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So I've just come back from two days at a fair out in the middle of Freaking Cold Ville. It's in essence, the start of the re-enactment season for our state, so most of us try to get to it.
Surprisingly, the actual suck for us was minimal. We had no stupid questions for once (apart from a couple of fellow re-enactors/LARPers from other groups who were being smartasses
), but there was still a few incidents of suck. Here we go!
What's the point of advertising an opening time?!
This appears to be a fairly common occurrence for us at the three big events we do. Every year, they advertise that the gates will open from a certain time and closed from a certain time. We use this as a reliable indicator of when we need to garb up and set up the displays. Every freaking time however, the people at the gate get so frigging bored that they go ahead and let people in anyway before the official opening time. Just WHY?!?!?!
There's this magical device called a bin...
Heard this one second-hand from a merchant buddy of ours. Apparently people kept missing the very prominently marked (and empty) bins and had no issues leaving some of their rubbish around. While food wrappers were semi-understandable, apparently more than one parent had no issue leaving their kids nappies out for the world to deal with. Because walking over to the very prominently marked bins was too much for them -_-
Just go and ruin it for yourself why don't you?
This one was from last year, but we were warned about it no less than three times over the course of the weekend. Last year, someone (not sure if it was from the displays or otherwise) ended up indecently assaulting two children. That person was understandably banned from the event, but because their wife was fairly high up on the committee, we suspected that they would've gotten in anyway.
(Two of our members had very young children with them, so we mandated that they had to stick together or otherwise go with an adult if they wanted to go anywhere)
Classy Romans!
One of our soon-to-be former members joined a Roman group, who had their debut at this event. While they were MOSTLY pleasant (there were some issues with them not understanding what a noise curfew meant), apparently said soon-to-be former member wound up basically trash-talking us, resulting in our quartermaster and president having to intervene and set them straight. It was quite effective, as the Romans ended up going to the quartermaster for some re-enactment supplies in the end.
ETA: Apparently said former member also had opted to wear a fox on his head. Rather than speaking to the taxidermists (there were at least two on-site and if he hadn't been a jerkass to half of our club, we would've also pointed him in the right direction) about getting a fox pelt to wear, he basically took a stuffed animal and skinned it. Much mocking ensued
(To clarify, it wasn't the fact that he'd used fake fur to begin with, it was the fact that he a) used so much fake fur that it was obvious and b) he skinned a STUFFED ANIMAL!)
Wibbly-wobbly, wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey...
And the final suck came in terms of general timelines. Specifically:
- First night we were informed that half of the floodlights would cut out at 9:30, then the other floodlights would cut out at 9:45pm (basically a "get to bed" rule). Well, instead what actually happened was that ALL of the flood lights cut out at 9:30 on the first night.
- On the final day, we got briefed that "soft pack up" was around 30 minutes prior to close (basically start packing everything in your tents or displays) and then cars/trucks etc. would be on-site from closing time. People apparently thought that "Soft pack up" meant "Bring your cars on-site anyway."
Surprisingly, the actual suck for us was minimal. We had no stupid questions for once (apart from a couple of fellow re-enactors/LARPers from other groups who were being smartasses
), but there was still a few incidents of suck. Here we go!What's the point of advertising an opening time?!
This appears to be a fairly common occurrence for us at the three big events we do. Every year, they advertise that the gates will open from a certain time and closed from a certain time. We use this as a reliable indicator of when we need to garb up and set up the displays. Every freaking time however, the people at the gate get so frigging bored that they go ahead and let people in anyway before the official opening time. Just WHY?!?!?!
There's this magical device called a bin...
Heard this one second-hand from a merchant buddy of ours. Apparently people kept missing the very prominently marked (and empty) bins and had no issues leaving some of their rubbish around. While food wrappers were semi-understandable, apparently more than one parent had no issue leaving their kids nappies out for the world to deal with. Because walking over to the very prominently marked bins was too much for them -_-
Just go and ruin it for yourself why don't you?
This one was from last year, but we were warned about it no less than three times over the course of the weekend. Last year, someone (not sure if it was from the displays or otherwise) ended up indecently assaulting two children. That person was understandably banned from the event, but because their wife was fairly high up on the committee, we suspected that they would've gotten in anyway.
(Two of our members had very young children with them, so we mandated that they had to stick together or otherwise go with an adult if they wanted to go anywhere)
Classy Romans!
One of our soon-to-be former members joined a Roman group, who had their debut at this event. While they were MOSTLY pleasant (there were some issues with them not understanding what a noise curfew meant), apparently said soon-to-be former member wound up basically trash-talking us, resulting in our quartermaster and president having to intervene and set them straight. It was quite effective, as the Romans ended up going to the quartermaster for some re-enactment supplies in the end.
ETA: Apparently said former member also had opted to wear a fox on his head. Rather than speaking to the taxidermists (there were at least two on-site and if he hadn't been a jerkass to half of our club, we would've also pointed him in the right direction) about getting a fox pelt to wear, he basically took a stuffed animal and skinned it. Much mocking ensued
(To clarify, it wasn't the fact that he'd used fake fur to begin with, it was the fact that he a) used so much fake fur that it was obvious and b) he skinned a STUFFED ANIMAL!)
Wibbly-wobbly, wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey...
And the final suck came in terms of general timelines. Specifically:
- First night we were informed that half of the floodlights would cut out at 9:30, then the other floodlights would cut out at 9:45pm (basically a "get to bed" rule). Well, instead what actually happened was that ALL of the flood lights cut out at 9:30 on the first night.
- On the final day, we got briefed that "soft pack up" was around 30 minutes prior to close (basically start packing everything in your tents or displays) and then cars/trucks etc. would be on-site from closing time. People apparently thought that "Soft pack up" meant "Bring your cars on-site anyway."
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