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Jon
Today is Saturday March 30th. I am with Kajsa and Ravasz, and we will be talking about event ideation and theme. So, first off, would you both like to introduce yourselves?

Ravasz
I am Ravasz Janos. I’ve never run an event. I’ve had ideas and I’ve helped other people, but I’m a disorganized thinker so I don’t run anything, but I’ll do what you tell me to do.

Kajsa
And I’m Kajsa Nikulasdotter. We were the seated Baronage for Three Rivers from 2008 to 2012. I have run one event, though I run the weekely, you know, dinner meetings. With my job I always felt like running events wasn’t a very practical thing for me. Getting time off reliably was hard. Now that I’m retired, it’s a little different story, but my energy level is a little low.

Um, I am a Laurel, my husband is a Laurel and an MOD. And we joined the SCA at the same time in ’95. We were already a couple then. And that’s who I am.

Jon
So the first question I had for the article is, why should someone want to run an event?

Kajsa
I think the obvious thing is to help out the the group. But, it’s also a good way to be seen and to be recognized, you know. It puts you in front of a lot of people out of your own area. And people get to interact with you and get to know you. So it’s a good way to become known.

Ravasz
I mean, the SCA is all about living the dream. It’s a good way to take an idea that you think could be really cool and fun, and make it happen and see it come fruition and watch everybody enjoy what you have created. I mean, we do that in, in leather craft and I do that on stage to do this thing and see what comes of it and see the smile on people’s faces. To run an event…. You know, I haven’t run one, like I said, but I’ve been a part of it. Some of them a big part of it, but when you see people having fun and being happy and they come up to you and they go, “This was great.” It’s a it’s a big ego stroker. It’s really nice feeling.

Kajsa
Yeah. It’s fun. It’s a great sense of accomplishment.

Jon
What events do you remember the most and how much did the theme influence your enjoyment?

Ravasz
It’d have to be Fernando. Fernando has come out with some brilliant ideas and he’s got the energy and the organization skills to make things happen. Um, for his events.

Kajsa
Fernando is a great example of somebody who really knows how to put on a good event. Because, not only does he have brilliant ideas and they’re unique and they’re interesting and people are really drawn to his initial idea, but then he invests an incredible amount of energy, expanding that idea into the whole event and incorporating it. So the whole event is, is wrapped up with his idea. And then he markets it like nobody’s business. And Fernando markets fun.

It’s not just enough to say, “Hey, we’re having this event. Come.” You’ve got to market the fun and nobody does that quite like Fernando can do it. For months ahead of the event, he sends out historical information that is his inspiration so other people can see it and get inspired by it also. Then he sets out little challenges. He sets up, you know, maybe a little competition and he’s, he’s brilliant at it. All of those things really help market your event.

Ravasz
So William Marshall.

Kajsa
Yeah, William the Marshall is probably the single event I was most impressed with in my entire life, but Carousel…

Ravasz
Carousel.

Kajsa
We missed the original Carousel.

Ravasz
Right.

Kajsa
But the second Carousel we attended.

Ravasz
The one we did at Jefferson Barracks?

Kajsa
Oh yeah the Iron Rain.

Ravasz
Yeah Iron Rain.

Kajsa
That was beautiful.

Ravasz
It was clever and it was a lot of energy put into it and, um….

Jon
So for those that don’t know what Iron Rain is or a Carousel, can you briefly explain?

Ravasz
So, the Carousel was a series of events that you traveled from one to the other.

Kajsa
Not events, but activities.

Ravasz
Activities, I’m sorry. Yeah. And there’s a switch over time. So you go to the archery and then you go to the pumpkin slinging and you go to a little fighting and you go do a little… There was something to go to…

Kajsa
Kept, you moving all day long and it kept the crowds sort of spread out over all these, I think it was 10 different activities.

Ravasz
Yes.

Kajsa
And it was very activity driven. And it really got people up and moving. But it was, as Fernando’s events often are, it was very volunteer driven. It required a lot of infrastructure and a lot of people. Something to consider when you’re setting up your events.

Ravasz
Fernando’s got the personality to draw people to him.

Kajsa
Yeah.

Ravasz
If you don’t have that, you’re not going to draw a lot of people. So you got to be careful if you’re how complicated you make your infrastructure.

