The Telluride Mushroom Festival took place this year August 14 –18. The annual event is set in the beautiful mountain town of Telluride, Colorado. The festival attracts hundreds of amateur and professional mycologists, foragers, artists and chefs from around the world.
For the past few years Hamilton’s Mushroom Extracts has been a festival sponsor. If you follow this site, you’ll already know that Hamilton Pevec is both a mycologist and a film maker. In his words “I started marketing high-quality mushroom extract powders in 2020 to subsidize my passion for filmmaking”.
The most entertaining aspect of the festival is the high-energy, high-strangeness fun experienced daily by festival goers. There are serious workshops, lectures, forays, and science presenters, all of which are related to fungi. These are balanced by an energetic costume parade; music and a fancy-dress party called The Puff Ball.
The parade that meanders several blocks through the town and across Cornet Creek has become an elaborate exhibition of creative costumery. Each year the ideas for dressing up as some form of fungi get wilder and more imaginative. The top prize for the best costume; Best-In-Show, was won five years in a row; 2018-2022, by a group of theater/performance artists from Colorado Springs.
I built a costume for Hamilton to wear in the 2022 Festival which was well received but not particularly imaginative and the same group won again. Hamilton decided they were getting too used to being the top contenders and vowed to give them a run for their money in ‘23.
We worked several months, a major collaborative effort, and pulled off a winner in 2023! The whole affair is lighthearted, tongue in cheek and reflects a community that loves mixing creative skill, and exhibitionism with serious science, natural history and nutrition. Until this year when things got a little hotter.
The creativity bar was raised with Hamilton’s win last year. This is the film he made about the competition for the Best-in-Show Costume. It was shown at one of this year’s keynote presentations and created quite a stir, lots of laughs, and lots of good PR for Hamilton’s Mushrooms product line.
I LOVED this!!!
I absolutely loved this film. So creative, and so fun. I loved the spirit of people working/playing being creative, competitive, but mostly having fun. I love the amazing costume that you created, Lawrence! I loved the film and the fun spirit of the film.
Thanks for sharing with us.
Lusijah
What creativity and what fun!!!!! Just amazing. Where has a tremendous energy come from to create such fun? It’s beyond my imagination.
Hilarious! As a reformed mushroom consumer,I won’t be buying Hamilton’s mushroom extract but I will be looking out for his next film.
Namaste Hamilton & all fungalists: couldn’t quite follow storyline but, clean air, warm fragrant outing in CO!
And thank you Lawrence for sharing it.
Fusion of keen scientific curiosity & fun exploration made me wonder if it’s time for a Myco Merit Badge? Friend of mine, from work, is a BSA official.
Would you be interested to see if this could be a scouting MB niche ?
I really enjoyed this film. I appreciated all that went into making it. I laughed and felt how fun and creative this event is. Costume events, parades and festivals bring people together to support one another in having fun. What could be better than that? I loved seeing Lawrence’s artistic genius and Hamilton and Lucien’s talent as well.
Lusijah
That’s a great review of the festival, Lawrence. You and Hamilton appear to be a creative team nonpareil!
Love it, so creative! Keep up the film work.