m sorry… nobody expects a lecture about equinox’s when discussing a festival at a brewery. My bad. I had to do it though, because I find it all fascinating.
So, what’s going down at Triskelion Brewing Company?
We are celebrating Mabon with a fire festival.
We will have three bands, Sirius B, The Resonant Rogues and Soleil LeBlanc will all be playing on the beer garden stage.
Sirius.B brings to you the finest Absurdist Gypsy Folk Funk Punk that the world has to offer. Their “impressively irreverent, combustible, three-ring circus of sound [and] high-energy style is difficult to neatly categorize. They play foreign music as well as upbeat and serious originals, with a lyrical style ranging from the quirky to the absurd.”
-Mountain Xpress
Sirius.B’s music is created with an eclectic mix of vocal harmonies and instruments including cello, accordion, violin, marching band & African percussion, charango, flamenco and acoustic guitar, banjo, and melodica.
The Resonant Rogues, anchored by the songwriting duo Sparrow and Keith Smith, have shared songs with train-hoppers in New Orleans, busked on the streets of Budapest, learned Turkish Romani dance in Istanbul, and marched in protest in the hills of Appalachia. Throughout, the stories they’ve heard and the people they’ve met have fueled their music, which abounds with influences like Eastern European Romani brass bands, New Orleans street jazz, old-time stringbands, Woody Guthrie anti-fascist folk, French jazz manouche, and Middle Eastern rhythms. It’s not easy to pull off such a bold combination of genres, but The Resonant Rogues learned this music in person from the people who created it, so they have a tie to each tradition and a working knowledge of what this music means to the ordinary people that make this music every day.
Soleil LeBlanc is a WNC local singer-songwriter that you have probably seen grace the stage at Triskelion already. She has been writing and performing original music for over seven years. Soleil’s sound is a unique mix of soul and folk. Music from the soul for the soul.
In addition to the bands, we will have Unifire, a troupe of Asheville fire spinners in the beer garden, and aerial dancers hanging from the rafters inside. We will have fortune tellers and face painters will be up in the Mezzanine.
Also joining us are the Warriors of Ash, (Warriors of Ash) hosting a real live steel sword battle in front of the brewhouse! They are a non-profit Historical European Martial Arts group based in Asheville that will showcase their martial prowess with live demonstrations of fighting styles, weapons, armor and the rules of combat.
This is a ticketed event and will be restricted to those 21 years of age and older (we’re sorry, but you’ll have to leave the kids at home for this one).
Two tiers of tickets are on sale at our Eventbright site:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mabon-fire-festival-2018-tickets-49224327288
There are 160 general admission tickets, which will give the ticket holder admission into the event, one complimentary beer, and a commemorative beer glass.
There are 90 VIP tickets available. These will grant the ticket holder admission into the event, one complimentary beer, a commemorative beer glass, a commemorative embroidered ballcap, and one carnival ticket (which can be used to get your face painted, fortune told… your choice on which one).
And that’s it. 250 tickets sold and we’re done. VIP tickets are only available for pre-sale on the Eventbright page, and only the unsold general admission tickets will be available at the door on the day of the event, and when they sell out, the event is sold out.
So, plan ahead so that you can come play with us!
https://www.facebook.com/events/463783427472298/