[Steppes] Event Changes -long

[Cairenn Day]

Combine 12th night and Artisan, NO.  We did that once, it was the
artisan that I won, it was a zoo!!!  The downside of taking Artisan off
calendar, would be the inability to give awards, especially Oaks.  I
think that the Oaks ceremony at Artisan is the only one I get to enjoy.
By the the time we get to it at 12th night, all that I am really
interested in is packing up and going home, this assumes that I will
hear the Oaks being called into Court.  I miss the Courts at Warlord
because someone needs to stay with the booth (for security sake).  I
have another proposal, some events always seem to have a lot of Kingdom
business, the Kingdom stuff takes away from the local groups chance to
shine.  The Courts are just too long and involved.  Why not declare
these events to be Major events, and not count them against a group's
events?  As far as attendance at events, I remember when a lot of events
had a 100 or so gate.  These were much more fun than the 3-ring circuses
that a lot of events have turned into, and they allowed a lot more
creativity in their structure.  There is set amount of things that must
be done at 12th night and Warlord and Artisan.  There is no room for the
'magical' things, like quests and themes.  We may need to take this type
of event off calendar, and encourage more groups to do them. The
Kingdom, its self, is using more weekends than it used to, 2 for Crown,
2 Coronation, 2 Queen's, Kingdom Warlord, King's College, an arts event,
various symposiums (dance, heraldic ect.) and Gulf Wars and Pensic.
This adds up to at least 12 weekends a year, add Christmas and
Thanksgiving, and there are only 38 weekends left, at the best.  We
can't go back in time to the number of events that we used to have, we
need the events, to do the business that our larger numbers require. I
don't want to see a large number of 3 and 4 hour courts, they diminish
the awards that given during them, most of the audience isn't paying
attention (that's why we have the noise problem, people are bored & this
includes Peers).  There is no easy solution, we need to brainstorm new
ideas that will make more people travel for some events.  By the way,
this tendency to have events that close at noon on Sunday, does not
encourage travel. A lot of events are now basically one-day events.
Just my 2 cents worth, from one of the fossils.
Cairenn