[Namron] Woodland Festival

[Firemaidyn at aol.com]

I wanted to give you my take on the festival.....
I live in Oklahoma City and I never saw any advertisments for the festival. I 
I just happened to have called an old friend of mine from the Canton and was 
asked to attend.  I was only aware of the festival through word of mouth and 
would have missed it if I hadn't made that one fateful phone call.

 It was described to me to be a quaint little festival, much like the one in 
Norman that comes in the spring, but much smaller. I was pleasantly surprised 
that it was bigger than I had imagined for only being the second festival and 
it was in a lovely park. The center stage was perfect for the crowd to view 
the dancing and revelry that took place. The entertainment chosen for the stage 
show was really enjoyable.

The bathrooms seemed sufficient for the amount of people that were there this 
year, however, if the festival grows much more, and I feel that it will. You 
will need more bathrooms especially if you have more vendors on site.The 
bathrooms were hard to find this year, I wasnt the only one who almost used the 
bathroom at the pool house..(yuck)

I think that if there were more food vendors to choose from, then the 
visitors would stay longer, some people are drawn to festivals and carnivals because 
of the food first and foremost...then they warm up to the things they are less 
familiar with such as the reinactment that we are promoting.

I think the vendors that were there were great, lots of variety, people like 
that. The bake sale was a nice touch. The bake sale food was good to eat and 
there was plenty of it. it was also quite a bargain for carnival food. 

I think that all pavilions that are SCA related should have flyers available 
to hand out to people who ask about the festival. I was at a selling vendor 
pavillion and many town folk would wander over to ask about the festival. Its 
hard to sum up the SCA in the few moments that a mildly curious mundane will 
give you to explain.

Other nice things i would have like to have seen ........ jugglers, fire 
eaters, acrobats, more musicians, a seige engine display, a blacksmith display, a 
rapier demo, and a courtly dance demo. 

The information and hospitality booths are essential, you can be the soul 
invitation for a new SCA player. Most new players find there way to the SCA 
through the Norman Medieval Faire. Without greetings and warm welcome at the 
information and hospitality booths, you will miss a lot of opportunity for Canton 
population growth.

I dont know if the Canton can handle the organization of the festival as it 
grows, but this year it was beautiful and impressive. I feel sad for those who 
were unable to attend. It truely held the essence that a true medeival 
festival should have, you could feel the love of "the dream" in the atmosphere. 

~~~Sybil
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