Kajsa
Yeah.

Ravasz
The Iron Rain was basically the same thing. The biggest part of it was an archery shoot but it covered a huge area and there were all these different…

Kajsa
Well, it was set up at a archery range that was in one of our local parks. So each shooting area was a small part of their range. So the ranges were pre-set up but each range each individual range. He had a different…

Ravasz
Challenge.

Kajsa
Challenge built or that. I don’t even shoot and I walked the range just so I could see all the all the different shots. It was very interesting.

Ravasz
I might have been a dozen, maybe more, stations. And each one was a was a different kind of shoot.

Kajsa
Yeah, it was very it was primarily an archery.

Ravasz
But it was, there was some fighting that happened that day and, and a picnic did we?

Kajsa
Was that? I think it was like a potluck, kind of.

Ravasz
Yeah. Okay.

Kajsa
It was a kind of a more casual event compared to our, some of our bigger and formal ones.

Ravasz
But again, he kept people moving and and had options. And I think that’s what makes an event.

You have your typical event: Fighting, arts & sciences, uh, maybe something else. Some events are centered around dancing. There was a fun one we did – while there was dancing going on there was a play going on as well. And and the actors interacted with the people around them as if they were part of the dance. But yet there was this drama happening. So it was a comedia dell’arte sort of performance.

Kajsa
I can’t even remember the question. Oh, that was most memorable. Most memorable.

That was a very memorable event where we had the comedia. It was a table. It was, instead of a sit-down feast, we had a banquet and with a ball and then we did comedia bits sort of in breaks for the ball and we made it interact interactive.
Ravasz
Now, as to how fun it was for everyone else…

Kajsa
Yeah. It was a lot of fun for the actors. [Laughs]

Ravasz
Yeah. I don’t know. And some of the I can tell some of the audience or some of the people there got into it and kind of followed us around or or kept an eye on what we were doing. But, I think everyone else was kind of oblivious to it. So I don’t know how much fun it was for the folks.

Kajsa
Rest of them. We enjoyed the hell of ourselves. We’re very entertaining to ourselves.

Jon
How specific should a theme for an event be?

Ravasz
I say “not.” That’s my opinion. If you try to be too specific and try to make everybody conform to the one thing, I think 1) it’s difficult to do. 2) A lot of people aren’t interested.

I think visually is helpful. I think some activities where people will want to take part of. But not everybody will enjoy it. Other people may go to any event and they sit down and they talk with their friends. Or they want to fight and that’s all they want to do. Fight and then visit.

So, I think if you try to make it all center around a one thing, you get less interest. You won’t get the involvement you want or imagine.

Kajsa
Well, I that there’s a room for both. If you make it terribly specific, I think you have to be like, Fernando and you have to invest more time, recruiting people to buy into it and letting people know about it and teaching people about it. You just have to invest more effort I think to get people. But, sometimes the the theme that’s very specific can really inspire certain people and it’s nice to have a change up. So I like the variety. Some events, you know, very high period, very isolated, you know, and isolated area or time but we got room for both. I think that the variety is good. So I like both.

Ravasz
In a high recruitment, if you’re having to recruit a lot of people for a great plan that you have, you can’t do that very often because you’re going to burn people out.

Kajsa
Yeah. Yeah. Very true.

Ravasz
I did that. I was very excited about this thing. We did in Saint Charles: the Scottish Game or something like that. And we went as a demo. It was just a demo. We did a little parade and there was, um, a lot of involvement. And it made people really tired.

Kajsa
The Barony…

Ravasz
Worked our little tail ends off.

Kajsa
Yeah.

Ravasz
And you don’t want to do that too many times to folks.

Kajsa
Yeah.

Ravasz
We were exhausted by the end of the day. But we saw a lot of people. We did a lot of fun things. I don’t know if we got any recruitment out of it, but…

Kajsa
A few.

Ravasz
It will exhaust people. Even Fernando’s things can exhaust people. So you don’t want to do those too often.

Jon
How do you weave the theme throughout the event once you’ve chosen one?

