ES - Highland Games

[Paul Mitchell]

Galen here...

Vivaine wrote:
>Greetings Elfsea
>
>Highland Games is such a pivotal event in my life, and is also very special
>to alot of people, including the mundanes who's only chance it is to get to
>see this type of fighting.

I always love to do the Scottish Festival; this year I got out there
and realized that as much as I look forward to it each year, I had
actually forgotten how much more I really enjoy it.

>Thank you to all who showed up to make this event special. I know it was
>truely a labor of love due to the extreme heat. Everyone did a great job.

Not least, yourself.

>Because of that I propose two possible ideas for next year.
>
>First, we fight only in the mornings. I know we draw our biggest crowd in
>the afternoons, but i think if we advertised a fighting schedule BEFORE the
>event, i.e. on the Elfsea Website and the Scottish Festival website and
>program.  Possibly, if we let more mundanes know we can only fight in the
>mornings, we draw a good crowd, not conflict w/ music schedules and those
>big hunky guys in kilts throwing a bag of hay.  Plus the fighters and the
>crowd don't have to suffer thru that heat.

This is problematic for several reasons.
First, it's difficult for the coordinator to know who's coming
before they show up.
Second, it would require a much-improved degree of communication
with our own people, and with the festival organizers.  I don't
know whether you've had any contact with the NTSF webmaster, but
I traded e-mail with them when I was running our website, and I
couldn't even get a link to our site from theirs.  I have
sincere doubts about whether we can get the organizers to put
our fighting into the event schedule.
Finally, of course, there's just no good way to get info to
the general public, many more of whom come out in the afternoon
than in the morning.

>The other idea i would liek to propose, is someone possibly offering a class
>in Demo Fighting.  Doing demos is so much different than a regular SCA
>tournament.  Afterall, demos are for drawing crowds and giving them a taste
>of what we do.  It is also a chance for alot of fighters, who aren't usually
>in the position of having to entertain a crowd, a chance to learn how to do
>so. It's a great prep for tournaments that require entertaining the
>crowd..i.e. Lyoness.

This is a fine idea, and I'd be happy to teach such a class at a
fighter practice.  You're right, adding a few more entertaining
flourishes to your fighting can enrich not just demos, but many
tournies as well.

- Galen
============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.