Landsknecht Guild

Post edited 7:46 pm - January 4, 2010 by Gustav

As I mentioned in my e-mail, CTRF wants us to do something more in line with Robin Hood for their May show. Please share your thoughts here. We will discuss this on Saturday at 12th night.

I think I would like to do this. Where is it happening? On the same faire grounds? How many weekends?

I like the idea of the crusade, but as you said I'm not sure how women would play into that. But it would fit into the plot with out tying into it. Could the women be spoils of war? I have a *few* Turkish pieces, and they really aren't that hard to make. It would take bit more research, but so would anything.

I also like the traveling nobility household, could we have set it up that we were being kept in Sherwood because we're Rich without playing to much into their plot? I also suppose this depends on if the faire takes place in the forest, or Nottingham.

Could we simply do a “Robbers Encampment” welcoming all outlaws and the oppressed? That way it sets us up as a place of refuge for the robin hood crew, without making us characters within the plot?

I am intrigued by the idea. If I am able I would like to be involved. Let me give some thought to ideas.

I like all the suggestions and the pros and cons behind them all make sense. Hard to decide. 

Budget would be a big determination for me but I may already have a lot that works.

A good question to ask, within each idea, what would we be able to produce as demonstrations for the enlightenment and entertainment of the public? What do we do now that could be used with variation so we are not starting from scratch? or do we want to try something completely different?

Can we put something together that would be as impressive as what we already did? Is it worth doing if we can't?

We could work almost any of those ideas into the show, depeding on what they decide for their plot and story line? How much do we want to interact with the cast/plot?

I'm tired. Need more time to brainstorm…should be a good discussion Saturday.

A lot to think about.

Some thoughts:

I think Ulrich hit the nail on the head. One of our biggest (if not our biggest) concerns should be: what can we pull off that will be entertaining for an audience? The ideas that folks have tossed out there are all intriguing, but I think we need to determine where the best balance between feasibility and entertainment value lies. We could have the coolest-looking bunch of traveling nobles, or the baddest brigand encampment around, but if we're not doing something that people will want to look at, we will have failed.

We can certainly do many of our cooking demonstrations. We may need to find some older recipes, but at the end of the day, chicken on the string stops passers-by. Yeah, most of our cast iron cookware is by this point nearly half a century too early, but who's likely to notice?

The medicine show is workable in a 13th century setting, so we're probably good to go there.

Unfortunately, our most glamorous show, the weapons demo, is something of a non-starter (No muskets? Neiiiiiiinnnnn!!!). Stephen/Alena, can we do the standard ATACC arming demo? That should be generally suitable. If folks have period bows, we could include archery in the demo.

And regardless of what we do, we're probably looking at new characters (or at least revised versions of ones we already have), new accents (are we likely to be German?), and new costumes (which, fortunately, many of us already have).

What might be helpful to know is what sort of other acts will be performing at this faire, since we don't want to find that we're duplicating someone's show. I somehow suspect we will have plenty to talk about on Saturday. . .

Those are great thoughts from everyone! What excites me most is how thoughtful we all get to be, even this early in a possibility. Some follow-up thoughts from me:

I love that people are concerned about the quality of what we can put out there given the short time and limited funds etc., I think that is great. That being said, I think it would be ok to put out something a little smaller in scope while still being high quality. If the faire organizers do not want it to look the same then the big things to me that are right out are the tents, the firebox, the costumes and the pikes. Luckily the costumes and the pikes are indellibly tied to the 16th century Holy Roman Empire, so by picking a new timeperiod and possibly a new geography we have to change weapons and costumes. The bigger problem for me is the tents. Tents are expensive, and Autumn Tree Productions, which owns 3 tents can not go out and buy different ones just because someone asks. So in my mind if we are to accomplish a new setting we will need to dedicate some money to different covered space, and probably not get as much variety for 2010, so that means a smaller space. The good thing about a smaller space is, we need less to fill it.

I would like to do a weaving/sewing demo this time instead of a cooking demo. That does not mean that we would not have a fire and cook food, it just means that it would not be an entire scheduled meal. It would mean those of us interested in weaving, sewing, embroidery might actually get to demonstrate it during the faire. I would love to show off tablet weaving, and maybe help with some embroidery. That would put the fire in a less prominent place, and be really different from what we do for CTRF.

I have less strongly held opinions on a different martial demo, but swords, armor, and bows are all things that I could probably contribute to, depending on which portrayal is finally picked.

Alena

I have to confess that I did attend a bow making seminar a few years back, and most of it is still fresh in my mind! Now, having lacked the time to even try to do this I am more then willing to either do this (since I've been needing a bow for a while now…) or pass on what I've learned to someone else. If we split the time between making a bow and making the arrows, by the time the run is over there should, in theory, be a completed bow with arrows; if we only have one person doing it. The only thing I'm not sure about is the bow string.

I'm all for doing different demos then what we do as landsknecht, seeing that would help add to some semblance of separation to our split personalities.

As a thought for something else to do, I remember in our little “debrief” from the fall CTRF that we were thinking of having a “soldier camp” for adults. IF we going with the Men-at-arms idea would this make sense? I know you're mentioning something about ATACC, but I have no clue what that stands for, so if that thought is the same thing, my bad.

Keeping away from the plot line would probably be to our benefit, it's just less of a hassle all around. Keeping our interactions with the cast the way we did as a Landsknecht unit is probably for the best.

This isn't the most organized post, but there's the few ideas I've got. I'm still wrapping my head around this, I'm sure it'll clear up when talking with everyone on Saturday.

One additional area that we didn't touch on at all at CTRF last year (and an area that I know at least a few among us have enthusiasm and talent for) is music. It's not too difficult to pull together some period songs and that sort of thing, and music always draws an audience.

Period musical instruments also draw an audience. Anyone have any of those?