[Steppes] Combining Artisan with ... well, almost anything.

[Jay Rudin]

Steppes Artisan is by far the smallest of our events, and the impulse to try to combine it with something else is very strong.  As baron, I tried it, too.  It just never works.

The second one was combined with Laurel Prize Tourney.  The third one was combined with the Steppes Eisteddfod.  A few later ones were combined with Steppes Champion.

The problem is this.  For all that it looks like a simple, small competition if you're not involved, it requires the *complete* attention of the Artisans and the baron/ess for several hours.  

Tourneys don't -- the baron/ess can start it with court, and then disappear, coming back occasionally to watch some fights.  Neither the fighters nor the marshalls have to stay at the field at all times.

But Steppes Artisan is the only "body of work" competition left in the kingdom, and the judges (the baron/ess and every Artisan who has ever won it in the past) need to spend serious time looking at every item on every table.

For me it's a laid-back event.  I'm a mere Laurel.  I need to look at each display and talk to each artisan, and that's not too hard.  But Mistress Serena is a Steppes Artisan.  For her, it's an all-day event.

And she's working on something or other throughout each day at Warlord, as well.

If Artisan were held at Warlord, there's a fairly large amount of the Steppes workers out of commission for an entire day at Warlord.  Most importantly, the baroness would not be able to watch any other activity *at all* for hours at a time.  It's not fair to do that to Warlord, and it's not fair to do that to the baroness.

I'm not guessing -- I've been baron at Warlord, and I've been baron at Artisan.  Both are full-time jobs.  When we combined Artisan and Eisteddfod, we very quickly realized that the baroness would have to ignore one, and I would have to ignore the other.  But that was an inferior solution, because both the bards and the artisans deserve the full attention of any Steppes ruler.  Furthermore, Katheryn just can't do it.

One more point -- Artisan has a long court, an hour or more, as each judge singles out a specific entrant for praise.  Do you really want to add another hour of court to either Warlord or Twelfth Night?

Artisan is a small event put on by a large barony.  Combining it with another event is an idea that keeps coming around.  But everyone who has actually taken part in the judging is clear that it cannot be made to work.

That's why I keep coming back to the only solution that increases, rather than decreases, the strength of our events and traditions -- turning Twelfth Night into a regional event.

Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin