Carrying juggling gear on your back is just part of the deal if you juggle, and since I started practising I’ve spent a lot of time moving through the world that way: sports halls, shows, training sessions at skateparks and squares. Over time I’ve refined how I organise everything until landing on a setup that fits my daily life, where the bag holds diabolos, sticks, and often a laptop or camera too, because it’s a constant working tool and not just a container for performance gear. Dame du Cirque, for instance, fits whole inside a backpack, and that kind of compactness is part of how I think about shows.
For many years I used Pinza’t backpacks, which Sam and Dolça make by hand in collaboration with artists who paint the canvas with their own drawings and patterns, making each bag a unique piece that travels through the world like juggling does. In the case of Dame du Cirque, one of them actually made it onto the stage, as they built the backpack we use as scenography in the show. I still use the first ones they made me when I’m carrying less, but I’ve gradually moved towards photography backpacks for day-to-day travel, and when I find a new setup I’ll ask them to make me a custom one.
What matters to me in a backpack is that when you open it you can see all the gear laid out clearly, because with top-loading sacks it gets tedious to dig things in and out day after day, hunting for something that’s sunk to the bottom, pulling everything out just to reach one item. Photography backpacks open from the back panel and you can see everything at once, usually divided into compartments that let you group things together — diabolos, sticks — and reach each one without emptying the bag, distributing weight evenly across your back, which is what you notice when you’ve been carrying it for hours on foot, on public transport or by bike.
Once you’re already carrying diabolos, sticks, spare strings, a laptop and maybe a camera, how much the empty bag weighs is what makes the difference at the end of the day. If the bag itself is heavy, everything you add multiplies, and over time that shows up in your back and shoulders in a way that’s worth avoiding. The key for me is that it should be easy to open and close, and access to the gear should be intuitive, because when you’re about to perform or train you don’t want to waste time looking for anything.
The choice is personal and depends on how you move and what you carry, but for me the fundamentals are that it should be light by itself, easy to open and close, and that access to the gear should be intuitive. If you’re cycling or moving around all day, a well-balanced backpack is the one that holds up.
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