Event Planning

Event Planning

This section is designed as a how-to guide to running an event.

Event Supplies

Izareth here, and I have a few general thoughts about event running. I've run over ten national events and have assisted on many more.

When planning, two things are most important: Fighting and Feasting, I often assign those two things to specific, trustworthy, competent people.

When planning a feast and trying to keep on budget, it is often helpful to realize that everyone will not eat some of every food item (unless you only have one or two). When you have bread, fruit, stews, a main course and sides. With good server portioning, one can usually have plenty for all without the caterer's standard amount of food. People will also walk away with more than enough. I've made mistakes in the past, but I assure you this advice is not going to give you shortages.

I recommend some standards. Firstly: after a hot day of fighting, bread can seem too dry. It is still a good starter for the table, that and fruit. If you mix butter with honey, and leave it in a bowl on the table, it goes much quicker. The fruit is always a good fixture.

Secondly: at least serve the drinks. If you can't have a whole serving crew, at least refresh drinks after the food line. It's only thanks is the feast it creates.

Thirdly: If you have servers, allow them to eat first. That way they don't get overlooked. It also gives you a chance to sit and talk with them about serving order and the like.

Fourthly: FEAST GEAR. If people bring their own gear, it lowers cost curtails the trash burden, and helps the event coordinators. Recommend it to your patrons. It was always a good standard to have.

Kyrian, here. Good planning really helps in reducing the stress level of the event staff. Rather than having to run around trying to figure out what to do, people either do it or know exactly who to talk to in order to get the issue resolved.

When planning for an event, pretty much everything you do can falls into two categories:

• daily operations-the things that occur during an event such as weapon checking, Troll, feast, fighting, etc.

• logistical support-everything that has to be done to make the daily operations go smoothly.

A method for approaching event planning is to identify the tasks that need to take place every day that involve the event attendees and then figure out what you need to make those tasks go smoothly. It can be daunting especially if you're running an event for the first time. Never be afraid to ask your more experienced members or on the national board for advice.

The primary things that should take place at an event:

• Troll
• Weapon checking
• Fighting
• Feast
• Clean up

Logistics of Troll

• At Troll attendees should accomplish at least four tasks:
  • 1) Sign in to the event,
  • 2) Sign an event waiver & verify minor waivers
  • 3) Pay admission
  • 4) Receive an event token which serves as the receipt
• Troll should be located at a point where everyone must pass when first entering the camp site.
• A tent or sunshade with tables and chairs makes the process more comfortable for both those working Troll and for people checking in.
• Maintain a locking cash box.
• Have a schedule for working Troll. Usually a 4-6 hour shift is reasonable.
• Make sure the people who are working at Troll know what the "flow" of check-in is and who they can contact if there's a question or issue.
• Troll should run at least from 8:00 AM through 11:00 PM.
• Optional
  • Arrange the different tasks at Troll so that you don't have people bumping into each other as they go through the process. For example, you could have everyone start at the far left with signing in and then moving to signing an event waiver. After that they could pay their fee and at the end of it all, receive their tokens.
  • Have an event program that can be distributed. This can be as simple as a single-page handout indicating when feasts, weapon checking and fighting takes place or a multiple-page booklet that might also include locations of different stores and restaurants in the area.
  • Parking passes. Parking passes are usually index cards or some other variant that is placedin the windshield or hanging off the rear-view mirror similar to handicapped tags. The parking pass might have the driver's name/realm. This makes it easy for event organizers to quickly identify a car's owner should there be an issue such as a car blocking a road.
  • Run Troll 24 hours a day, especially on the days when most people will be coming in. For a week-long event, that's normally the Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of the event. Expect a fair amount of people to show up on Saturday just for the fighting. For a weekend event, it would be ideal to have Troll 24 hours a day up through Saturday afternoon.

Logistics of Weapon Checking

Weapon checking can be a long and tedious process. However, there are some things you can do to make it more efficient.

• Useful tools for weapon checking
  • Weapon checking templates
  • Tape measures
  • Scales
  • Bow draw tester
  • Stickers for passing weapons
  • Stickers for failing weapons

• 1) Organize the weapon checking into stations and separate the checking area into separate zones for shields, weapons, and missiles.
  • a) Zone 1-hand-held weapons
    • Station 1 is for checking if the weapon meets the minimum requirements for length, weight, and proper construction.
    • Station 2 is for items requiring hit testing.
    • Station 3 is where stickers are placed on weapons.
    • Station 4 is where passed weapons are located.
  • b) Zone 2-shields
  • c) Zone 3-missiles
• 2)

More to follow

Food ideas

Izanaki

Some good things to have for food should be based on the location of fighting, the temperature, and potentially the style of fighter that the event coordinator is, if this is apart of a squires duty.

If it is nice weather and the fighting field is not a mud puddle, nor a wasteland, then varying foods will appeal to all appetites and you wont have to worry about adding to climate problems, like by giving people bowls of hot steaming soup on a very hot and/or wet day, thus adding to it. You do not want to give people hot dry bread on a dry day when people are prone to be drinking lots of water to stay hydrated, thus giving people the feeling that they are being fed crappy food that makes their mouths dry, even more then the current environment does.

On a nice day when its not too humid, hot, cold, rainy, dry, etc, you can do a good balanced meal with lots of options. Even though it is moderately warm, but not too warm, you could serve soups as a side dish, or an alternative meal for anyone that cant/wont eat the main course. Fruit is good because it can be used to make fruit salads, fruit punch, or pies for deserts. Meats are great because it is not only a delicious meal but also plays on a psychological instinct to tear into some meat after aggressive battle. Certain veggies are good as well, like: mushrooms, onions, potatoes, corn, etc. Mushrooms can be prepared sauteed, uncooked and covered in ranch based on a person's taste, or stuffed. Onions can be good to sautee, as an add on to foods like burgers, or hot dogs. Potatoes can be used in things like potatoe salad, mashed potatoes, boiled red potatoes, etc. Sweet corn is a good piece because of its inexpensiveness, but also its great taste based on the time of year. One full corn ear can be chopped in half and given to 2 people, thus double how far one ear can go, thus stretching the budget.

When it comes to food, I know of a great stew. Not only is it cheap, its also filling, easy, and quick to make.

• Litrik's Chikun Stoo
• --Ingredients--
  • You only need 3 things to make this stew (amounts are per person)
  • 1 package of chicken ramen
  • 1 packet of chicken gravy mix
  • 1 small can of chicken (drained)

• --Prep--
  • 1. First, prepare the ramen as normal.
  • 2. Then add the gravy mix.
  • 3. Stir until almost all of the clumps are gone.
  • 4. Add the chicken.
  • 5. Stir until the chicken is heated through.
  • 6. Distribute and devour!!!

• Recipe courtesy of Nan Belegorn's Litrik

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