Ravasz
[Whistles]

Kajsa
We have rarely been in the position where we had to make those decisions, but I think what works is to just get good crew chiefs. And then talk to your crew chiefs individually. Let them in on the theme and ask for ideas and suggestions and how they can work the theme into their particular portion of the event. And if you’ve got the, it doesn’t matter who comes up with the idea, if it works, then it works. So you kind of committee it, I think with your crew chiefs.

Ravasz
Yeah, yeah. And I think a creator needs to be open to hear what your chiefs got to say.

Kajsa
Because…

Ravasz
Communication. I’ve seen things fail because there’s just a lack of communication. Someone has an idea. Tells someone, “Okay. You got this job.” And then they just leave it. They don’t check in and they don’t support. And they don’t, you know, I’ve seen I’ve seen some, um, events do poorly because. And people become angry or frustrated, because they feel like there’s no support, there’s no help.

Kajsa
Communication is key and having good crew chiefs. And then where the ideas come from… you know ideas, they’re elusive. [Laughs] I don’t know if we can give people an idea. You’ve got to you’ve got you know inspiration. But I do think about each section, segment of of the event. And then think individually about each segment: What can pull the theme into that segment. So, I think I break them down individually while I’m brainstorming.

Ravasz
You got to be careful with ideas. Will it work? How will it work?

Kajsa
And listen to your crew chiefs about what works and what doesn’t work.

Ravasz
Right. Right. Yeah.

Kajsa
They’re the ones who run it.

Ravasz
If you’re so headstrong and you got an idea and you can’t be fluid enough to listen to people who say, “I don’t think that’s gonna work.” Or, “I don’t, I’ve seen that fail.” Or, “Are you sure you want to do that?” Or…

Kajsa
Or “I can’t do that. I don’t have enough manpower to do that.”

Ravasz
Right. Right.

Kajsa
You gotta listen to that.

Ravasz
It’s easy to have an idea. But you gotta think of them. When we I create my skits, when I create entertainment, people come to me with ideas all the time and I have ideas all the time but when I think about, “How does… How the can I make it work?”

If it’s sketchy, then it’s not gonna work.

Jon
Baronage only question: Has there been any event bids that you saw during your time as Baronage that you knew just weren’t going to work and what were those telltales?

Ravasz
I don’t remember any failing events. Or events I thought, when somebody presented it, and thought, “There’s no way.”

But as far as seeing somebody come up with an idea and really not thinking it’s gonna do well… I don’t remember any. I, I really… I’ve been to some that were like, “Ehh. That’s okay.” Or “It’s the same old thing.” Or, um, I don’t get invested in it. But I don’t know if that’s just because I’m not completely there or it’s just not, I don’t know…

Jon
Any final thoughts?

Ravasz
Well, you know, ideas. If you want to do ideas, I guess you gotta hit the history books. And look at what were some period themes. I mean they did some great stuff back then. I mean they they they brought up uh the Greek classics and they brought up, you know, they were doing uh, Anachronistic stuff themselves. That’s where, that’s where ideas start if you want to stick with period. Uh, that’s where Fernando always starts.

I mean, the whole Marshall thing. It was a lot… it was teams and open field fighting. And then there were some other events. And then was something, a whole thing about being courteous and honorable and so that that was a kind of a background theme. That was always looked for elsewhere off the field. Elsewhere during the event.

And and I think it’s important to remember when you do an event, your theme shouldn’t be around the fighting. Spread it out so that everybody can enjoy some part of that. Something for the kids. Something for uh the folks who don’t get involved, but rather just be with their friends. And then there’s folks who want to keep busy. So yeah. You go on a trail…

Kajsa
Quest.

Ravasz
Or a yeah. Something for everybody. You can’t just think of one [person].

Kajsa
Yeah, inspiration for events? So, it can come from anywhere.

Ravasz
Yeah. If you got a muse, you’re gifted. If you don’t? Listen to somebody else’s Muse. [Laughs]

Kajsa
[Laughs]

All right. Well, I think that’s about all.

Jon
Well thank you both for your time.

Ravasz
Thank you, Jon.

Jon
Today is Friday April 12th. I’m here with Hirsch and Magda and would you like to start by introducing yourselves?

Magda
Well, this is Hirsch. And I’m Magdalena.

Hirsch
And I’m Hirsch. And we do things in the SCA.

Jon
How long have you been playing?

Hirsch
38 years.

