30 teams compete at the fair. The water carnival is what you see on the Jumbotron, TV or your phone. 1776 people will be featured celebrating the USA for 12 seconds each.
The water carnival has 60 people on each team, but only a few people will be on the team’s boat on Lake Lanier. The rest will be spread out across the USA. If you look at each of the 1776 people featured for 12 seconds, it will take you almost 6 hours to look at all of them. We will look at them twice. This will produce 12 hours of live stream video while thousands of other people are enjoying the fair.
Everyone at the fair has the choice to have a booth listed for competion. It is free to do this. To compete you score pirate coins called “loony” at your booth. Your booth should have a physical location in any public place, anywhere in the USA, but that is not required. Anywhere your cell phone is, is where your booth can be. Walking, boating, at your business, at your HOA, camping or any location you can think of.
Your booth represents the American Spirit you are bringing to the party. It can be fun, food, education, performance, art, music or anything you want. Just like any other state fair, obey all laws for the location and activity of your booth.
Everyone at the fair, with or without a booth, can compete in the “George Washington Christmas Game,” to win prizes.
The Grand Prize Winner is “President For A Day.” Like any state fair, there are many, many types of prizes. Choose from 16 missions to “treasure hunt” for cash, prizes, discounts and a very unusual treasure called “Loony Coupons.”
What is the “Crossing The Delaware” water carnival?
There are 30 teams and 30 boats at the water carnival. One boat for each team. When you visit a boat online, you see the mascot for that team and a few team members. You also see a link to the booth each team member has. There is no limit to the amount of people working for one booth. Those 60 team members can represent thousands of people all working to get a higher score for their team.
A booth can take a few minutes for one person to create on their phone or weeks for a group to create an outdoor party.
Little red tickets for fun and food have been replaced with points on your phone called “loony.” This is your pirate booty. Biggest booty wins!
On July 4, we raise the flag and open with Reveille at Sunrise. At 7 am a live broadcast will feature each team member for 12 seconds. The broadcast will finish at 1 pm. It will play again and finish the second time at 7 pm. At the lowering of the flag before sunset we play Retreat.
When you register you are randomly placed on one of the 30 teams. If you are one of the first 60 people on your team to qualify, you and your booth can be featured in the 1776 video.
To win prizes at the fair you have to be 18+. Your online registration is $1. You get a personalized QR code for an ID card. Volunteers trade the loonies they receive at their booths for fun and food at the rest of the fair. 1 loony “could be” one minute of volunteering. Volunteers that are successful carnival barkers may scalp them for cash. (We call scalping, “recycling.” We strongly encourage the free enterprise of capitalism called scalping!) Volunteers have other ways to grab cash.
The general public (Called “Landlubbers.”) is anyone who hasn’t created their own booth to “Get Loony.” For every 25 cents they donate, they get 1 loony. They also get a donation receipt each time they “Get Loony!”
The General Public and volunteers can switch places back and forth at anytime. Volunteers need about an hour of “Pirate School” to be effective.
5 teams will be in the playoffs and 1 team will win the Grand Prize.
Each team has three groups of people. The administration, the general public and the people that create fun. The administration are called “Sailors.” The general public are called “Landlubbers.” The people that create fun are called “Pirates.”
You are also called a “Pirate” when you win a prize, contest or game. If you lose you are called “British.” You don’t know if you are a pirate or the British until after the contest ends. You only know who plundered the booty and who surrendered the booty. The biggest booty wins!
The theme of the Great American State Fair and Water Carnival
The City Center of Cumming will become Philadelphia Pennsylvania and Lake Lanier will become the Delaware River in 1776. The Cumming City Center is the Continental Army. Lake Lanier is George Washington’s Marines. When you volunteer or donate you move up in rank from Private to General as a soldier or as a marine.
Besides a mascot, each team has a Special Hero. Each team produces a 30 minute youtube video about their hero. This can be improv or carefully crafted. This 30 episode series is called “Special Heroes.”
All proceeds can be seen on a public ledger. This helps Special Needs populations at a Forsyth County Vocational Group Home under construction.
Instructional Video: Short OR Long Or Mission
Here is what to know about the American Spirit.
The American Spirit was created on Christmas Day 1776. Three groups of soldiers were to cross the Delaware River and battle the British. Colonel Cadwalader with his 1800 men and James Ewings with his 800 men turned back due to a ferocious winter storm. It took George Washington 11 hours to cross the 300 yards of the River with 2,400 volunteers using fishing boats, hunting weapons and farm tools to battle a well trained, well equipped British army dug into the city of Trenton.
As the patriots got closer to the British, instead of a surprise attack, front and center unarmed musicians marched into battle playing the fife and drum to call out the British to fight. All of George Washington’s men were singing “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and even dancing as they advanced into battle.
The British were shocked, surprised, demoralized and fought poorly. The patriots were energized, fought courageously and won. That is how the American Spirit was used as a weapon to defeat the British.
To this day, “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” is the number one song played in fife and drum competitions. The story of the American spirit spread to other patriots and we won our independence. It has continued to this day and USA soldiers are known for their American Fighting Spirit.
The Star Spangled Banner was written by John Frances Key in 1813. Before that “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” a song that mocked the British was our unofficial national anthem.
If you are on a volunterr mission called a “Treasure Hunt,” to prove you are not a British spy, you can be asked to sing the first line of Yankee Doodle Dandy. If you don’t sing and dance heartily, (Or sing more than the first line!) you are a British spy! You could be given a “Booby Prize,” keel hauled or walk the plank.
The place where Yankee Doodle Dandy was sung the most often and with the greatest cheer and spirit was at the Tun Tavern. This was at Water Street and Tun Alley across the street from “Washingtons Wharf” on the Delaware River.
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Paul Jones and many other founding fathers were at Independence Hall during the day and at the Tun Tavern in the evenings. During the day they crafted the declaration of independence and the constitution, during the evenings they drank beer and recruited volunteer Marines at the Tun Tavern. Yankee Doodle Dandy, sung to mock the British, was the most popular song at the Tun Tavern. Everybody sang it loudly with all the Spirit they had. The Marines raised their flag for the first time at the Tun Tavern. The Marine Slogan is “Born in a bar.”
