Bonfire Storytelling has grown into a beloved community event over the past few years, expanding its multi-generational storytelling to reach a wider audience.
What started as a modest gathering for sharing wisdom and learning has grown to engage a broader, more diverse audience.
Creator and host Bonnie Pipkin has immense gratitude for the growth.
“We all have human experience, but there is something that happens with time. So there's a lot that we connect on just as humans, no matter what age we are.”- Bonnie Pipkin, Bonfire Storytelling creator
“I feel really proud of it. It is definitely something that I believed in from the beginning, but I never could have imagined how much buy in there was … going to be from the community,” Pipkin said.
For the second consecutive year, Bonfire Storytelling will host its "Big Night Out" event at Chico State’s Laxson Auditorium. The event is held in conjunction with the Chico Performances season and ARTober FEST downtown.
“We'll have eight off-the-cuff storytellers for the evening, so it's a little more raw, it's a little more you know, anything could happen,” Pipkin said. “We also make it kind of a bigger production, a bigger show.”
The event is designed to bring together different generations. While diversity across all spectrums remains paramount, age diversity is a key component that contributes to a comprehensive experience.
“We all have human experience, but there is something that happens with time,” Pipkin said. “So there's a lot that we connect on just as humans, no matter what age we are.”
This year’s theme is “Busted: Stories About Getting Caught.” Pipkin hopes to hear stories about people who have been discovered in an incriminating or awkward circumstance.
“Getting caught by your teachers or your parents, there are all kinds of ways to get caught, and we all probably have been caught before, and I think it lends itself to funny stories, which is what I really want this night to be,” Pipkin said.
The event will be hosted by Pipkin and Denver Nash. It will begin with last year’s storyteller winner, Connor Fitzgerald. The House Cats will be the house band for the evening, and a group of judges will be on hand to provide scores.
October marks a significant weekend for Chico's creative community. Both “Big Night Out” and Chikoko's experimental fashion show “Beast" are happening on the same weekend.
To encourage attendance at both, organizers collaborated on a cross-promotional initiative. They’re calling the weekend "Fire Beast" to mark a combination of Bonfire and the fashion show title.
They also created a passport for the events, which gets stamped and is available at The Bookstore downtown.
“Once you get your second stamp, there's a page in the passport that gets ripped out, and it enters you into a raffle,” Pipkin said. “There are all these great prizes in the raffle.”
