Pennsic musings...

[kellan_the_tabby]

I didn't make it to Pennsic this year.

I _went_ to Pennsic, mind you. I arrived there on Land Grab Day, we set up the tent and all that, we helped our campmates set up. There was shopping and working at Herald's Point and hanging out with friends and all the usual things. But it wasn't _Pennsic_, not the magical experience I remember from years ago.

It hasn't been for a while, I think. I haven't gone to a class in a few years; my reason, or at least my stated reason, the first year this happened, was that the class schedule was in such disarray that it wasn't worth trying to go to a class; likely it wasn't going to be happening when the booklet said it was. But I'm suspecting now that it was a symptom of a larger lack of assgetoffingness, as I've been calling it recently.

There were reasons for this to not be a good war, mind you. It was hot and sticky most of the time. I'm the hell out of shape. There were a few relationship issues with which I wasn't best pleased. It was a longer War than usual for me, and I always burn out close to the end of the stay anyway. And I came down with a cold fairly early in the second week, just when things got busy.

Last year's War was, to put it bluntly, a screaming clusterfuck, and I went into this one expecting some of the same issues to rear their ugly heads. They didn't, but I'm not sure that I find this reassuring, given the situations at hand. Yes, I'm deliberately being vague here; either you know what went on, or you don't. I don't think anyone I know had a good War last year, though; and that was weighing on me going into this year.

That's not all of it, either. And I don't know what the rest is. Maybe part of it's the number of merchants I just walk past these days, because I _know_ they won't have anything I'll be remotely interested in buying. Maybe some of it is the rising level of rudeness, and the dropping number of people who are willing to volunteer to make everyone's vacation run. Some of it, I'm sure, is because of the burnout that hits me when I visit Herald's Point. I _can't_ consult there these days. It's loud and busy and my brain shuts off. I can about manage to color, and that's really the only useful thing I did there this year. Whic makes me feel rather a jerk, because there's so much more that needs to be done.

I walk down the streets and see people in lovely authentic garb that is just beautiful to see...and then the next ten in stuff that's so modern that they're barely even making an attempt...or in just plain mundanes. I saw more people in mundanes this year than ever before, I think, and not just when they'd just gotten on site, either.

I look through the class listings and see people who I _know_ don't know their stuff teaching - and very popular classes, too, in which they're spreading their just plain _wrong_ information to lots and lots of people who apparently can't be arsed to crack open a book and realize that said teacher is full of shite.

I see whole groups of people who aren't even in the SCA (nor a similar group; I'm not talking about Markland, here) showing up and using our event as a backdrop for their own little games. I have no problem with these games; if I had time, I'd play some of 'em myself. But I don't walk onto a football field with skates and a stick and try to play hockey in the frozen Gatorade.

All of these are things that happen at other events, but not at the same scale as at Pennsic. 'Only Pennsic is worth the amount of bother that only Pennsic requires', but I'm starting to think that for me, not even Pennsic really is, any more.

---

It wasn't a _bad_ war, mind you. The relationship difficulties were pretty much ironed out early on. The expected difficulties did not, in fact, happen. I bought some pretty cool things, and I got to make boom repeatedly.

I finally got off the nut to officially (as official as we ever are, anyway) apprentice to baronadhemar. There's a bit of related news there, too, though it's not mine to tell (I'll edit here when it gets posted, though). I now have a cool crowned-A badge, which I've been wearing on my t-shirt all weekend, 'cos I'm like that.

I got to see some people, though not as many as I'd wanted to. What with one thing and another I barely got to spend any time at all with liamstliam, nazrynn, siobhan1214, shalmestre, sister_devora, or torin3; I didn't even get to see cellio or sirtanaka at all, though baronadhemar had an awfully amusing conversation with the latter over a radio one day. I had more time with mrgrumpybear, baronadhemar, pedropadrao, and dr_zrfq, but in none of those cases was it enough. And I could have had more time to spend with people, but I spent too much of it sitting in camp reading, or just lying in bed not-sleeping. I did a lot of that, when it wasn't too hot for even that. Just couldn't be arsed to get up. Laid in the tent with my eyes closed, or staring up through the smoke hole.

And I missed my giselle0002 and my meradudd terribly.

Right now I just want to stay home next year. Go to Europe instead, or Colorado, or I dunno, something the hell else.

---

I'm writing this Sunday night. My fingers are starting to hurt, and I need to be able to type tomorrow; so I'm going to stop. I may post this tomorrow, or not. We shall see.

Comments

[wanderingpixie.livejournal.com]

Juliana has, in the past, been very good at talking to _everybody_ about putting in a few hours. And it somehow works! There's a better than average chance that she'll be heading things up next year, so we can hope that it'll help.

[kellan_the_tabby]

There are a whole lot of reasons I'm hoping she runs the Point next year...

[pedropadrao.livejournal.com]

My lady, sister_devora, once suggested to me that we steal an idea from mobility assistance: *treats*! Also, last night, she had another idea, that might increase the number of coloring people: waive the copying/coloring fee in exchange for an hour or so spent in coloring stuff.

That being said, I think that if we're finding a lot of armory conflicts in the second round, a couple of things may be taking place:

- People who can't check for conflict are consulting, which could be remedied by education.

- People who can check for conflicts are being swamped, which could be remedied by either adding more consultants or reducing the clients per consultant per day in some other fashion.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Treats yes! Good idea; most of us bake...

[sister-devora.livejournal.com]

Have scratch paper on hand to work out what's going to go on the forms, and have the clients fill out the personal information on the forms while they wait. Then consult directly onto the form. Clients can then either take it with them to show to their hometown herald or submit at the point. And remember, John Smith's mundane name, etc. stays the same whether he wants to be John the Blacksmith of London or Johan Schmidt von Berlin, and whether he wants or, a hammer gules, or some monstrosity involving a basilisk, gorgon's heads, a lion, and a piping beast (carefully constructed to have stuff on different layers, and mostly in purpure and vert, of course.)

If they choose to submit at the point, there is a charge, of course, for submission, but I'd also institute a surcharge for copying, coloring, etc. This charge would be waived for an hour's worth of coloring. That way, you only need 1 or 2 people who read blazon to put a slash of color onto each charge and on the field. Part of that surcharge, of course, goes to supplies like markers, paper, copying, etc. Part of it goes to stuff like water bottles, gatorade, chocolate yummies, chips, etc.

Essentially, if you don't need heraldic training to do it, get non-heralds to do it, if you can. If the client wants the kind of personal kissy-poo that Pedro described in his post with the poster idea, recommend that they merely get the basic layout and take it with them for more in-depth heraldic consultation in their kingdom. Define your mission. What are you there to do? And how can you efficiently accomplish that without folks burning out? If the client wants something simple, maybe have some basic resources out for folks to sign up (say with their Pennsic token or something) to sit in the reading area and look at some basic stuff while they wait for a herald to be free.

Also, make volunteering there at least semi-pleasant - munchies, drinks (of the non-alcoholic variety - save the rum for the party), breaks. C'mon, Caesar's not here and you're not chained to that oar. Put out invites to as many heralds as you know even slightly. I saw next to no faces I didn't know at the party - yeah, I was there at the end, and I know a *lot* of heralds (I spent Known World last year just flitting about and visiting friends and want to go to New Orleans next year.), but there should have been more than 1 introduction.