Because the Timpanogos Park has such limited parking, visitors to the festival park at various designated lots near Provo canyon. Buses and vans arrive every 10 - 15 minutes to shuttle them up to the park.
The Buses continually drop off visitors at Timpanogos Park, up Provo Canyon. The park was built specifically for the Storytelling Festival a few years ago.
Near the entrance, Storytelling Festival visitors wait for the next bus to take them back to their parking lots.
The entrance to the Storytelling Festival
In between stories and at lunch there are a lot of people, but they all disappear into tents when the storytellers begin.
In the Festival Fanfare, you can buy audio recordings by all of the professional storytellers being features this year, as well as memorabilia and puppets like these.
In a pavilion near the entrance, local entertainers perform in between performances by the professional tellers in the main tents.
Joe Flores and I perform a mime routine at the festival.
Here I am performing our Blockhead mime routine. We have various eyes and mouth faces with magnets that make them stick to the blockhead. We change faces to tell a story.
Another picture of Joe Flores and I performing the Blockheads mime routine for the festival.
The scenery at the park is beautiful during late August when they hold the festival.
More Beautiful Scenery from the Timpanogos Park.
The people all head to tents like this one to listen to the storyteller's weaver their tales.
Inside the tent, Antonio Rocha, originally from Brazil, combines mime with storytelling to hold the audience spellbound.
Each teller brings their own style and culture to share.
In addition to the swarms of people, there were an unusual number of wasps at the park. The metal picnic tables apparently make attractive nesting places for them.
Another teller casts her spell.
Most people get from tent to tent on foot.
But there are also golf carts everywhere to carry both visitors and performers to anywhere they need to go.
More golf carts ready to help story enthusiasts get from here to a long time ago and far far away...
There were plenty of security officers around to help if needed and to keep everyone safe.
The main performances in the evening are at the Scera Shell Amphitheater in Orem.
We had to park 3 blocks away to find a place before we got to the Scera for Laughin' Night.
The event attracts a huge crowd. If you want good seats you need to arrive at least an hour and a half early, if not two hours.
One storyteller described it as Storytelling Woodstock.
Each professional teller that is featured this year takes the stage and tells his or her funniest story. Each one has their own style and culture to share.
From having a very Mormon crowd learn Black Baptist culture, to Japanese stories about breaking wind, and stories of trying to catch a beaver in Minnesota, everyone has a fabulous time and goes home to re-tell the stories they've heard to others.
