Friday June 27th - Tuesday July 1st saw the Summer Madness festival hit the King's Hall in Belfast. This is the largest christian event in Ireland with around 5,000 in attendance for the weekend. Sunday is a day that has free entry and the King's Hall complex is just packed out for the whole day. The age group is mainly 12 - 21 but there are large numbers of Youth Pastors, Youth leaders, students and church leaders in attendance throughout the weekend.

I set up the Alpha stand on Thursday with the real purpose of the stand to be maximising Alpha's profile within that age group. We were especially plugging Youth Alpha, Student Alpha and Worship Central over the weekend. We had all the Student and Youth Alpha resources there, showing those to many many people who were interested in the course. Also, as the rain poured down the Wii was brought out, and a Tennis/Bowling/Baseball tournament began which saw hundreds of young people at the stand asking questions about what the course was all about. It proved to be a briliant tool as loads of really interesting people were enquiring about the course, and it was great to make contact with so many new people. It was also a brilliant opportunity to plug the Worship Central event coming to Belfast on October 18th and as we leafletted the main top worship, there was a real buzz about the event.

Over the course of the weekend, I also took the opportunity to Vox-pop with young people, asking them the big question "If God did exist what would you ask?" to which answers ranged from does "God have an afro?", to "Does Charlotte fancy me?" and onto some more serious topics like "Where do we go when we die?" All of these were recorded, along with some amazing interviews and an Alpha Northern Ireland Podcast will go out including all the stuff from over the weekend.

All in all, it was a thoroughly worthwhile event to have a presence at, and i pray that loads of new courses, especially Youth courses, will spring out of contact made at the festival. Massive thanks has to go to all the volunteers (Lynsey, Simon, Stef, Kaz, Craig, Connie and Paul) who gave up their time over the weekend to staff the stand so well with me, and muck in playing the Wii for long sessions and telling people so enthusiastically about what the stand was all about. Here's some photos!

(All photos by Craig/Connie Hunter)