Living History Display

[Harry]

This is an excellent idea! That's what Living History, as I term it, is all about. We do this for our Civil War event as well as our monthly Living History encampment

I would propose that each camp set up their own displays rather than put everything inside the fort. And, these displays do not have to be huge either. A simple table or ground cloth displaying items works just as well. Obviously one of the important components in making this work is having the knowledge of what one is displaying. And, if folks are able to do this in "first person," that makes it even better for the visitor. By the way, many of you are already doing this sort of thing just with your encampments. I see this proposal is an extension of what many of you are already doing.

We can also establish the hours for this so crewes don't have to remain in their camps for the duration.

[theM.A.dDogge]

my god...did i miss something last year???...i thought that was the WHOLE REASON for the encampment????.....only thing i saw wrong was...noone knew how to git the audience down to the beach....i just remeber a LOT of back and forth to the fort to see what the hell was going on and when...i think by the time we got word of a meeting...we consistently missed every single one by at least 30 min.......

baseing this on ...oh ...about 20years of living history of several time periods....there are some tried and true way to engage the audience...instead of waitting for them to come and find you....

1. many demos can go immediatly before and after the battles....gitting ready for the battle..weapons....after the battle weapons...surgical...tried to incorpoate mission with a couple of ideas we have used in the past...but i think i scare him.....

2. go find them and bring em back to the camp yer damn self....stop and talk to them if they dont say hi first...chase em ifn ya gotto....thaT BY THE WAY REaLLY WORKS

3. i forget what 3. was....

4. nevermind ...4. never really worked

5. maps of the grounds given to everyone at the door...with at least a few things scheduled at the Beach...not me personally(last name being Beach an all)...but near the Beach(that could be me brother too)...anyway ya gits the point......

i'll go back to bed now....

and ...oh yeah......hey mission........BOO!

[hurricane]

Having a map of all the areas with attractions is a great idea. That can also hold the schedule of demos.

I have to agree with Dogge. While I can't speak for others, our own crewe thought the fun of it was living in the encampment. I must say, I was the big whiner about it going into the event -- but once we got there, I really loved it. I think only two members of our crewe ever made it into town at night we all loved the setting so much. We had everything we needed right there.

And by combining our rations of food and beverages, we all ate like kings for $50 each for the entire four days. So we saved money too.

I don't think it's too much trouble manning an encampment from 10 until 5 for three days in a row. With seven people that's an hour each each day. During that hour each person can be doing something different so there's always something going on that has educational value. That's how we did it at the Catt & Fiddle... everyone had something they did for an hour... plus their chores for the camp... then they could have the rest of the time off to play.

It's easy to draw people into your reality in an encampment. We just need to get them over there and I think the map will do the trick that they get once they pay.

I don't think you'll ever get the level of organization needed to mount tours. The very nature of KW and the festival is that it's organic and is just a happening. It's very different from what many crewes are used to. And that's part of the fun of it. Like Woodstock for Pirates... :)

-- Hurricane

[Misson]

We went from no ideas (other than just living in the camp) to too many ideas! Better than no ideas. What's interesting is that everyone seems to want to do it the way they've seen it last. (And, on that note, I wish you could have seen what I saw - everything was right there for three hours and it was literally non-stop people. I occasionally wished for a break in the tide, but I was enjoying myself too much to take more than a breather.)

The way I remember from camp at Key West is that four or five groups walked through the site when I was there. Many of them on their way to the beach and did not really understand what we were doing there. I'm pretty sure setting out my surgical stuff wouldn't have been the tipping point on the walk-through interest scale. To be honest, I'd sort of be afraid of having it stolen if I just let it all sit out. I now have over a thousand dollars of surgical equipment alone. Maybe the map thing would work. What I have doubts about is that an educational display would work for three straight days; they didn't even do that in Virginia where the focus had a more educational slant to it.

God bless you folks who are actors - you make re-enacting really fun for most of the public. However, I suspect we're talking about two very different animals. The actors have the whole weekend to engage in their skill (through skits, battles, posing for pictures, interacting with groups of people). As my original post explained, I was thinking we could create a fairly light-weight, primarily educational event.

To be honest, my style is more professorial than it is actor. This is why the surgery after battle thing doesn't interest me very much at this point. When you think of my style, think "Captain Twill in Key West" and you've a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about. The educational re-enactment idea I have involves speaking about what you've learned about a particular period role or practicing a particular period skill like sewing, cooking or weaving. Then you invite people to ask questions.

