The Armour Archive

How do people handle big events outside their Kingdoms? Do you drive to them and are then able to take all your camping gear etc? Or do you fly and then what do you do to camp?

I imagine not everyone drives to Estrella or Pennsic. But I'm not sure 'how' they do it. Are their tricks to flying with your combat gear?

Thanks in advance.

Tasia

Some people do a collective where one person drives a big truck or trailer with many people's gear and the rest fly. Some people fly and buy a cheap tent for the event. Some people drive. Some people have a stripped down kit for packing on planes, see Aarons flight light flight fight suit, or Duke Logan's (iirc) folding shield plans.

Some folks, (Sir_Ulf for one) can fit their armour into their helmet. Some folks have "lightweight travel kits". IIRC, Duke Paul of Bellatrix has a folding heater that fits in his luggage. I've gone with a ski bag with a glaive in it.

For camping events, some kingdoms do a collective trailer. Other folks find locals that are driving and throw in with them. I usually go to Estrella with a group of guys in a Jetta wagon TDI, with the biggest cargo pod that can be found, and pikes strapped to the load bars. 1 tent for the 3 of us, and our armour bags. Costco or Walmart run when we get to site for any of the cheap things that we really didn't need to bring. Styrofoam coolers and the like.

I've heard plenty of Pennsic stories about people buying all sorts of stuff locally that gets left in the dumpsters. Antir recently bought a group of tents for the populace to use that are stored at Pennsic. This lightens the load quite a bit. I would guess that for my wife and I, our tent takes up about 25% or our space, and more like 40% of the weight.

We tend to have a separate tent we can take if going to a camping event for less than 3 or so nights, enabling us to pack everything we need in our van (GMC Safari). For Pennsic, and other longer events, we have a 5x10 enclosed trailer, mainly to allow us to haul the poles for our wall tent. I also don't particularly have room for a camp kitchen in the van, but do if we take the trailer.

I travel with 4 bags - one backpack (goes under seat in front of me), one carry on with rollers (overhead bin), and two duffle bags, one with backpack straps (armor bag). The two duffle's get checked. I move with the armor bag on my back, the 2nd duffle stacked on top of the roller bag and the packpack in my hand. A nice down sleeping bag and a good backpacking sleeping pad travel well. You can almost always find a porch or a spare tent to sleep in but a ground pad and bag are hard to come by. A good traveling pillow that supports your head when you are sitting for hours in an airline seat helps a great deal.

I like southwest airlines because of the two free bags, but sometimes I fly united. Be very wary of baggage fees for too many, too heavy, too large, or too whatever as the airlines can really hit you with some hefty 'charges'. Last year coming back from Pennsic I carried my shield as a 3rd bag (it's really well built) - they charged me $80 bucks! I almost ditched it but I'm fond of it. Sometimes they'll let you tie a shield to a bag but I had forgotten that and wasn't prepared in any case with a proper strap for that purpose.

Rides can often be found from Pittsburgh to Pennsic at the airport by sitting somewhere prominent with something obviously sca. I've done it two or three times, never on purpose, and I've never had to wait longer that 45 minutes. It's polite to offer gas money.

Regards

Avery

When I fly to Estrella from NJ, a friend and I pack our rapier gear together in a hard sided golf case. It often costs us an oversize bag fee leaving from NJ, but in Phoenix, they check it through as a golf bag. For the past two years I have stayed in a hotel close to the event site. I have made friends of a household in Atenveldt who I "stay with" during the day. All the important items go in my carry on (fencing mask, body armor), so that in case my bags get lost, I just have to borrow a blade and garb.

yeah, the answer really depends, on where you are going, how long you will be there, who else you know that is going, will someone have a car, etc.

Traveling with armor is pretty easy. I put my war shield and tourney sheild together with some of that plastic wrap you can get for packing. Between them I put my swords, boots, and random stuff to get to 48 pounds. Or you can make a breakdown shield.

Sometimes you can arrange to borrow stuff once you get there, and extra shield, or spear, or whatever.

I learned to take my helmet via carry-on.... really don't want to have to replace that. Sometimes they open it up, sometimes they don't, but it has never been a problem. Plus, they don't weigh the carry on.

Depending on what I am taking, I will sometimes bring an armor bag, and put extra stuff in the bag, or I will put my armor in my regular suitcase.

Other times, I have shipped items to my destination. just take into account how long it takes, and how you are going to get it back. (Most hotels will let you leave packages, if you have arranged a UPS pick up for Monday.)

Lots of options.....

Thanks everyone. I heard there is a new site for Estrella this year. I'm wondering if the hotel will still be close? I definitely plan to go to that one. I have a round shield I imagine I can pack up like mentioned above. That is unless I get to know some people that are traveling down by car from An Tir and I can pay to have them ship my gear or share in the expenses.