Magda
41 years.

Jon
Why should someone want to run an event?

Magda
My answer for this is is a little bit two-fold. First, in order for a volunteer organization to work, everybody needs to participate and do the jobs. And so, not everybody’s going to want to run an event, but if it’s in your skill set to manage activities like that, then you should do it so that everybody gets a turn to come to an event and enjoy it, and everybody takes turns running it.

The other reason to run an event: Do you have a really cool idea? Then you get into it.

Hirsch
I think you covered it. Being generous with your time not just showing up and enjoying being an event is important to to do some of the work and sharing that, and there’s a lot to learn there. Plus there’s a whole separate set of camaraderie for people that one event run an event. Sometimes you just might do the thing you’re interested in, you might run portion of the event that is one of your favorite things. But it’s also a great way to learn something new. If you’re new to archery offer to help run it, Or something like that.

Jon
What events do you remember the most and how much did the theme influence your enjoyment of them?

Magda
I’m really interested to see if we say the same event, but you go first.

Hirsch
Oh my gosh. Well, I was going to say, the Lilies were that I was knighted at…

Magda
Okay, that is not what I was gonna say. That was good. That was good. I get it.

I do love Lilies War but I think the the past event that always comes into my brain, when somebody talks about a really fun event, was Carousel. It was held here in Three Rivers before I even moved here – it started before we lived here. And it was so involved. And it took a lot of people to run, but it was so much fun. Everybody had something to do the whole day.

Hirsch
And it drew people in from Kingdoms, plural, around. That really was fantastic event.

One of the ones I was going to mention, you reminded me of a smaller event, Standing Stones hosted a German event that was just fantastic and fun. And, and there were themes throughout that, that made it fun. And the the number of people who showed up wearing German for the day… Literally, there were people, I’d known for years, I was like, “Who’s that? Oh, this person.” But I never see them in German. So, that was really fun.

Magda
So, a lot of Kingdom events are become annual. We’ve been doing Chieftains for forever, kind of replaced Carousel in some ways. But Standing Stones, always, and still to this day, when they do events, had a different event, a different theme, a different weekend… and it was always a complete new thing from top to bottom (and I lived in Standing Stones for my first ten years). And I kind of love that too. I like the annual events, that you know what to expect and you kind of know who lives there and what’s going to be there. But man, those events like the German themed event. There was a Viking event. They had Sack of Salerno… Just showing up and it’s just gonna be something completely different is a lot of fun.

Jon
Have you guys run events?

Magda
I’ve autocrated more than one event. I used to be the feast steward. I did run a small local war between Three Rivers and Forgotten Sea, and that was an unmitigated disaster.

Hirsch
[Laughs] I remember that.

Magda
For so many reasons, and if you wanted to talk about things going wrong… It rained,

Hirsch
All day…

Magda
And it was an outdoor only, and then it wasn’t just rain. It was cold, and it was battles. And then then the site…

Hirsch
There was more mud than fighting.

Magda
And the site situation wasn’t great and they ended up charging us way more money than they originally said they were going to. It was sad and I didn’t run another event for a very long time after that.

Hirsch
[Laughs]

Magda
I was like, I’ll do feasts, I’ll do anything, don’t make me run an event until I recently ran a Gryphon’s Fest last year.

Hirsch
My answer is no. I have not run an event. I was partially in charge for Gryphon’s Fest for you [gesturing to Magda]. And I’ve been Marshall in charge for Lily’s War. I also ran gate coordinator for Lily’s War but I’ve never run an event. Yeah,

Magda
And I would say that the Gryphon’s Fest was better on so many levels for me. One, I’m older but I got along very well with my co-autocrat. It was my son. But the weather was great. That site that we used, they were honest with us, they were up front with us, they worked with us. So, some things that are beyond your control like weather and whether or not the people running the site are trustworthy can also affect the success of an event.

Hirsch
Yeah.

Jon
Since you’ve [Magda] run events, where do you find your themes and ideas?

Magda
So, I think YouTube? So, in this case [the Palio], I saw a video about, these street fairs they have in Italy, and they still have them today and they talked a little bit about the history. Having seen that little bit about the history, I wrote down what they called it and then I did research. So I think that for event ideas can come from anywhere.

