About John Higby
John Higby grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, the youngest of three children. At age ten, his grandfather — who had tuned pianos and organs for 65 years — handed him a 1960s yo-yo from the attic and taught him three tricks. Years later, as a teenager attending school in Colorado, Higby watched street performers working the Boulder festival circuit and was hooked. His first big break came at the Denver Busker Festival, launching a performing career that has since taken him to 27 countries.
In the late 1990s Higby was recruited to World Team ProYo, Playmaxx’s competition and demo squad, alongside Hans Van Dan Elzen, Ben McPhee, Julius Miller, and Kate Miller. During that period he developed the hand-painted yo-yo work that would define his secondary identity as an artist: the 1998 Playmaxx Higby GT — a clear Bee GT painted on its interior surfaces in rainbow “Mr. Yodel” imagery — became one of the most sought-after collectible yo-yos of the era. He later founded String Factory, producing hand-made multicolor string.
Higby’s competitive peak came in 2008, when he won the Artistic Performance division at the World Yo-Yo Contest — a division historically dominated by Japanese players — making him one of the few American AP champions on record. That same year ESPN Magazine designated him “Unsung Hero of 2008.” He has accumulated four Guinness World Records, including most matches lit with a yo-yo in one minute (18, Rome, 2012) and most coins knocked off ears with two yo-yos in 60 seconds (14, Beijing, 2013). He was inducted into the National Yo-Yo Hall of Fame in 2022.
Alongside his competition career, Higby built a decades-long career as a family entertainer under the banner “Yo-Yo People” with his wife Rebecca, incorporating yo-yos, unicycle, and a giant walkable yo-yo into high-energy comedy shows performed in 27 countries. He has continued producing hand-painted yo-yo art — most recently collaborating with Sphere on a limited art-edition yo-yo in 2020 — and published the illustrated children’s book Everybody Yo-Yos. He lives with his family in Amherst, Massachusetts.
In Their Own Words
From an interview with CanvasRebel Magazine.
On performing: “Performing is not about the tricks you can do but how to make the audience a part of the show.”
On career: “I’ve never made a ton of money from what I do but it is always enough.”
From an interview with Bold Journey Magazine: “Often a mistake done in the right way is the best part of the show.”