Anyhow...I would be more than happy to be in charge of organizing my little vision if there were enough people interested in preparing an educational display in advance. I don't want to sell anything or act skits out or task people with spending all day in the camp - I just want to have a couple (2 or 1.5?) hour interactive educational opportunity where those with particular knowledge and/or skills can practice them and invite others to watch. I don't even know if it will work in this environment at all - that's why I thought a short trial on Sunday afternoon would be best. If it sucks for attendance, we can give it up as a lost cause after an hour or so. Besides, I'm not even sure the interest is there to do this at all - so far, only two people have really expressed interest in participating in the education concept. I probably wouldn't bother to schedule it unless we had five or more.

[Mary Diamond]

I would personally love to expand on the Dressing the 18th Century Lady demo that Cheeky and I did the last day at Port Washington. Though the weather was uncooperative, we did have a few attentive viewers (males as well!) who stayed through the entire demo, even asking questions.

If it came to it, this could even be performed as a one person demo ~ I think it would be great fun to shanghai a young lady into my service. Hmmm... I might even keep her.

[Capt. Sterling]

We could provide a male as well... and speak about the differences in clothing between the ABS and the upper class officers.

[Dutchman]

ok well now that i'm down to just three big events left for the year....... i can be nosy and pay atention to what everyone else is doing. SO- how are the living history projects going?????

-man I wish i could come and play!!!

[Capt. Sterling]

Mayhaps next year...

[Raphael Misson]

Well, I'm still willing to do the surgeon bit. However, I doubt if that alone is enough to bring the droves in.

[Lily Alexander]

-man I wish i could come and play!!!

We wish you could come play too. We'll miss you and all your scumminess.

[callenish gunner]

since it appears that my openly sutlering at PIP is restricted there is no reason I can and will be doing weapon repair/maintenance perhaps some sword sharpening if I can bring the waterwheel in the trailer..... showing the crowds how the guns were striped and field cleaned and maintained

Plus we will be doing a lot of camp cooking as well including some baking

[theM.A.dDogge]

-man I wish i could come and play!!!

We wish you could come play too. We'll miss you and all your scumminess.

good riddance to bad rubbish...says I.....

[theM.A.dDogge]

since it appears that my openly sutlering at PIP is restricted there is no reason I can and will be doing weapon repair/maintenance perhaps some sword sharpening if I can bring the waterwheel in the trailer..... showing the crowds how the guns were striped and field cleaned and maintained

Plus we will be doing a lot of camp cooking as well including some baking

good then...i wont clean any of mine....and you can clean and maintain all of mine...for a demostration purpose....should take ya damn near th whole trip....and i am picky....i also have a doglock actin up...i didna know you worked on them too??....i would have had ya take a look at one of them at Beaufort????.....course i damn near forgot anything...with ya teaasin me wit that Ham hanging within plain site.....

[michaelsbagley]

Reading back through this thread... I've come to a few conclusions for myself...

I might best NOT be a blacksmith this year... I've not had as much time to practice this summer as I originally wished to... The few times I did get out banging on metal, I was so rusty I would be embaressed to demo for the public.

Next, I will try to put together a more simple demo-ish type thing to do around camp between now and then, in a living history style (by the definition of the term I am most familiar with, which may vary from others' usage). Maybe I'll do tailoring/clothing manufacture, I seem to be good at that...

[Capt. Sterling]

I wouldn't mind working on the sewing along with you Mike as that is what I do the best... we could also do a dressing demo with Kate or Haunting Lily for middling sort, Mad Mary for upper class and two of the guys for common sailor and upper class merchant or something...

will also be demoing funeral practices of the times as well...

[Capt. Sterling]

Plus we will be doing a lot of camp cooking as well including some baking [/size][/font][/b]

Bring fire wood, the stuff they had last year was just bloody awful and hard as a rock to split... Double Shot had to get a special wedge and was still having a damned hard time of it...

[theM.A.dDogge]

Plus we will be doing a lot of camp cooking as well including some baking     [/size][/font][/b]

Bring fire wood, the stuff they had last year was just bloody awful and hard as a rock to split... Double Shot had to get a special wedge and was still having a damned hard time of it...

ah....i think that was actualy a rock...or coral at least.....its an island....or at least a peice of coral with a bit o' sand on it....not exactly known for there trees??