In Search of a Flow State at the PlayThink Festival

From hula-hooping to healing circles, how the Mercer County event is putting rural Kentucky on the (family-friendly) festival scene.

I’ve long believed that rural Kentucky—with its outdoor expanses and striking natural beauty that makes communing with the environment effortless—is well-positioned to become the national hub for multi-day festivals. There’s already a built-in rock-climbing and camping culture (thanks, RRG) that brings a hint of “charming vagabond” style to the area, and community members have a palpable hunger for major events that could revitalize these “wildlands” without turning to the extraction economy or sinking millions into permanent, theme-park-style developments. What’s holding us back from having a Bonnaroo-like festival on Lake Cumberland each year when the “Ohio Navy” is down in full force, or a truly genre-defining country music event along U.S. Route 23 in Johnson County? It’s a perfect fit.

If ever you needed proof that a rural Kentucky festival can have magnetizing abilities for thousands, look no further than PlayThink: a four-day, sober, family-friendly festival of the highest hippy-dippy order in Mercer County that brings together circus-like courses in acrobatics, juggling and fire-breathing (called “playshops”) with all kinds of community chill-out opportunities—from psychic sleep lessons to Zen painting meditation—and a mainstage that’s bustling with DJs and trance-dance musical acts that will have you noodling with glow sticks like no one is watching.

“What is PlayThink? This is a hard question to answer because PlayThink is what everyone wants it to be,” reads the PlayThink official website. “Sometimes, PlayThink is a Cirque du Soleil performance. Other times, it’s a circus camp. Sometimes, it’s a peaceful yoga class, and later, a mind-blowing parkour course. It’s part summer camp and Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Part artisan market and foodie festival. It’s a joyous community and a wonderful space to find peace and solitude.”

In short, PlayThink is whatever vibe you want it to be, dude—as long as that vibe is striving to ring the dual bells of community and transcendence.

Last year, I joined in the frivolity at PlayThink alongside my husband and then-two-year-old with every intention of sharing my experience with you prior to the 2022 festival kick-off and, well, here we are. Follow me down the flowery, flowy, henna-tattoo-lined rabbit hole, won’t you?

(PlayThink check-in station, 2021)

Cresting the lush green incline at Terrapin Hill Farm in Mercer County early on a Saturday morning, I sensed that the festival action was nearing when the trilling of a pan flute came piping over the hillside—it wouldn’t have been surprising to see a Mr. Tumnus-like character prance by, instrument in hand—and soon, our descent into the tie-dyed-and-barefoot, all ages, flow-state that is PlayThink began in earnest.

First impressions were largely as I’d imagined. Bobbing and weaving my way through reedy men with wispy goatees congregated around a slack line and a workshop on three-object juggling in search of PlayThink founder and director, Paige Hankla, I ran smack dab into a stocky boy in full Jedi regalia walking with a slightly more confident pre-pubescent kid decked out in ballooning, cosmos-speckled pants and a bushy purple fox tail.

Kids roaming freely without parental supervision—solo or in (intimidating, let’s be real) glitter-painted gaggles—is a feature, not a bug, of PlayThink, which bills itself as “family-centric” and offers an abundance of programs for budding poi ball experts and ukulele enthusiasts. Want your kid to learn the basics of nunchucks from a guy named Ninja Bacon or “levisticks for wizards” so they can fully access their faux-levitating abilities? This is your space.

“What’s you’re favorite part of PlayThink?” I cheerily asked the fox-tailed friend in the spirt of community building (and, uh, journalism). His small eyes quickly dart away from watching the nearby squeaking swing set and cut me with the sort of withering intensity only a middle schooler can bring. I had asked a stupid question.

He doesn’t miss a beat. “It’s the only place I can truly be in a flow,” he muses with all the confidence of a professor with tenure, then continues walking with his Luke Skywalker sidekick, leaving me still processing beside a hand-painted headboard-turned-decoration that reads: I am a human becoming. Help me become.

(Paige Hankla, founder of PlayThink, and Cookie)

Fortunately, when I finally found Paige riding shotgun on her friend Cookie’s golf cart—among several similar golf carts festooned with Care Bears and glub-glubbing bubble machines—my questions were met with a little more patience.

“We’re excited to be at Terrapin Hill again so that we can really work on expanding our art and allow people a place to show off their gifts to the world,” Hankla explains from the passenger’s seat. “It’s really special to be able to watch children grow up here year after year. I have a six year old, and I really saw a deficit in the American culture that take kids at 6 weeks when parents go back to work and puts them in this system that’s not a dynamic where families can grow and learn together. We want to allow people to step outside of their day-to-day lives and find that.”

