00:00 We are the Beltane Fire Society!
00:02 [Cheering]
00:05 And on the 30th of April, we're going to have a really big fire festival and you are invited.
00:11 I've got flyers for it, we do sell tickets for it. Come and speak to us.
00:16 We have a registered charity and rehearsal rooms to make the drum crew sound as good as they do.
00:21 Cost lots of money. So if you could, please, dig deep, take out a note, fold it up and put it in one of the buckets.
00:27 [Drumming]
00:48 The Beltane Fire Festival is a massive community celebration that happens on top of Carleton Hill on the night of 30th April.
00:55 Which is one of the Celtic Water Days and we're celebrating the beginning of summer.
00:59 We follow the procession of the May Queen and the Green Man as they go around the hill, Carleton Hill,
01:05 visiting all the elemental points, paying respect to those elements and bringing in the sun.
01:11 It always kicks off just as the sun is setting. There's about 500 volunteers that take part.
01:17 There's drumming groups, there's fire sculptures, there's fire spinners.
01:21 There's lots of traditional roles that are filled anew each year.
01:26 And we process around the hill, entertaining and having a good time.
01:31 So I've been with Beltane since about 2017. So I've been various different characters throughout my experience.
01:41 I've done everything from drum crews to fire spinning groups.
01:44 And for Samhain past this year I was also the Summer King.
01:48 So I've taken many different roles throughout it.
01:51 I like to dabble in different experiences and get different things out of it every time.
01:56 Which I think is the beauty of Beltane, every experience is always different.
02:00 It always changes every year so it brings something new every time.
02:04 The commitment and the excitement does ramp up the closer you get to the festival.
02:09 It depends what role you're playing on the night and which group you're in.
02:12 So drumming groups tend to rehearse a couple of times a week.
02:16 Most performance groups also do a couple of times a week.
02:19 If you are wanting to nail a particular acrobatic routine or a particular drumming rhythm you might have additional practices.
02:26 And it tends to be a beautiful way to build up in the week before the festival.
02:31 Everyone coming together to finish costumes in a mad rush and make sure they've got all their performances down.
02:38 [Drumming]
02:46 (laughing)
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