Re: [Mid] Mmmmmmm....Ren Fairs, my favorite

On Fri, 13 Oct 2000 08:48:21 -0500 "Avery" <avery@i1.net> writes:
> > Demos are how we recruit.
>
> By and large, I, personally, fear Ren-Fairs demos as a recruiting
> tool. I
> have always had the impression that the average dream of most
> Ren-Fair
> operators/committees/whatever is to create Elizabethan Land (to be
> tucked
> right in there between Fantasy Land and Adventure Land). This is
> OK, since
> most ren-fair attendees are there to buy a day's worth of
> prepackaged fun
> and then go home. This is not a relationship into which we can
> shove
> ourselves and expect to be welcome.

Being that I perform at a Faire, I must agree. The Faires are the
business end and as such have to cater to the mass public, as it were,
the same as Disneyland and Six Flags do. This does not mean that the
whole Faire is like that, but that is the main thing that keeps the gates
open, the water bills paid and the electricity flowing. It is not a good
place for SCA to demo because of the pre-packaged fun thing. They are not
interested in learning anything and you have to sneak it to them when
they're not looking. The average patron is there to see the pro shows,
eat a BBQ turkey leg, drink a yard of ale and go home. That is the
average patron. There are above average patrons, ones with clues, and for
those, we are all grateful. Then there is the
"Patron-Too-Stupid-To-Live", which annoys everyone to exasperation and is
possibly a safety hazard. There are far too many of them for a lot of
folks tastes and I shudder at what would happen at a heavy weapons demo
with one of those idiots. Believe me, the only thing these morons don't
do to endanger themselves and others is jump out onto the tiltyard in the
middle of a joust. No matter how dilligent the marshals are, it is an
accident waiting to happen. I think there are a number of us (right
guys?) whom could curl your hair with horror stories of these folk.

>
> This is not to say you can't get quality members from a ren-fair,
> just that
> I know of too many groups where they have a whole lot of "ren-fair
> members"
> who they only see at their own events, who consider themselves to be
> more
> customers than what I'd think of as members, and who expect to be
> entertained because they paid their site fee by God! (Did that just
> slide
> into a rant? Oh well. You gotta go with what you're good at.)

I know that after I spend a season out at Faire being the entertainment
it is VERY hard to switch off the performer mode and switch back on the
populace mode. I manage it, but it takes an event to settle back in. I'm
not much for travelling, myself, being that I have no car and must hitch
rides with others. Not to mention that since joining Faire, I've had to
reorganise what I do with my free time that will allow me to enjoy and
get the most out of both sandboxes. If I have to skip an event because I
need to spend the weekend sewing that new gown, then I have to sew the
new gown, elsewise I'll be naked on Opening Day!

By the way, ranting can be fun!

>
> I believe that the SCA is a backdrop to fun that we make, not a
> place where
> we go to purchase pre-made fun. I'm willing to share in someone
> else's fun,
> but I'm not interested in _being_ someone else's fun. Also, by and
> large,
> places where you go to buy pre-made fun generally take a dim view of
> you
> making your own fun.
>
> >Demos are how we educate. And a very large part
> >of our raison d'etre is that we *are* an educational group.
>
> I'm not sure that I'm willing to buy into demos as a serious
> educational
> tool. I think your average SCA demo teaches more about the middle
> ages than
> watching Rich Little (anyone remember him) do his impression of
> Richard
> Nixon teaches you about US foreign policy in the 60s and 70s, but
> I'm not
> sure I'm willing to give us much more credit than that. SCA web
> pages (not
> so much our corporate, group or kingdom web pages, but member pages)
> do more
> for education than our demos could ever hope to do.

It gives a little flavour of what we do, but not a true educational tool.
It's a recruitment tool, if you ask me.

>
> >We don't just do what we do by and for ourselves. We're here as
> much for
> the
> >public as we are for our own enjoyment of one another.

Though, with our events technically "closed" to the public, we really are
only there for ourselves to entertain ourselves, aren't we? Only when we
open up our fighter practices and demos do we invite the mundanes in to
have a look-see.

>
> When did having a little slip of blue paper in your wallet make you
> not part
> of the public? Are you sure you filled out the right waiver and
> stuff and
> aren't currently AWOL from the Navy? :) We are part of the
> public, we
> educate ourselves, ergo we educate the public.

But it's in a very limited arena, just within ourselves, but not to the
public as a whole.

>
> Want to learn what a university is teaching? You become a student
> at that
> university. Can we realistically hold ourselves to a higher
> standard than,
> say MIT?

Probably not, but damn, that would be a goal to shoot for, now wouldn't
it? :-)

IVS,
Fionnuala
>
> Avery
>
> From: "Avery" <avery@i1.net>
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Received on Fri Oct 13 10:44:34 2000