If you were driving down Frankford Avenue past Philadelphia Brewing Company on Saturday, October 17, it was probably impossible to not notice the weird wrestling ring outside.
Or maybe you noticed the weird, tall inflatable tube man dancing in the wind. Or you saw weird, neon graphics projected off the walls. Maybe you even saw weird clowns rollerskating around.
It was weird, right? It’s okay. You can say it was weird. That’s kind of the whole point.
It was WEIRDO Fest: a free festival that, according to the husband-wife duo behind it, is intended to be “a glorious celebration of everything art and everything weird.”
WEIRDO is an ongoing art project and an annual-ish arts festival from Fireball Printing and the East Kensington Arts Committee (EKAC), part of the East Kensington Neighbors Association. What started as a mixed arts festival in September 2019 at a local co-op has turned into a highly anticipated arts and circus festival with grant funding, dozens of oddball performers and vendors, and thousands of attendees.
“It’s grown into this bigger thing beyond (how it) started,” said Paul Yavarone, the co-founder and co-owner of Fireball and WEIRDO, which he runs with his wife Catherine Dentino. They both also serve on the EKAC that was established in 2025.
In October, the sixth WEIRDO Fest took over Philadelphia Brewing Company and surrounding streets and establishments for an absurdly joyful afternoon and evening (it was an eight-hour long event, ending after 10 p.m.). There were seven designated performance areas, each with its own lineup of activities and performances. Plus, there were vendors selling food, beer and cider, crafts, art, books and novelties throughout; many of which had immersive elements for attendees to participate in.
Philly-based AWFUL Wrestling brought WEIRDO Fest to a wild finish Oct. 17, tak- ing over the ring outside Philadelphia Brewing Company with an outrageous mix of theatrical wrestling, humor, fash- ion and larger-than-life characters. The crowd-favorite finale capped off a day cel- ebrating unconventional art and creativity in East Kensington.
There were about 25 performers and art installations part of the festival lineup, and most of which were family-friendly. It ranged from things like aerialist and circus performers to modern day clowning, electronic beats to Slavic singing, and puppetry to reactive sound design performances.
“Everybody loves performing and creating, and certainly one of my most favorite things to do in life (is) co-create (and) collaborate with other circus performers,” said Erin Flanigan, the leader of Roller Circus and a member of EKAC; she helped to book several of the festival acts.
Flanigan and about 10 members of Roller Circus – a group that blends rollerskating with circus and aerialist acts – performed at WEIRDO Fest for the fifth time in a row, alongside their clown band, Serpenti di Festa, who also perform on wheels. Roller Circus performed at the corner of York and Martha streets, and other groups, like Rad World Skate Show, Rebel Circus and NoMaster Encircled, also performed sets there throughout the day.
“There are things that happen at the same time, so you kind of have to pick what you want to do, which is sort of intentional,” Yavarone said about the festival’s stacked (and, again, completely free) performance schedule.
“I kind of like the idea of people having different experiences going to the festival,” he continued. “It’s like, ‘Oh do I want to go see this band, do I want to go see this clown, do I want to go see this circus act or do I want to walk across the street and go to this (art installation)?’”
The grand finale of the entire festival was the only performance with no overlap. The annual and highly-anticipated finale featured Philly-based AWFUL Wrestling, a draggy, art wrestling group that combines humor, fashion and caricature with WWE-style moves, fights and commentators. A handful of wrestlers took to the ring for a late-night fight, riling up the crowd with every hit.
This year’s WEIRDO Fest was made possible thanks to a grant from the Penn Treaty Special Services District and additional support and sponsorship from the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, East Kensington Neighbors Associations, Philadelphia Brewing Company, Fireball and O.G. Pizza.
While the festival was a success for the organizers, performers and goers, it took two years of preparation. The last WEIRDO Fest took place in 2024, and the organizers took 2025 off to pour everything into 2026.