When I asked what percentage of attendees are from Kentucky-versus-elsewhere (about 30 percent are local folks, with over 38 states represented), Cookie mused that travelling to Kentucky is part of the thrill for many visitors—as is a sustained camping experience over the course of four days.

“If you live in Kentucky, it’s sometimes easy to think, ‘Why would I want to camp here?’ Whereas if you’re from Brooklyn, then it makes a lot of sense to come for the experience at PlayThink and step into whatever’s possible. You can make your own reality.”

Since I’d been immediately clocked as a first-timer by a kid—despite my rainbow Tevas and t-shirt I’d dyed naturally using onion skins—I asked Paige and Cookie if they had any advice for making the most out of the PlayThink experience for rookies.

“Come in with an intention and a set goal, then be surprised when you surpass that,” Paige offers up dreamily. “I came in to this year’s event looking inward for personal regrowth. So many walls have come up. I want to get those back down so I don’t have to be so protective in my bubble.”

Paige and Cookie tut-tutted off in their golf cart, and I wandered deeper into the mix in search of my toddler and husband, who were playing with a rogue soccer ball next to a New Age-gilded skoolie that was hand-painted with what appeared to be a Hindu-inspired mermaid-slash-goddess. The vehicle was also decked out with Tibetan prayer flags (of course) that sagged along the top of the propped-open school bus door, and hula hoops that dangled from the skoolie’s side mirrors like vehicular earrings.

“This is a 1998 diesel bus we retrofitted with solar panels,” the home-on-wheel’s Cincinnati-based owner tells us as he plays chess underneath their clothes line. “It was a church bus in New York, then it served as transportation for a daycare in New Jersey before we got our hands on it.” His daughter soon joins him at the folding table to move her rook, then announces she’ll be reading in the nearby embankment of hammocks for the rest of the morning.

Did I mention that there’s a freedom of choice and movement for young people at PlayThink unlike any event I’ve ever experienced?

But after sitting in on a “sacred awakenings” class led by a woman in a sequin beret and Monarch butterfly wings—there were enough people wearing Monarch wings at PlayThink to effectively save the species—it became increasingly clear that despite the embracive children’s programming, woo-woo messaging and neo-hippy aesthetics of PlayThink, it still has many of the same inclusivity problems that crop up at less family-friendly, more mind-altering-substance-loving festivals across the country.

For starters, the event is extraordinarily white: an issue that should be better addressed when many of the “flow arts” taught and practiced at PlayThink have their roots in communities of color and indigenous spiritual beliefs. For every white guy with waist-length dreads playing a steelpan, it would’ve been nice to see more information about, say, the instrument’s origins in Trinidad and Tobago—at the very least.

PlayThink is also prohibitively expensive for the majority of people—$200 for every adult and $140 for children ages 6-and-up—and it stands to reason more folks from the rural reaches around Kentucky don’t (or can’t) get involved because of this. And that’s before the cost of camping, food trucks (if you’re so inclined) or funky merchandise to commemorate the year you learned Slinky tricks for the first time. Even if a person shows up for the inaugural sunrise gong bath and stays until the final DJ has throbbed their way into the night, the material investment required for PlayThink is certainly not cheap.

(VIDEO: The somewhat maniacal cackling of laughter yoga, PlayThink 2021)

But for those who are invested in chasing whatever heart-swelling “healing sanctuaries” and transformative community moments can be provided by PlayThink, the loyalty runs deep—and newcomers are certainly more than welcome to dive right in.

(Festooned in elf ears, Nola Bunny—NYC-based clown, burlesque performer and #unapologeticplay mentor—and her partner lead an interactive fairy tale.)

On Thursday, we’ll be back among the geodomes and hair-painting stations with some first-hand accounts of what makes PlayThink so special for community members…in their own words. For now, here are the PlayThink logistics if you’d like to snag a ticket and experience the event for yourself this weekend:

PlayThink Festival
June 15-19, 2022
Terrapin Hill Farm
7695 Mackville Road
Harrodsburg, Kentucky
Four-day passes are sold out, but day passes are available at the gate.

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Stop. Reset. Whew. On a completely different note, a community baby shower (read: free supplies giveaway!) is happening tomorrow for expectant and new-ish parents in Pike County.

Also, Floyd County folks: the community center is open today, tomorrow and Thursday as a cooling station for those in need. Check in on your neighbors—particularly elderly households—and those with medical conditions who might be extra-vulnerable during this heat wave.