Most everyone in the suspension/modification world has probably heard of Rites of Passage (RoP), especially now that Emrys gave a talk at this year’s Wings of Desire SusCon, and should therefore know about their annual BBQ. If not, well, shame on you.
The RoP BBQs have become an East Coast staple event to go to for the past eight or so years, maybe more, and for good reason. It’s three days of camping in a beautiful state park, grilling food, telling stories, hiking around, and of course suspending! The RoP crew limits the number of suspensions each day so that the crew has enough time to just chill and catch up with one another. Friday and Saturday are general comer suspension days, so we all hang some people from trees at the top of a huge hill in the state park, and then on Sunday, all suspensions are for the crew to just have fun. By limiting the number of suspensions and designating specific days for specific purposes, it creates an extremely calm, relaxed environment, very much different from most SusCons. Of course, being out in the wonderful park helps a lot as well.
This suspension event also draws some of the best practitioners in the North American suspension community, because it’s that much fun! It’s nowhere near the scale of Dallas SusCon, but it’s also entirely different. If you are capable of making it to the BBQ, I seriously can’t recommend it highly enough.
This year’s event is coming up soon, August 13-15, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. More information can be grabbed from the IAM Events page or by clicking the above banner.