However, it could be said that this festival and the art community it fostered took decades of work to reach its fullest potential.
Since the early 2000s, Yavarone has been involved in putting on art events and curating community spaces where less conventional art and artists can be spotlighted. So, when he and Dentino started Fireball – a professional and creative printing company in the Fishtown and East Kensington area of Philly – back in 2008 (also the year they started their relationship), they were focused on printing for artists.
The couple originally operated out of the dining room in their rowhome with a small color printer. They didn’t even have a website back then. They primarily relied on word of mouth, occasional MySpace or Craigslist posts, and artist outreach. These small, local artists have always been their priority, and Fireball’s quality printing has kept business growing for nearly two decades.
“We want to do stuff we’re interested in. I mean, we do the occasional job that’s less interesting, but it’s definitely our main goal is to kind of do (cool) stuff that’s the best quality stuff in an accessible way,” Yavarone said.
They eventually moved from the dining room into a shop, and they moved into their current location on Coral Street a little under a decade ago. In their current location and through partnerships with other local organizations and art groups, the couple tries to consistently have free, community engagement events for artists or just really anyone in the community.
As Yavarone puts it, he wanted to create a space where artists of any discipline, background and experience could be themselves, have fun and connect with a community of people with similar interests and talents. He tends to favor those part of the “outsider” or “visionary” art movement, which he said typically consists of people who are self-taught, unconventional and don’t necessarily see being an artist as their entire identity or even a big part of it.
“It’s just a part of them. A lot of what the (art) people do is almost like some kind of personal meditation and expression…not necessarily because they want to be a professional,” he said.
Many of the artists Yavarone works with through Fireball, WEIRDO Fest and all other WEIRDO- or EKAC-affiliated events are based in Philly or South Jersey, have other jobs and truly just love making art for the personal thrill of it. Because of this, printing costs are made to be affordable, and they try to ensure they pay their artists as much as they can.
“We pay the artists and performers (at festivals). That’s very important. Sometimes we pay ‘real’ rates, and other times we will say, ‘We have this much. What can you do? Do you wanna do this? Are you interested?’” he said.
“People are great, and I really appreciate whatever they are willing to do for us,” he continued. “We try to at least make it so people aren’t losing money.”
“They’re supporting artists in so many ways, especially through animation, and I just love that,” said Veda Rouze, a South Jersey-based claymation artist who has worked with Fireball and WEIRDO several times.
Rouze said Yavarone reached out to her on Instagram after he saw one of her short claymation films in a Screwball Screenings event, a Philly film group that often partners with Fireball and even had a Halloween screening at WEIRDO Fest. He said he’d love to use one of her films as an ad for Fireball and its online series, FTV. Rouze has since remained involved with Fireball and the East Kensington and Fishtown arts scene.
“Working with Paul has taught me so much. It’s especially shown me the importance of working intergenerationally,” said Maisie O’Brien, a Fairmount puppeteer and puppetry event organizer that recently worked with Yavarone to put on Philadelphia’s first Crankie Festival.
The Kensington Crankie Festival, held on September 26 in the old Summerfield Church building, was a free, three-hour long showcase dedicated to crankie theater. And according to O’Brien, it is “the art form of scrolling panoramic art.”
“A crankie is a storytelling device where an illustrated scroll is wound around two dowels held in place by a window box frame. When the dowels are cranked forwards, the illustrations play through in sequence for all to follow along,” they said. “While primarily a visual-based art form, crankies often fold in live music, song, puppetry, and sometimes dance to further tell the story.”
Like most of the artists Yavarone works with, he saw O’Brien at an art event and knew he wanted to connect and collaborate with them.
It has always been important, especially after COVID, for Yavarone and Dentino to establish, facilitate and grow relationships with artists, all while providing them the outlet to be as creative and as weird as possible.
“It’s good for everybody to work together and have a place they can go if they want to do something,” Yavarone said. “We’re just trying to make that space.”
