Re: Pennsic Seneschale's Court and Requirements This Year

[Eli White <eliwhite@home.com>]

Poster: Eli White <eliwhite@home.com>

>> extraordinarily new to the Society, and I'm one of those people who
>> doesn't think Pennsic is a good starting point for first-timers to the
>> SCA. :-)
>> 
>> Julien
>
>	Why not?  It's a mind-blowing sampler of everything the SCA has to

I have to agree with Julien on this one.  Having Pennsic as your first
event would be too much, and give you too many expectations.  I know
because this almost happened to me.

Milady and my first event was at AEthelmearc War Practice, which for
AEthelmearc is the biggest event around.  We went there and saw the 100+
fighters on the field, the 25+ merchants, something to do at every second
in the date, A&S classes, etc. etc...

We had a great time and really loved it, we thought that it was the
greatest thing!

However it had a drawback ...

We then began to go to 'normal' events, which for AEthelmearc meant 5-30
fighters, maybe 1 or 2 merchants, big 'downtimes' during the day, basically
fight, eat, leave, etc. etc. etc..

We really got disparaged by this and didn't have fun at the events because
we had our expectations built up by the big event ...

Luckily we really like the local group, kept meeting with them, and
eventually lowered our expectations and enjoyed local events just as much.

Had that first event been Pennsic, and then we started hitting local
events, I don't know if we would have ever been able to lower our
expectations that far.

>with a developed persona and authentic garb; many of the people at
>Pennsic aren't SCA members at all--they've come because someone said it
>was fun. Do we really want the Period Police to drive them away, or can
>we we educate and encourage people toward greater authenticity without

The problem with this is that most of these people come to Pennsic not
knowing what the SCA is, and they leave still not knowing.

I have 'by accident' overheard a number of people in resterants, stores,
etc, as well as on the web talking about pennsic.  They were telling a
friend about Pennsic and I always hear stuff like:

"Yeah, It's cool, It's the biggest renfaire there is.  But it is really
cool because everyone has to wear a fantasy outfit."

or

"I went to this thing in PA where everyone had to wear a medieval costume,
you know, like AD&D stuff.  And people go out on the field acting like
Paladins hitting each other."

These people went to Pennsic, had the idea that it was a 'fantasy' type
thing (or thought that medieval people wore fur bikinis), and were allowed
to leave with those same ideas.

If we are supposed to be educatiing and encouraging people then we need to
do it.  We need to actually have people out there to talk to these people
and explain to them (which refers to the idea of a 'warning').  Plus as
less and less of this happens, people won't see the inauthentic stuff to
try to duplicate.

Currently nothing happens when someone walks by wearing a T shirt, blue
jeans, and a crown, or a Xena outfit.  Since noone feels right about saying
something, and there is noone who is 'supposed' to say anything, people go
home thinking that this is what the SCA does.

Siegfried

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