30 teams and 1776 people featured on live stream video. Each featured person is shown celebrating the American Spirit while thousands more are doing fun things at the fair!
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 person for 12 seconds, it will take you almost 6 hours to look at 1776 people. We will then take a second look and this will produce 12 hours of video during the 12 hours of the fair. This is while thousands of of other people are enjoying the fair.
If you click on a person you will see the booth they are at. You can interact with the people and fun at any booth using a pirate coin called a “loony.”
Everyone at the fair can compete in the “George Washington Christmas Game.”
The Grand Prize Winner is “President For A Day.” Like any state fair, there are many other 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 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 the booth each team member has, so you can see 60 booths. There are lots of other booths across the USA but we can only show so many!
The booths are different than anything you have seen. A booth can be 1 person or a group of people. It can take a few minutes for one person to create or weeks for a group. This depends on what fun and treasure you will find at the booth and if they have made a physical construction or performance or how much work they put into the online part of the booth. You can walk to a booth or you can visit online. Little red tickets for rides and food have been replaced with electronic points on your phone. Scan a QR code and click. No cash or credit cards are used anyplace at the fair. The electronic points are called “loonies.”
On July 4, we raise the flag and open with Reveille at Sunrise. At 7 am a live broadcast will feature each booth 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. Your team’s mascot is on one of the 30 boats. If you are one of the first 60 people on your team to qualify, you can be in the 1776 video. Your team could eventually have thousands of people on it, but only 60 will qualify to be 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 is anyone who hasn’t created their own booth to “Get Loony.” They donate 25 cents to our 501 c 3 at an online ticket booth to get 1 loony. They also get a donation receipt from our nonprofit for taxes 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. It is easy to drop out of or fail Pirate School and just wing it!
When anybody registers, they are randomly put on one of the 30 teams. If you volunteer or donate, the loonies you get gives your team a higher score. 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 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.”
For over a year the founding fathers recruited volunteers and formed a plan to attack the British by crossing the Delaware River.
That is when they knew that they could raise the American Spirit to defeat the British at Trenton. It worked. When unarmed musicians marching at the front and center were wounded, to support their brothers in arms, they would keep singing joyfully and loudly until they fell. Soldiers that were armed were so energized by the bravery and American Spirit of the unarmed musicians that they fought with unrestrained courage and won over a vastly superior enemy. The musicians that played and sang “Yankee Doodle Dandy” were this countries first and greatest rock stars!
Christmas Day of 1776 was when the American Spirit was created. At the Great American State Fair we celebrate it with something called “The George Washington Christmas Game.” Watch our videos to learn it. Sign the 250th Birthday Card, create your 10 second birthday cheer then volunteer to make gifts of the American Spirit at your own booth.
The more gifts of the American Spirit you create, the easier it is to win. This is just like the volunteer marines at the Battle of Trenton.
Treasure Hunt & Pirate school Homework
The marines were an innovative mix of volunteers. Why did they volunteer?