Contemporary
Drummers bring a wide variety of instruments from hand drums to kettledrums. What started as a small picnic for University of Texas at Austin students has today swelled to a major annual festival with live bands, non-profit vendors of food, drink and local beers, as well as a children's area complete with arts and crafts and carnival games (every child wins a prize!!), family-oriented games and contests such as sack races, costume contests, and an egg toss. Attendance at the Birthday Party is free. Weather-permitting, it occurs on the last Saturday in April in Pease Park; a rain date is scheduled for the following weekend. Bright and diverse costumes are common. In keeping with the original traditions of the event, a live donkey and a may pole are always present. The event begins in the late morning and continues until dusk. Food and drinks are sold onsite by local Austin 501c-3 non-profit groups. Purified water is available onsite for participants to fill their own containers. Due to the lack of parking in the area and the high attendance, the Friends of the Forest Foundation provides festive shuttle buses between state parking lots just north of the capital building and Pease Park. Singing of folk and road trip songs is encouraged on the short bus ride.
Eeyore's Birthday Party is attended by people from a wide variety of backgrounds and ages, some of whom may have been attending for decades. Austin's hippie community still puts in a major appearance at the event, which they celebrate by forming large drum circles which can sometimes contain hundreds of drummers and dancers in the large areas of the park not occupied by other events.
As of 2008, the event has also spread to Seattle's Cal Anderson Park as an annual celebration.
Read more about this topic: Eeyore's Birthday Party
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