riverviewlogs | monthly mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: monthly mingle: the river festival
when: the month of august
where: anywhere around the city
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

river festival

In the days leading up to August 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: The River Festival. This holiday is in celebration of the river and the life that it gives to the city, as well as the heat of summer and forming bonds with friends, family, and romantic partners. The celebrations are marked by a community-wide cleanup of the docks and beaches along the river - particularly important considering the recent flooding that's left the banks of the river littered with debris - as well as beachfront cookouts and parties (both private and city sponsored) and beach sports tournaments happening on either open stretches of beach or in special clothing-optional beaches, all capped off with fireworks displays each weekend in August.

a celebration of the river and togetherness

Following the hedonism of Carnivale, it's time for something a little more low-key and relaxing. The River Festival happens every year in August, and is geared toward community building through cleaning up the beaches and docks along the river and then using all that freshly cleaned beach to gather on. During the month of August, there are various lightly-themed government-sponsored beach cookouts and parties geared toward family, romantic dates, or casual all-ages get-togethers for meeting new friends; there are also a few more racy parties at clothing-optional beaches around the city. Many private residents also take this time to gather together friends and family, and have cookouts on the beach with all the typical trappings of the beach barbecue. There are also various casual sports tournaments sponsored by community centers, gyms, and sports teams in the city, featuring prizes ranging from notoriety to sports equipment to big bucks. Every weekend, there are beautiful fireworks displays and free concerts. This year, the River Festival has been chosen for the unveiling of a new water park in the City, with free or heavily discounted tickets during August!

i. cleaning up

The holiday starts off on a note that is just a bit more sombre than the rest of the season, with the cleanup efforts following the recent flooding blending into the usual tradition of cleaning up beaches and docks along the river. The cleanup is a group effort, with every citizen who is physically able pitching in to comb the beaches, where they pick up fallen tree limbs, garbage, and anything else that's accumulated during the winter and spring, and then raking the beaches to make them clean and ready to use. The cleanup of the docks is similar, with residents sweeping and hosing them down where necessary. This year, there are a lot of repairs to be made to beachfront structures that might've been damaged by flooding and the traffic along the riverbanks from the heroes that participated in the rescue of cult hostages, so if anyone has some carpentry or building skills, those would definitely come in handy.

This is meant to be a community building effort, so many businesses in the area, more well-to-do private citizens, and the government have pitched in funding to provide lunches, cold drinks, coffee or tea, and snacks to anyone who's helping out with the cleanup efforts. All in all, the cleanup has a very friendly, welcoming vibe.

ii. beach activities

The main traditions of the River Festival involve cookouts and beach parties. Each weekend in August, the government as well as various corporations and businesses in the city, will be providing funds for large beach gatherings. On these days, there will be booths set up offering wares and freebies from various businesses around the city that have helped fund the party, large swaths of cleared beach where residents can don a swimsuit and catch some rays or swim in the river, massive barbecue setups to provide partygoers with all the standard barbecue fare, beach sports tournaments, dancing and musical performances, and fireworks displays (see prompts below).

The holiday isn't just about these big parties, though - many residents arrange their own barbecues, cookouts, beach camping trips, beach bonfires, and other riverside gatherings and outings. Many riverfront businesses offer discounts on services such as canoe or kayak rentals to go out paddling on the river, jetski or motorboat rentals for tubing, wakeboarding, or waterskiing, or mounts to take romantic rides in the surf. Additionally, there is an adults-only section of the beach where any of these activities can be done in the nude in a clothing-optional setting, including the big city-sponsored parties.

If your character is good at playing a particular sport that could, conceivably, be played on a beach, chances are that during the month of August, a tournament will be set up for them to participate in. The tournaments are pretty standard, generally sponsored by community centers, sports clubs and teams, gyms, and other organizations and businesses in the city, with various levels of specialization, and levels of skill or competitiveness. The prizes also vary, with everything from plain old bragging rights to sports equipment or passes to gyms and community centers, to large lump sums of cash money. Definitely worth it, for characters with a love for sport. Oh, and a lot of these tournaments are happening on the adults-only clothing-optional beaches, for those grown-up sports fans who like a bit of an extra challenge.

iii. fireworks and music

Each weekend throughout the month of August, there will be evening performances all along the beach. Not as extensive as the musical performances during Carnivale, the performances are geared more toward dancing than true concerts, with areas roped off on both on the regular and adults-only clothing-optional beaches for dancing and mingling (acts will switch off between the two areas so both areas get both performances).

Player-characters who are musical artists, DJs, or otherwise perform are free to set up shop around this party and panhandle or put on free performances for publicity.

