[Elfsea] Help make events better?

Lady Pendarvis ladypendarvis at sbcglobal.net
Wed May 21 07:00:15 PDT 2008


Dirk and I sort of brainstormed how we travel, what has changed in the last
2-5 years, and how our lives in the last year or two have affected our
travel.

1. How far are you willing to travel to daytrip? (hours, mileage) We do
daytrip, and have day tripped up to 6 hours.  Usually around 4 hours is
maximum because it = 8 hrs drive time.
 
2. What is the deciding factor as to whether you camp or stay at a hotel?
Two factors make the decision for us: safety and time. We also have no room
in the Nissan or Kia for the medieval tent currently, so our travel
situation has changed over the last two years. 

3. Do you find it more expensive to camp or stay in a hotel? No Choice at
the moment, no way to camp - we can take the medieval tent and nothing else,
or take the armor and everything else and stay at a hotel.
 
4. If you got a break on the site fee, would you be more willing to show up
early and stay late for set up and tear down?   Break on site fee has
nothing to do with it. I have seen in the last three years EXCEPT for
loading and unloading at the shed, on site setup and tear down has been the
same group of people, and has been very un-coordinated. We used to organize
volunteers to do both, not "people on site will show up and help". That
doesn't always happen in sufficient numbers if everyone is day tripping.
 
 
5. If you day trip, what time do you generally arrive at the event and what
time do you leave? Depends on what we need to stay for, what we are helping
with. Many times we have delayed our departure to help tear down, and there
are times that allergies are bad, back spasms, etc make us leave early.

6. What kinds of things would make you more likely to stay later, lets say
Saturday of the event? Nothing will MAKE us stay or go. Bardic is not an
interest of ours, tourchlite tourneys are fun, but not if they start at 10pm
and we have a 4 hr drive in front of us. Staying at a hotel helps, but
sometimes, we just really really want dinner and a SHOWER!
 
7. Do you have the ability to have one or two people carpool with you to an
event? Nope. 
 
 
8. What kinds of things do you like in a site? Please rank the following (1
thru 8 with 1 being most important) 
__3___   Flush toilets __4___   Showers __2__   Easy access to water __5___
Easy access to electricity __7___   Indoor (A/C or heated) hall of some kind
__8___   Formal parking (Blacktop/cement) __6___   Close distance to
hotels/food __1___   Shade trees 

We travel 2-3 times every month, less in the summer, more in spring and
fall. We find with our home life that kids graduations, spending time with
them, seeing family, and working 60 hrs a week makes our time very precious.
Not by choice,but by circumstances. We will go to an event even without the
"comforts" - don't care if the toilets flush or not. Don't care if there is
showers on site.  

One thing I do want to point out is that when times are "bad" (high gas,
inflation, etc) affecting "play time" that having events that offer a single
day out - all day Saturday, low cost site fee, lunch on site for a fee -
makes for a really nice day of SCA. Opening up your homes to visitors
afterwards (or the night before) is really a great way to bring some SCA
bonding time into the picture. 

Dirk and Elisabeth
 

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