InsaneIrish wrote:
Honestly, with as many beuracrats that run Pennsic, are you saying it is impossible to make a position of "fort technician" and have them get a crew of guys to maintain and assemble a fort? Pennsic has Mayors....One more useful position can't be that hard.
Consider this as input from someone who autocratted Pennsic 21 and has had an inside seat for the operations of that war for decades.
"one more useful position" could break the camel's back. However, there already is a battlefield coordinator position, so it's not really "one more", it's just a change in specifics of an existing office.
Now, figure Pennsic would need three times as much footage as Lillies (somewhat arbitrary number, could need more, or less, depending upon scenario design).
There's the capital cost and one time time investment of building the stuff. That's one hurdle, possibly manageable, I don't know what the Lillies set up cost in time and money to build.
Then there's the storage problem - again, probably not one that cannot be overcome at Pennsic, but not trivial.
Maintenance - an annual expense in both time and money. Expect that every year when these are pulled out of storage for use, there will be damage from last year that has to be repaired before they can be used. Remember when they come out, they need to be checked and necessary repairs made, so expect the unpacking process to be an entire day, for ten people. Preferably ten people who are all capable and equipped to do some of that repair work. Someone will be running off site and buying materials for the repairs - that might push the repairs into a two day scenario.
Access - I have no idea where the storage shed at Lillies is relative to where the pieces are used. At Pennsic they're going to be stored roughly ten minutes away and will need to be hauled. Probably possible to work something out with the Coopers, a tractor and a flatbed trailer for hauling them out and back when things are over. Let's say it still takes a ten man crew for Pennsic - hauling them out is a couple of hours work (but see above regarding additional time needed for repairs), putting them away the same.
Utilization - It will take a fairly detailed layout to set these up. The pieces are a set size and the posts need to be placed at proper distance and orientation from one another for the elements to go together. Not terribly difficult, until you are dealing with certain Pennsic realities, such as Royalty that change their minds about scenarios with minimal notice, set-up crews that miss their appointed times entirely because of hang-overs, etc.
It's not like telling the first twenty fighters you see "Grab those haybales over there and drop them on a straight line from me to that bale right over there".
Now, I'm not saying it can't be done. The price tag might even be reasonable compared to the cost of hay bales - I don't have figures to work with. Storage isn't an overwhelming problem, but it's a real one. In my mind, the real hardships are involved in getting the stuff unpacked, repaired, set up, rearranged for different scenarios and then packed again.
People are often swift to offer their services for these things and slow to show up to actually get the job done.
For small scale, local event sorts of things, I think there's some potential in the collapsible fabric stuff that started this thread. Easy to store and transport, easy to set up quickly, no more ugly or OOP than hay bales, possibly easier to acquire (depending on where you are). I would absolutely hate seeing them used for advertising purposes though. That would be a deal breaker.
I meant that more in terms of the sheer scale of the press. Pennsic gets more bodies on the field than any other event still, afaik. Whether Lillies is a reasonable comparison in that regard, I just don't know. 400 people on a bridge is, I expect, significantly more pressure than 200 people on a bridge.
