[Cynnabar] events

[Malachy von Ulm via Barony]

I'm going to leave the context below intact because I think it nails the
point I would make as well.

Gregoire got the answer from curia as to why: too much happening in too
little of a calendar.

I think this is being made a bit worse this year due to the impact the SCA
50 year event is having on the kingdom calendar.  To some extent, I think
we'd already seen a bit of this as consequence of the calendar compression
from when Baron Wars moved into the June timeslot.  It made June a month
where there's no real gap between events and I think it actually had the
impact of causing lower turnout at all of the impacted events.

But as everyone is mentioning, the impacts are felt most by those without
large-enough incumbent events: 
- It's their source of income.
- It gives the groups their way to contribute to the game.
- It's the thing they can do to get others to come to them rather than have
  them drive to yet another event that's far away.
- There's only so much time for those playing the game to play, so we're
  eventually competing for the same people.

Income could be dealt with by alternate means, including "profit sharing" if
we absolutely had to.  (How that would be implemented by the kingdom and/or
SCA, Inc. would be another question... and probably not the happiest
conversation to be part of.)

The remainder of the items means that if you're vulnerable to having your
event "consolidated" away, you're still impacted heavily.  And it would
definitely lend the appearance that only big groups get to play and if you
want to do so as a smaller group, tough.

Obviously it's an issue impacting growing the society.

As Birke points out, I think there are good arguments to have an ongoing
dialog about how to help the smaller groups maintain themselves and grow.
Just like we help our new participants grow.

The harder question is how to make sure those other groups that might end up
getting marginalized can feel *involved* and not squished out of their part
of the game.

-- Malachy



On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 12:02:46PM -0500, Kell Carnahan via Barony wrote:
> If we want fewer, but still quality, events, then having teensy tiny groups
> running small events doesn't seem like the way to make that happen.  Not
> that small groups *can't* run great events, but they have less manpower,
> and I imagine less experience, to be able to pull it off in a way that
> keeps people coming back and make it profitable.  This could be way wrong,
> though.
> 
> Tiny SCA groups should be able to exist.  Being able to have regular fight
> practices and A&S meetings and the regular lifeblood of our hobby nearby,
> in your town, is important, because I wouldn't want to drive an hour or
> more on a weeknight regularly to have to get to these things.  But these
> things can also cost money: to keep up a website, to keep up loaner gear,
> etc.  So small groups need a way to pull in some funds.
> 
> The main way we have right now to get money is events.  Small groups need
> money, but I'm hearing they have a harder time running events that are
> profitable.  *Maybe what we need to be discussing, instead of more rules
> restricting events, are other ways for small groups to have access to
> funds.  This seems to be the sticking point coming up in these arguments.*