Guidelines for Demos

There are lots of ways to do a demo. Here are some guidelines for looking good, recruiting new people and not having the local media portray your group as freaks.

• Have the SCA press release handy.
• Designate someone well spoken and presentable to be the on-site media contact.
• You know that guy/gal in your group who can talk and talk and talk without ever getting to a point, often going on about the plague, or 15th century artillery or how women in the middle ages often married at 15 years old? Yeah, that's the person you don't want talking to non-members at the demo. Specifically, keep them away from the media.
• A demo can just be you and your guys fighting in the park on a weekend, but you'll do much better if you're "piggybacking" on another event.
• The armored and rapier fighters who come out to fight should all wear their fanciest stuff. If they look like someone who fell in glue and then rolled in bits of broken pickle bucket, they shouldn't put on their armor that day.
• Have plenty of hand outs on hand, and make sure they don't have any typoes. If you have a graphic designer in your group, use their help to make it look good. If you have an ad writer or technical writer, use them too.
• Put up lots of pennants, banners and heraldry.
• Define the area where fighting will occur, so bystanders don't just wander through in the middle of a fight.
• Try to keep your area clean. Don't just throw your gear all over the place like you just dumped it out the back of your truck.
• Have a notebook handy for getting contact names of interested people.
• If you're way down in the deep south or the Bible Belt, use the term "middle ages" and not "medieval." Seriously, some ignit fundies think that means you're trying to recruit people to be evil.

Technorati Tags: Heavy Weapons, SCA