Hirsch
Cheesy movies, for example.

Magda
They can come from your like, you can be reading a fantasy book, historical fiction, or whatever. And not just history, but YouTube videos. And then you can either in my case, do the historical research to figure out what was really going on in the Middle Ages. Or just be like, well, how can I take this theme and make it medieval?

Hirsch
And that’s worth talking to your friends about, “Hey, I have this idea.” And sometimes if you have an idea for a fighting scenario, and I’m like, “Oh, this is going to be really great. We’re gonna have, cannons and we’re gonna use them in melee.” And about the third time, somebody looks at you and goes, “Well, I’m not sure that’s so great,” maybe you should listen. Even if I didn’t.

Magda
So yeah, ideas can come from anywhere. Implementation of them takes research and work and definitely getting everyone that you might want to work with on board.

Jon
I think that leads into my next question: Once you have a theme, how do you weave it throughout an event?

Magda
Different events, just depending on what you want to do, it can be so surface level.

Hirsch
Slap, a different name on the same activity.

Magda
We call an event in February Chieftains every year and yet, that’s just a grain of what we’re doing. But you can do like Carousel or like the Gryphon’s last year – the Palio. You can really really lean into it and it would have to be every single activity needs to somehow relate to what you’re doing. And if that’s because of an aesthetic relation, like we’re just gonna decorate everything like this, the prizes are related to it, the activities themselves. we’re going to do this specific kind of archery because we are recreating this specific time, period…

There’s nothing wrong with the theme being just a veneer and returning to the same event theme year after year after year if that makes it easier for the group to put an event on. Because some events don’t run themselves. That is a terrible fallacy that no one should ever be taught. But something like Chieftains that has locked in components, makes it easier for people running it to just put a little flavor on it and get the people to run the things and it doesn’t have to be this huge ordeal. And I think that people do like comfort, but they also think that people like these super involved, very different fun themed events too. So a little of both is good too.

Hirsch
Well, it can be something very, very specific. Like you might choose, you know, “1475 Belgium” or a town, a specific location, an event that carries some, personal meaning for your Persona. Or it might be a much broader theme it could be “France” or “England.”

Magda
Or, like the Palio was something that happened for many, many, many years. But it was a thing, but it wasn’t stuck in a place but it wasn’t stuck in a time.

Hirsch
And as far as tying the event to throughout, the easiest way to do that is make a list of everything that’s happening. Do you have fighting? You have armored combat, you have steel combat, you have archery. Do you have thrown weapons? Do you ever? Question things, do you have classes being taught? Do you have other things? Is there going to be a foot race? Do you have any other competitions? What is the list of things that are happening at your event? And by all means don’t necessarily try to make all the things happen because those are really challenging for the people coming to the event to try to choose when there’s six different things going on at one time.

Magda
And I think if you if you have the access to outside, if you can have a equestrian and archery, I think that makes for a better rounded event. Most events we have fighting because we can have fighting inside. But beyond those major activities, you can pick and choose. No event has to be everything.

Hirsch
And and some events, as you said, almost every event has fighting. It’s like, well, our RUSH events could be here just teaching classes. And they used to have fighting at Rush class. But they don’t now.

Magda
But when you’re talking about a general purpose and that, not like a symposium. Right?

Hirsch
Right. Not a metal and glass or a costuming [symposium].

Magda
Yeah. When you say general purpose event, people automatically assume they’re gonna be fighting. Like it’s just… it’s kind of the bread and butter in the SCA. And now that also includes cut & thrust and steel and I think that’s perfect. But um, Yeah, you have to have special infrastructure for equestrians and for archery and then you have to have quiet rooms for classes. A lot of it’s site dependent and climate dependent.

Jon
How specific should a theme be?

Magda
I think we’ve already kind of touched on this: As specific or as general as you want. You’re gonna put in a bid and, obviously different groups do bids differently, but you’re going to put in a bid you should know going into the bid, how specific or how general you want.

Hirsch
I’ve seen bids that are incredibly detailed. But the important part to have a good handle on is your budget because some activities are inexpensive from a budgetary perspective, but expensive from a time consuming, from a labor perspective; it takes a lot of time to go to the storage and get all the list poles and get all the things and set everything up.