After the sun goes down, boats will head out into the water carrying a variety of fireworks, and there will be a beautiful display of exploding color in the sky for residents to watch and enjoy. The fireworks are highly advanced, incorporating old-fashioned gunpowder as well as modern technology that result in really beautiful displays that can take the breath away!

iv. waterpark

This year, there's an extra little bit of fun being thrown into the River Festival - the grand opening of a new waterpark! It's quite the park, set near the river with a scenic view, and featuring all sorts of amazing rides, from waterslides that are catered to all ages and levels of thrill seeking, tube rides that are almost like a rollercoaster on water, a pool where customers can faux-surf, funnel rides, side-by-side racing slides, a lazy river, and almost anything else you can imagine. Besides the rides, there are also a wide variety of swimming pools for kids and adults - wave pools, lap pools, splash pools - and an equally wide variety of hot tubs featuring various minerals (and some aromatherapy) for relaxing, invigoration, and other effects.

Some of the hot tubs are in a clothing-optional adult area, where there are some normal pools and some clearly-labelled pools contain elements that increase arousal or desire, or simply affection to encourage some closer bonding!

v. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to meet new roommates, for the purpose of getting to know each other, or hit up one of the mod-posted prompts for each Communal Floor. Or if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during the River Festival, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: credit unknown; image ii: Albert Ramon Puig; image iii: Claudio Pilia; image iv: Alan Philips

navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I like them. " Alex just says again with a little shrug, because in her opinion things that she likes are a little bit (or a lot bit) better than 'interesting enough.' So, for a moment, Alex just studies him highlighted in the glow of the fireworks before she looks back up at them once more. "I think they're just as good as a sunset sometimes. I like them because people like us make them. We can take something that would be used in guns and bombs or whatever, and then we can use them in colors and lights and it just shows how much better than the other things can be." Looking up at them for a moment, and frowning when there was a particularly loud one, Alex adds, "of course it'd be better if they could make them quieter for animals and people who have PTSD or other stuff where loud noises aren't good for them, though." After all, there was a reason that Alex hadn't brought her dog along with this.

"They probably could but they just don't want to," Simon says, glancing over at her briefly. People didn't care much for how things affected others for the most part and the people who make such things probably like the big boom. Simon could do without it too.

His words made Alex frown for a long moment, and she reached out and touched his shoulder for a moment, putting her hand on it to steady him, just in case the booms were making him uncomfortable as well. "No, I don't think that's it. I think it's more that most people don't think about stuff like this rather than them not caring really. People can be selfish as hell, but I don't think they're malicious for the most part." Oh, Alex could have a list of people who she thought were the worst and who were doing it on purpose, but for the most part, Alex was good person who believed that people were inherently good, even with the focus on their own self-interests.

So, she just added after a second, "Maybe I'll see if I can figure out a way to come up with silent ones for the next celebration." Of course Alex meant bothering someone else into doing a thing, but it still counted in her mind.

Simon has a ghost of a smile. "There you are with your endless optimism."

There are people that aren't malicious but there are plenty that are. If there were more that actually truly cared about anyone but themselves then things would change far quicker than they did. That doesn't mean that he doesn't think they're any less worth saving, though.

That just makes Alex laugh in response, and she grinned at him with a little bit of a shrug. "Would you honestly expect anything different from me at this point, Simon? I mean really?" After all, he couldn't have her being good without her being annoyingly good now could he? "Besides, someone has to be optimistic enough for all of us, and it's not like you or Richard or Stan are going to do it." She nudged him with her arm at that, before she looked from him to the fireworks again.

“No, of course not,” Simon answers honestly but still. There’s an almost smile as she nudges him. He’s still not really used to all the casual touches but he doesn’t shy away from them as much anymore either.

“You’re a magnet for it.”

"A magnet for optimism?" Alex can't help herself asking with a rather large smile. "Most people say that I'm a magnet for trouble instead." Which amuses her, because honestly, she can't think of a single person who would say that she wasn't a magnet for trouble if they had met her for more than five minutes. And that was even on a good day.

On a bad day, it was probably down to three.

"I mean you're a magnet for realists," Simon said, since he doesn't find any of them particularly pessimistic, just they weren't finding the imaginary silver linings in everything or being relentlessly hopeful where there is no room for hope.

His statement makes her laugh, she can't help it, and it's all Alex can do to shrug in exchange. "I don't know about realists. People I know who are cynics use that title so that they don't sound so grumpy about life." First Richard, and now Simon of course, even if Richard had used the words first in a time that Simon hasn't hit yet.

"Isn't that just a different way of saying the same thing, Alex?" Simon asks and then shrugs. In the end they're just words that don't really have much bearing on anything important.

"No, not really, Simon. The words you pick, the ones you accept and believe in about yourself? They have a power. It's not magic or demons or bilocation, but there's still a power in knowing things about yourself and the people around you." Alex just gives him a smile and a shrug before she adds, "when I have the chance, that's how I try and pick 'em. Like I know what they are."

monthly mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject