KT feedback.

Lets get some feedback on on the Kings Tournament while it is still fresh on our minds. Lets be constructive and make each year better and KT a "must-go" event

Post some opinions or Pros and Cons.

How was the date?
How was the location?
How were the games?
What would you do differently?
Anyone you would like to thank for making your experience better?

Ill post my own later but for now i have to go to work.

The Good:
The fighting was continuous, there were no prolonged breaks aside from our 1 hour lunch break, and everything ran smooth.
We had great heralds thanks to the Forsaken.
Feast was awesome from what I heard. The tournaments were a huge hit, and everyone loved the plaque's thanks to Mantra.
Weapons check went smooth.
We had access to an awesome kitchen.

The Bad:
The sword and board tournament was not S&B only, and flails were allowed as an exception on the spot.
Volunteers had to miss portions of the tourneys because they were helping.
Video/Pictures were not taken of the tourneys because volunteers had other things to take care of.
The camps were VERY far apart.
The realm and unit battles were FIRST thing in the morning.
Volunteers did not get to eat the feast if they did not pay, even though they sacrificed a good deal of their time to make the feast possible.


Special thanks: the Forsaken for heralding and being awesome, Prysm + volunteers who made the feast possible, all the runners who helped get supplies and run errands, even when things weren't going as planned. Photographers and backup heralds were awesome. Knubbs + Templar and all the weapons checkers who helped were great. I think Barad'Dun executed this event very well.

well phoxly volunteers did get to eat fest she told us that once the feast started i just did want to eat... sorry i didn't inform you

Thanks for a very fun event ladies and gents. I will absolutely attend next year and hopefully be able to drag along more of my Realm.

The Good:

• Weekend event w/ camping is always a plus for hanging out.
  
• Close to Home is awesome!
  
• Field was very nice, and large enough for us to fight large battles. Ground was solid and dry.
  
• Good honor on the field
  
• Bosma shadowing me as a herald and learning/asking good questions.
  
• Meeting the other War Wolves of Barad'dun.
  
• Meeting Surt's brother - man are they near look-alikes.
  
• Meeting Sir Kyrian and Sir Sorcia. I wish he would have been able to teach a class or two.....that knowledge would have been invaluable
  
• Seeing some SCA fighting. Never had the experience before.
  
• On-site, real bathrooms were clean (cold!) and a must-have
  
• Intermittent garbage cans were cool to have access to
  
• Weapons check and Troll were near flawless and wonderful to participate in. (This says a lot about an event, actually)
  
• Communication appeared to be running smoothly.
  
• Tournaments were fun, 99% light hearted, and clean. There should be no complaints whatsoever.
  
• Tourney prizes were awesome.
  
• Tokens were awesome.
  
• Hard working kitchen staff
  
• Feast. Food was very, very tasty. Blue chicken rocked.
  
• On-site kitchen - very cool and unique.
  
• Taco grilling up the chicken and shooting the shit with me.
  
• Hollister sharing booze.
  

Room for Improvement:

• I actually felt there was too much down time between fights. There should be a written schedule and head herald needs to stick to it like his life depends on it - always pushing, always organizing to the point of being annoying. Always, always, always harping on "let's go! move, let's fight!". What is essentially a single day of fighting needs to be taken advantage of. This wasn't, by far, the slowest of events, but I counted approximately 1 hour lost to mandatory water breaks and simple lulls.
  
• Mandatory water breaks. I realize this is a Barad'dun thing, and that it is well-intentioned, but fighters are adults. Let them leave to get water if they want. If they don't want it, that's their deal. No need to play mom/dad and force people to take a break for water. If they get sick or drop dead its their problem. A simple reminder of "drink water if you need it!" yelled every 20 minutes is more than enough. Keep the fighting going going going and people will participate at their desired pace without a babysitter.
  
• Lunch ran a bit longer than scheduled.
  
• No pre-existing camp fire sites.
  
• Make shift main fire
  
• Camps were very far apart.
  
• Out-post 7......It was a fun game since I was a guardian, but it always turns into human bowling and I hate that because its ridiculously unsafe. One day at some realm that's having a battle like this, there is going to be a snapped leg/knee/ankle/neck and someone might even die. In real combat, this would absolutely be the way masses of men in armor would have had to fight to take a bridge/gate, but in our game it is far too dangerous to be used as a game. The exception, in my mind, is the way it was set up when ATD raided you guys (the version with the giant blue bear). The narrow spiral entrance only allowed a few people to walk up and engage through the doorway without 300 lb men smashing into and trampling crowds of people. I would infinitely prefer to play this version rather than the wrecking ball ones.
  
• Feast was a separate fee from Troll.
  
• Feast. Food was cold, slow to be served, some people at tables were skipped until servers were notified, and there was no booze/drinks served as promised. I only found out that it actually did exist when I was in the kitchen cleaning. I heard through the grape vine that it might have been intended as its own after-dinner course like an aperitif, which is perfectly fine, but that wasn't communicated in the feast announcement. I assumed it was to be served as a beverage w/ the meal.
  
• Flails allowed in the tournaments at all. Total cheese.
  
• No stabbing w/ blues and reds in the flo/red tourneys.
  
• Not enough dedicated heralds for the tourneys.
  
• Needing/seeking outside volunteers. Allow me to preface this by saying that I and ATD will always be willing to help at the drop of a hat come hell or high water for any reason at all. Barad'dun is family to us and we cherish that relationship as beyond sacred. That said, it is my personal opinion that specifically asking for people outside the Realm to help in all but the utmost dire of circumstances is uncouth. An event is a showcase of a Realm's ability to come together and make shit happen. It requires absolutely every swinging dick in the joint to pitch in and work their fingers to the bone if need be to accomplish the mission. Hosting an event is more work than fun, and often times doesn't allow for any fun for certain individuals because they're so busy. But, that's the price of success - giving up play time so that everyone else can enjoy themselves. Delegating authority to others and having enough bodies to do the work makes it run more smoothly and sometimes allows for the event heads to take a breather.
  
  Again, ATD and I will always be ready and willing to instantly help without any bad blood, but I personally found it distasteful to be approached to herald and to clean the kitchen. There are dozens of bodies in Barad'dun that worked to varying degrees and some others that did next to nothing. That shit shouldn't be allowed to fly. Would you ask your guests to clean up / help run something at a private party you were throwing at your house? I would hope not, unless it was the only thing possible to keep the whole thing from falling apart. All the able-bodied people in Barad'dun should have been rotating through heralding instead of only fighting. There were a good number out there, but others weren't forced to take the yellow tabard. All the able-bodied people in the Realm should have been in that kitchen to give the cooks and staffers a break. Barring a lack of volunteer help, those folks working should have either ate and then cleaned, or cleaned and then ate. It is a rough sort of discipline to abide by, but its about personal integrity and honor; pride in one's work and self-sufficiency. In the military, we lived by a code that if life sucked for one of us, then it sucked for all of us. So long as some of the Realm was working, everyone should have been working for both solidarity and to speed shit up. No one rests until we all can rest.
  
  Please don't feel that the words I'm writing are an attack on the Realm or the event; rather they're simply my limited way of expressing my opinion about not asking for help out of pride in the limited emotion-less venue of the internet. To put it all in context, ATD actively sought out experienced heralds for our first event so that we would have reputable help/authority and so that we could be able to fight and not have to work the whole time. In hind sight, I feel that this was completely inappropriate for us to have done. My opinion is that we should have waited to host our first event for another year, possibly two, until a solid core of us had been to multiple events and gotten lots of much needed experience to do it completely on our own. Also, accepting help from folks who volunteer (like the Forsaken always do) is not weakness; rather take advantage where its given, but do everything you can and then some to be self-reliant first.
  

The Different/Interesting: (neither good nor bad)

• No magic switch!
  
• SCA pageantry at feast. Never seen it before. Kind of comical, but cool also. Glad to have witnessed it. Would have been neat if everyone present were on the same page.
  

Thank you so much for hosting this event. I enjoyed myself immensely and wish I would have been able to camp out Friday and Saturday nights. In both of our sports, there are no better people that I would rather hang out with and fight with. Hope to see as many of you as possible at Battle for the Ring III in Janurary.

Three cheers for Barad'dun!

You about said it all tibbey. nothing to add.

The volunteers who actually worked the feast didn't get to eat at the feast. As much as I had 'fun' cooking with friends, I didn't expect to have had missed feast. and because of all the cooking I did have to d o I missed almost all the games and almost the tournies. I think more people in our group should of volunteered more so instead of some of us getting to go to the entire event and some of us hardly any, it should of been more evened out.

We need more organization and communication next year. Knubbs and Smithy were kind of a two man show and a lot of responsibility fell on Knubbs to delegate tasks and organize volunteers, which ended up being pushed to the last minute. Had we created a sign up sheet for "hours" of volunteering, we could have easily levied out the hours needed. (Izzy's list created the practice before the event was a good attempt, but we did not enforce it at all.)

Although Reverend did some of the best heralding I have ever seen, Tibby said it best. We shouldn't get ourselves in a position where other realms need to help us run our event. We should have had this covered.

I propose next year we have a sign up sheet where people can sign up for X amount of hours doing Y amount of work.

For example, if we had a sign up list such as this, I could have signed up for 2 hours of heralding, and 1 hour of kitchen work. The head herald and head of the kitchen would have been responsible for coming to me and cashing in on that hour or two I signed up for. I feel like more people would volunteer AND stick to what they volunteered for if we had a list like this. If everyone in the realm volunteered for 1 or 2 hours, we'd be set!

We should just cater food, then have a sign up sheet for the volunteer positions needed. For our event we should do the least amount of fighting.

Exactly. I'm surprised we were short heralds for the tournaments, considering there were a TON of people who fought in the spear tournament, but didn't fight in any of the following tournaments like S&B or Single Blue. They could have been dedicated heralds for those tourneys since there was nothing else going on besides feast prep. (Not referring to Anita or Wolf, who literally ran to the feast prep area to help out when they finished, you guys rocked.)

...crap, most of what i was gonna say was said already. i only got to participate for a little while on saturday due to work but i had fun. i wish there had been more games or games ran along side the tourneys. some of the games were kinda lame with so many people (goblin hoard, out post 7).

NO SCA. Its pretty bad when their Medic is driving across our field which Hollister thought was kinda funny and said i would do it also, but thats a no. Then the guy did it a second time and a guy from forsaken and Matheus were flipping the guy off and such. Made us look bad thanks SCA!!! Heard many other bad things about these guys after i had left which doesnt suprise me. I dislike everything about the SCA and Surt tossed these guys off our field i dont understand why they were even at our event beside the Insurance BS which sounds like a scam on their part. I recall the King of theirs threatening us for not having Insurance at our practice which is BS since i doubt other Dag groups have it.

I had fun in the few games we did have. Realm/Unit battles should have only been like 2 of each of these. They are horrible people not taking shots and just outright cheating its a wonder why Fork doesnt like these. More games less Tournaments or move them back or something

Lunch break was almost 2 hrs long.


Knubbs you did a good job. Next time get a group of people together and do the event together instead of taking it upon youself.


I can say tons more but im already such a negative nelly i will keep it to myself.

I agree with Barrikaide, although they did help us out with the event (insurance, helping with the feast). Next year with better organization, and everyone helping out in Barad'Dun with the event, I think we can manage the event without the SCA's help. Some of the comments they made toward us at the event were just rude. Next year if they want to come out, I'd prefer they do it in honor of Dagorhir/Belegarth boffer fighting and King Surt, and they leave their crowns at home.

Also their "medic" threatening to knock Mordock out, not cool. I understand people were a little over intoxicated and emotional, but there are better ways to handle drunks than that. :/ It was "ha ha funny" until he actually made advances toward him.

Are we going to consider different locations such as Silver Bowl Park, or other areas since we have plenty of time to find a spot? I heard you mention next year the event may possibly be earlier in the year (September?) so it's not as cold, and certainly less snowy/icy on the drive up to Pahrump?

As to my experience with Clark County park and rec they will not let us use parks in town. Pahrump is our go to spot unless we can find a better one.

Im down to move it earlier in the year. late aug before school.... we would be able to guarantee weather....

I'm working on my feedback post for you guys. It might take some time as I'm at work. But it is coming.

i disagree with most of what you said Knubbs so i guess will have to agree to disagree

Knubbs wrote:

To me they were very respectful and hung out with a lot of you guys during the night. They actually told me they enjoyed all of you guys and that you were all very respectful.

Maximus was also doing his job as the medic. He is an EMT. I know plenty EMTs and they play no games when it comes to drunk and disorderly. Sorry if people felt this way but its whats done in the real world. Mordock wasnt the only one with this over there head as Hollister was in the same boat too. It was never meant to be funny. He takes his job very seriously.

The Seraphine Isles group was very friendly and respectful. As far as Maximus... from what I hear he actually tackled my ass to the ground (don't remember a thing...); but who cares? I'm guessing I needed it. Shook his hand afterwards 'cuz I wanted him to know I everything was kosher.

... of course, they were partly responsible for my condition... fricking vikings and their drinking games... but hey! I'm a Baron now, I don't care.

Also remember... when Prysm's car didn't start and John & his wife had to get to the airport, who was it that stepped up ASAP and made sure they got where they had to go? Tony. When the feast was delayed, the Seraphine Isles helped keep things entertaining. For our benefit, not theirs.

They are different, but they are respectful when approached with respect, and very generous and sharing. So whats with the hostility?

Well, whatever. I would be glad to have them at any event. Even if the EMT does KO me if I get too out of control. Better that than I get run over by a car or set myself on fire or something.

Just saying.

The fact that the whole thing got thrown out of whack because Smithy got called for drill says something.

The whole thing shouldn't be effected by one person not being there.

Realm involvement, guys.