I drive... Out of Kingdom for me is about an hour West or 10 minutes North plus time at Customs. Pennsic is the farthest I've gone and the first few were not out of Kingdom. I drove those to, about 10 hours.

Being in Antir, distances get a little murky for travel time to get out of Kingdom. Figure 20 hours going north, east about 8 hours. South about 10 hours. From Seattle, which is considered in "Kingdom Core". I routinely run into folks at Estrella that are in the kingdom and travel to Estrella " 'cause it's closer than going to kingdom core".

Anyways, Estrella is usually fairly easy to arrange gear travel. As for hotels near the new site, I would have to imagine that they will be closer than they were at the old site.

Payn wrote:Being in Antir, distances get a little murky for travel time to get out of Kingdom. Figure 20 hours going north, east about 8 hours. South about 10 hours. From Seattle, which is considered in "Kingdom Core". I routinely run into folks at Estrella that are in the kingdom and travel to Estrella " 'cause it's closer than going to kingdom core".

Also from An Tir... faster for me to get to Artemesian events. Crown a couple years ago was nearly 30 hours drive time....one way.

Wow - I forget our Kingdom is pretty big. I noticed Estrella is 22 hours from where I'm at near Portland Oregon. No way would I drive to Pennsic from here though!

liviatasia wrote:Wow - I forget our Kingdom is pretty big. I noticed Estrella is 22
hours from where I'm at near Portland Oregon. No way would I drive to
Pennsic from here though!

The one time that I went to Estrella, three of us drove from Portland. The drive down took one day, and the drive home took three.

liviatasia wrote:. . . where I'm at near Portland Oregon. No way would I drive to Pennsic from here though!

Well, that's where, if you have the time, you turn it into a driving vacation -- a stop at Mt. Rushmore, next day the Badlands and overnight at Wall (chocolate malts at the relentlessly advertised Wall Drug -- and I think you can get a properly constructed ice cream soda there too) and on into the Guy Fieri zone for the small but fun diner joints, check out something cool in Chicago like the Museum of Science, and so on across the I-80/I-90 tranche of America.

I cant speak to big events other than Pennsic, but I know people who keep a storage shed (or even a house) out there, and have "pennsic specific" gear, that lives there year to year, and who will fly in carrying only their armor.

Others show up, buy everything at Walmart they will need, then throw it away at the end of the war, as it's cheaper to buy nylon and bag chairs and use them for a week than to pay freight and ship them two months early from some places.

did the drive from Seattle to Manhattan with a stop at Pennsic, starting on I-90. It was a lot of fun, till we got out of South Dakota. Then it got kinda monotonous. Lot's of good touristy fun otherwise.

We have to fly (or at least take the ferry system) to get to even in kingdom events. There are no roads to Juneau or many other Alaska communities.

I am now helping local folks also put together flying armour that weighs under 50# to keep baggage charges down.

We have pre-staged a pavilion, bed, air conditioner, rattan, and feast gear at Pennsic. One of my nephews plays in the L. 48 and has a pre-packed truck with camp furniture, a wedgie tent, and cast iron to meet us at wars.

Even with all of this sitting in the back of a plane for 4-8 hours each way is miserable. After fighting then sitting in a cramped seat I feel old and stiff for days.

Before 9-11 my shield and helmet were carry on Aveloc i think flew in his armor to go to pennsic

Shield will be too big, but I take my helmet in carry on all the time.

Balin50 wrote:Before 9-11 my shield and helmet were carry on Aveloc i think flew in his armor to go to pennsic

IIRC, he had a rattan axe in his carry on that he got signed by Jay Buhner.

Living in Ohio I end up sometimes driving 11 hours to get to events IN KINGDOM. As for Pennsic and Gulf Wars my group/friends have trailers either on site or in the surrounding town.

When I traveld to Raglan Fair in Wales I went from Sweden took the train to Copenhagen airport in Denmark, flew to London and got picked up by my knight and went by car to Wales. (three actual kingdoms you know )

I flew with Brittish Airways were I can pay for more items of luggage so I packed most of my armour in a roller bag, gauntlets, buckler and sticks in my big hiking backpack and helmet in my carry on. The security on airport usually giggles when the helmet show up on the x-ray and sometimes they want to feel and look at it.

But since my knight went with all of his gear, one huge loaded trailer, me and my lady borrowed period tent, sleeping gear, feast gear, etc from him.

If you know somebody locally who can borrow you some stuff, say sleeping gear and perhaps feast gear you do free up quite a lot of space. Even if you do not know somebody locally you can allways ask if there is somebody who has stuff to loan you. (perhaps a fellow archiver) I have started to get extras of feastgear and will try to get some extra sleeping gear as well just to loan to people who have to travel.

Karl Helweg wrote:... air conditioner...

Details please...