[Elfsea] Camping/Day-tripping & Getting the Most for our money

[Gustav Minnesinger]

Camping/Day-tripping & Getting the Most for our money

It has been coming over the list about getting more turn out by camping and other things.  In general I see the argument as a fallacy in some ways and would like to prove it by asking some general questions.

Just in the Central Region for the last year, how many camping events were held?

How many of these camping events did we (members of the Elfsea family) go to?

How many of us camped at these events?

How many people actually camped in the last year?

Some of us camp on a regular basis and others do it if we ‘have to’.  The number of us camping these days is getting smaller, and having room and space to camp is not really the draw that it once was.  Of the ten or Central Regional camping events, very few people actually took it up.  I suggest that as time goes by, more and more of our events will be structured as Day-trips with no camping available.  And this will be because so few people are camping and it is far easier for the Autocrats to find places to hold a day event than it is a place that allows camping.  D/FW is getting bigger and more spread out.  Things are getting more expensive.  It is just the way of the world.

If we take these trends into account, we can save ourselves money, sweat and a bit of grief by carefully picking and choosing those events that will be scheduled as a Day-trip and those that will be planned as a Camping Event.  This not only goes for ourselves, but the Region and Kingdom as well.  Autocrats and Baronies need to foresee these market trends and carefully plan to get the most out of it.

It’s not part of the Dream, but the Reality of our game.

Some will mention the most recent camping event (‘Lysts’) and what a great success the evening activities were.  Yes, it was a lot of fun and was successful.  But if you look behind the scenes, it was an event held by four baronies and near a year’s worth of planning went into it.  It was advertised and executed well.  I would also point out that the Stepps/Elfsea ‘12th Night’ was also over the top and only a Day-trip.  It takes Planning, Advertising and sublime Execution to pull off these events.  And the people that were working these events, most likely did not have the chance to actually enjoy the event themselves (personal experiences).

We need to pick and choose our sites and events carefully.  We need to plan for some to be Camping, but most to be just ‘Day-trips’.  We also need to plan to ‘infect’ some of our neighbors events to make them over the top and full of ‘Revels into the Night’ (since we’re not there to set it up, we might as well throw them a party).  If each region did this and planned for two camping/revel events per year, we would have eight chances a year to ‘Let it all go’.

We need a ‘Master of Revels’, who has been through the seneschal classes, to step up and help get things together for the revels and evening events that we seem to crave from days gone by.

We need to plan that Elfsea Springfair / Baronial Collage will be a Day-trip . . . and perhaps even Defender if trends continue.  Camping or not having camping does not seem to effect the number of people that come to an event.  Those that want to come, will; those that do not, will not.  Having someone step in and say, “High Tea, Bardic, Drums and Dancing . . . . and dry ground to crawl off to” (Advertising / Planning) does effect Gate.

Thank you for your Time

Gustav


"There are people who say I have never really done anything wrong in my life; of course, they only say it behind my back." ---Oscar Wilde