ARCH - Thoughts about events

[Scott Powers]

I have been thinking about the "events" situation in Ansteorra for a long
time.  While my thoughts have not yet clarified to the point that I am sure
about them, I do have some ideas that may be useful here.  I don't expect
everyone to agree with me.

I was thinking about the Academy of the Bow in Wiesenfeuer some years ago.
It was autocrated by Lord (now Don) Donovan Fitzpatrick, and was a
combination event.  It served as both Academy of the Bow and Academy of the
Rapier.  It went off fairly well.  I remember at the time that the
discussion in Wiesenfeuer was that by combining both functions into a
single event, then it would draw more participation and maybe at least
break even, if not make a little money.  The turnout was good, and it
probably would have made money except that far more "books" were printed
than we needed.  That is a fixable problem.  What is not fixable is getting
a group to bid on events with an expected attendance of three of four dozen.

I think that WE as a kingdom do too many events.  I remember back in the
days when there were one or at most two events on the calendar for each
weekend.  Every event was special!  We did not travel to a lot of events.
But the ones we did were always an adventure.  Now though, there are so
many events that its all rather ho-hum.  I read event ads and wonder if
there is anything at the event to get my interest up.

The same situation applies to groups.  Back when we ran one event a year,
it was something for everyone in the group to look forward to.  Now we have
three scheduled events, and the occasional kingdom event on top of that.
Again, it is hard to get exited about the whole thing.

So what I propose is that groups do fewer events.  Not only will that make
it easier to get a "date" for your event, but it will make each event more
"special."

But what about all the event type things that we want to do, you ask?  We
can make events more special by, well, by being more special.  Combine
functions from seperate events into a single event.  The combined Academies
of the Bow and Rapier mentioned above is a good example.

So to apply this to the problem of the Academy of the Bow, there are
several possible solutions.

1) Combine it with the Royal Huntsman shoot.  That would provide a more
robust event for both.  The competition would be a nice conclusion to the
weekend.  Yes, I know, we need two Royal Hunstman shoots every year, but
only one Academy.  But maybe for one of the two annual shoots it might go.

2) Combine it with the Academy of the Rapier every year.  This will add
momentum to both, and make it a money maker instead of a money loser.  The
biggest problem I see here are the number of wire-wigglers who also like to
fling sticks.  They won't get to do everything that they want to.  On the
other hand, it will also make the event a bit more prestigeous for groups
to do.  And it will attract autocrats from the Rapier community as well as
the Archery community.

3) Combine it with a regular event someone else is doing.  Sure, that makes
scheduling during the event harder.  But I believe it is well worth it.  It
would mean that only the Academy part would require a coordinator, since
the autocrat for the event can be drawn from a much wider group (the entire
branch instead of just the archers).  I, for one, have only so much energy
to devote to running events.  I work at all of our local events.  And I
autocrat one every now and then, but do less of that as time passes.  Why?
I am getting older, grumpier, and have less energy for such things.  But if
I only had to do the coordinating part for an Academy, I might be tempted.
Hauling trash, cleaning porta-potties, and staying up all night dealing
with problems definately makes the autocrats job less interesting.  But an
Academy Coordinator needs do none of that.  So if your group is doing an
event anyway, and there is time to work in an Academy of the Bow, then why
not do it?  It could even raise attendance at your event.

4) Combine it with another collegium.  I autocrated Northern regional
Tribute a couple of years ago.  A big part of that event was the Collegium,
in which a large number of classes were taught.  How about adding the
Academy of the Bow to the curriculum of this or a similar event with a
collegium already in place?

Anyway, these are just some thoughts.  Hope you find them useful.

Baron Rumil Fletcher
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