Magda
The drappellone for the the Palio were relatively inexpensive. Acrylic paint, muslin fabric some sticks and some string. But they took a lot of time

Hirsch
And you can have a narrative that goes with your event bid with the budgetary piece of your event bid that describes the flavor and the theme that you’re going for. Or that could be minimal. That could be verbal as part of the presentation of the event bid.

Magda
Were we talking about budget? Or are we talking about how specific?

Hirsch
How specific.

Magda
Budget’s a whole other thing.

Hirsch
If you are serious about really wanting to do the event, you should have an organized bid and in my opinion, that always includes a budget.

Magda
Yep.

So the answer to your question is: It depends on what you want to do.

There’s no answer. And that’s really nice. If you’re listening to this or reading this article to get an idea about whether or not you want to do an event and somebody says well they should be super specific and you didn’t want to do specific, you might be chased off. But if you were like, “I want to do something that’s super involved” and these people are telling you they shouldn’t be super involved, do it! Do whatever you want to do.

Hirsch
Yep. Any kind of event bid can be valid and amazing.

Jon
How much should a theme influence the individual pieces of an event?

Hirsch
It varies.

Magda
Again it varies. We made these little drappellone. And if you have one of those, if you were on the winning team and you got one of those you know you know exactly where you got that. Like it’s not just a arm ring or something, which is a nice prize. You know, I’m not saying it’s not. But you you might forget 10 years down the road what that was from. But that’s good too, you know, like if you get your little tchotchkes. You can, if you’re going to a very specific event, dress in clothing to match the theme of the event. But a lot of events don’t have that high of an expectation. So I think, again, it’s the vision of the people running the event.

Hirsch
I mean, you might have a competition, that’s “A blank in any medium” could be the Arts & Sciences competition so that influences what you’re going to see there, but there’s still a huge range of the things that could be. Or it might just be a blank border competition and maybe two or three of the people use the theme of the event in their blank border and others…

Magda
As long as it’s fun and accessible.

Hirsch
Exactly.

Magda
If your level of detail is not fun for other people and is not accessible for most of the people coming that you’ve probably gone too far.

Hirsch
That’s the answer: The theme can go as far as it needs to be as long as it’s still inviting and welcoming.

Jon
Baronage only question: So, in your time as baronage, were there bids that you just looked at and thought were not going to work?

Magda
The truth is, I don’t think there was a theme or an idea that we were brought that we didn’t like. Obviously if there was more than one we could only choose one.

Hirsch
So many times as Baron and Baroness, we had two or three events. [It was] challenging to decide because they were really good bids and we had to pick them. Yeah,

Magda
As royalty we rejected a Lilies bid for insensitive themes. It was a crusade and we had done a crusade in the past but we knew better, you know, “Know better do better.” And we were like, “Hey, we love everything about your bid, but could you change the theme?” And they weren’t interested in changing the theme. And they didn’t understand and we talked to them about the racism and the and the cultural appreciation of the Crusade that we weren’t really interested in reenacting that.

And the time the crusade theme that happened, it had been a while before that nobody wanted to be on the European side. Everybody wanted to be a Muslim because nobody wanted to be That Guy. Even though most of us have European personas we’re showing up to Lilies in in, like, Middle Eastern, and, and other. Things that weren’t…

Hirsch
Non-European.

Magda
…not English, not French. Like, not all the countries that have contributed to the Crusades. And so, they did all these things. They couldn’t, they couldn’t bring themselves to. Because we know now how horrible the Crusades were. It kind of got romanticized for a long time but now we know better. So yes. But that was never brought to us as Baron and Baroness. That was as King and Queen. Yeah, we would probably reject something that had cultural insensitivity.

Jon
Anything else you want to add?

Magda
I think that if I was gonna just kind of leave it on a, on a note, it’s that we need people to give us their ideas and we need to be willing to do things differently than the last guy.

Hirsch
Yeah.

Magda
Because the thing that you did, that was so different and exciting, five years down the road is going to be maybe tired or now, “It’s the tradition. We have to do it every time.” And do not let tradition get in the way of a good time or something that runs smoothly, or whatever.

Hirsch
Yeah. And events have been so much fun to go to forever. They’re absolutely fun to host and to run.

Jon
Thank you both.