#CatVidFest Scoop by a Local Super Fan

We have a special guest post by a four time attendee’s view of the Walker Art Center’s #CatVidFest 2015 by Dee Koski, Staff person to three lovely felines in the Twin Cities of MN including Spaghetti-Bob, Therapy Cat.

What does one expect after 4 years of attending a event, especially when it moves from site to site, and has been free in the past? I was excited to visit our states newest stadium, CHS Field. It seemed really nice, lawn looked beautiful, nice big screen, great (best thus far) sound system and purrfect weather!! Big downsides (for this event [note: stadium seats over 7,000, but 13,000 tickets were sold for this event! A sell-out a hour before the doors opened. However it looked to be the very long food lines, lack of maps to activities or booths, parking and traffic, and I am going to assume the litter box rooms weren’t much better. Then there were the lines… the people in the lines put Grumpy Cat and Sauerkraut to shame me thinks! All in all, I guess it was a ok location but The Walker lawn is so much fun!

Cats, cats, cats!!! I still love the category layout and ‘Golden Kitty’ award, but I almost feel that high production type films, ones longer than a minute, etc. need to be perhaps reduced in number? Or is it that, gasp, the internet has run out of original short clips from your average Tomcat? I, for one, was glad there was not ‘cats and pants and cats and pants’, however one major thing missing was, well, actual CATS! My nieces, whom I brought with for their very first #catvidfest desperately wanted to meet a celebricat, stating: “waited my whole life to meet Lil Bub!!!! And I wish we could have brought Spaghetti-Bob like you did at the Walker.”

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that, if I remember correctly, one must have a YouTube channel, or it needs to be on YouTube to be submitted for consideration in the festival? Loved the inclusion of the ‘throwback videos’ from the previous years, as there are so many cute ones!!! And I must give a shout-out to Will Braden for having a video in each years festival and being the curator for the last 2 years! Bravo thieving filmmaker! Bravo!!

Did I have a favorite and what about The Golden Kitty? Well, I still wanted ‘The Cat Engineers’ to win… but well, they weren’t in it this year. However, they always seem to have something percolating! I must say I didn’t vote because I couldn’t decide, but the winning video makes me giggle every time I see it! Other noteworthy videos I think were some of the ‘naughty kittys’; ‘Gato Malo’ and ‘Just Stop’ for example. So funny every time you see them!!! For me the major charm of the #catvidfest IS the watching and laughing with 13,000 other cat crazy internet fans! The original experiment was to see if people wanted to come out from behind their computers to watch together and I think after 4 years, and copy-cat versions plus the travelling version of this festival the answer is MEOW!

I mean YES! Humans DO want to watch internet videos, of cats, together, outside, anywhere!

My advice for anyone interest in attending is to most certainly get there early, have tickets beforehand, be sure you have your ears on, and (from past experience) if you want to meet someone there find somewhere outside to meet them before hand. It is certainly not a pointless endeavor but rather one of those entertaining priceless things you should just geek out and embrace at least once in life!

Follow us on Facebook SpaghettiBobTherapyCat
Twitter and Instagram: @Spaghettibobcat

Links to video files!

First Year, 2012:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC0B137D835A3C970

Second Year, 2013:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5aJYoXLOMo1K0vgy8XQfUKBaSVrJ1ov7

Third Year, 2014:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5aJYoXLOMo10eRvbu4NlTT8DoE0m6wbk

Fourth (THIS) Year:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5aJYoXLOMo37ITwMJG2Acza_VWZwMJF6