Riverside Lunar New Year Festival!

On Jan. 28th, we packed up the van and drove out to Riverside for their Lunar New Year Festival! Maz, Andrew, Candice, Kevin, and I met in Little Tokyo to drive together and we picked up Jen near her home on the way. It was super windy once we got closer to Riverside and Maz had to drive carefully to make sure we were all safe.

This is a great festival!! There were so many different stages with lot of entertainment and activities, along with many booths set up by different organizations and food vendors.

Our first set was in front of the library and then we moved our equipment to the main stage for our second set. I really liked how the different stages have their own unique feeling to them. The library "stage" was actually on the ground, level with the audience. Many people were sitting on the ground in front of us and people gathered all around. It was a nice, intimate feeling. The main stage was quite different. We were definitely much higher then the audience where they sat in chairs. There was a big tent behind the stage for the performers to store equipment and change. It had a more of a "concert" feel. One thing that remained constant from stage to stage was the amazing audience. :) We also saw fellow taiko players from UCR Senryu Taiko! Hi Senryu!

There were lots of funny moments and I only took one photo, which I would totally share with you... but it's a picture of 4 of the members that fell asleep in the van... at the same time. It's not the most attractive photo, and since I'm such a nice person, I won't post it. :D hah!

Happy lunar new year!!!!