For next year's event we should really have a thread on our forum or communicate better about the event. Most of the people didn't know much about this year's event until about 2 weeks before it happened, and that shows how bad our realm actually talks about this stuff. And 1 to 3 people shouldn't plan this event alone everyone should participate because it's a realm event. And one of the only problems I had with the SCA is that they introduced their king and queen before heretic. Just because they are helping with the insurance doesn't mean they should be introduced first at our event, our king should be introduced first.

I would just like to point out one thing as it seems everyone has an issue with it...
On any event where people come in with rank, wether real or pretend, the host (our king) is either first (i.e. Before anybody else is there to welcome ALL as they enter) or last. Having the Queen of Seraphin Isle enter before either Ymir or Heretic placed her firmly as third in rank as guest. It then put emphasis in Ymir and Coutney as guests of honour and last but not least on Heretic as host. It was not intended that 'they come first' but as a traditional means of showing who is guest and who is host.
You can even see it in today's society - at a wedding, the bride and groom either greet you as you enter the reception, or they enter when everybody else is seated

I hope this helps clear up any confusion on the prescience thing - they were trying to do us honour in having their king introduce Ymir, Courtney, Heretic and Marlene - out of respect for both their alliance and friendship with the realm. And also out of respect for the memory of the man who's remembrance it was.

since i just met most of you and im not there all the time, maybe i can give some un-bias thoughts....



the event as a whole, i think, was a great success. it had a good turn out, and everyone seemed pretty happy considering Surt is not here anymore.

The Seraphine Isles group seemed very respectful to me. normally at a feast for Dag, people dont play out a big show. i thought that they did a great job of going medieval on that feast. LOL. i felt no direspect when they sat first. they made the feasst very fun! i dont see myself sbove anyone else when i play with my chapter as king. but to have them introduce me and my wife, heretic and marlene, as royalty was fun and different. they played a few games to pass the time between courses, and shared stories about Surt.
as far as them driving across the field, i did kind of think that was unnecessary. there were ways around the field without driving across it. i understand if they were trying to drop something off, but it seemed that they were just driving across it to just park. i can not talk on behalf of others accounts with them, but for me, they were respectful and fun to be around.

i think that the tournements were fun. i wish the big games would have lasted longer. and the breaks seemed a little too long.

overall i think it was awesome. i had tons of fun. and was totally worth flying out for. if you have another one, i will definitaly come again.

i think knubbs did a great job, considering he was managing most of everything by himself. and i think if smithy was there it would have helped things go more smoothly.



BUT HEY!!! IT WAS YOUR FIRST EVENT! NOTHING IS PERFECT! so use the feedback in a possitive way. dont complain, try to state what the issue is and try to come up with a way to avoid or fix it for next year.

Not to throw a wrench in the mix, but...

Prysm,

I hate to disagree with you but in historical Renaissance times the King is always seated first and then his immediate family, such as his Queen, i.e. Marlene. Then people by rank are presented to the King and the audience from the highest rank to the lowest peasant. But the King is always there before an audience is presented.

This I know because my aunt Ivy is an 80yr old English woman descended from Sir Isaac Newton who has taught history in England for twenty years and who has given me all of my pointers on what I know of the historical Renaissance.

Having the mistaken belief that you should follow the traditions used in an American wedding is not correct. You should go by Renaissance historical tradition.


- A

Again, my only complaints with them were the rude comments made toward "peasants" of our realm, and the whole running onto the field to do some mock inspection. Literally everyone was like "Who the hell is this guy? What is he doing? I dunno, just let him do his thing so we can fight?"

Yes we couldn't have done this without them, but next year I'd like it if they left their royalties and crowns at home, and came out to fight Dagorhir rather than getting an attitude because they fight heavy and we fight foam. (Maybe not Segulfy, cause he's crazy as fuck and might try to assault someone again if they headshot him.) The fact they helped Ymir get to the airport is more than enough to make up for any BS that happened with them, but honestly next year we got this.

I agree with Demie, had this been properly organized and communicated, one person's absence wouldn't have effected the whole event. We can only get better next year, especially if we make a hidden forum for discussion of the event. I don't mean hidden in the commander forum either.

I don't want to nae say or anything, as I was not there, but it is a very good idea when running events that one person be in charge of each aspect of that event. i.e. One person as head herald, one person running tourneys, one running feast, etc. These people in charge should and often do appoint people to help (and help is always needed and appreciated), but ultimately the buck should stop at one person. Doing it this way will avoid confusion in sooo many ways i.e. if there is more than one person running weapons check, who has the final arbitration? More than one running tourneys, which one decides how they are done?

It is easy to simply say, 'One person should not be in charge of everything', but simply put, Rag has been done that way for many many years. There is an overall chairman who sees to it that all aspects concerning Rag are being covered. Look at it as having a store manager who oversees his supervisors who oversee thier employees.

K-