Volunteers Needed for SCA Demo at the Great Falls Balloon Festival
Home from Pennsic and feeling like you want to help promote the SCA to even more people? Or just haven’t had quite enough camping, fencing, fighting, and fun?
Friday, August 21 through Sunday, August 23 the Incipient Riding of Ravensbridge will be hosting a weekend-long demo and medieval encampment at the Great Falls Balloon Festival in Auburn, Maine. This festival draws over 100,000 people annually to view the hot air balloons and learn about and support a variety of local nonprofit organizations — this year, including the SCA!
The schedule for the weekend will include armored and rapier combat demos, live demonstrations of a wide variety of period crafts and arts, and education to festival attendees about what the SCA is and how they can get more involved. There will also be a “medieval village” period encampment. All Scadians are welcome to come to help promote the SCA – whether you can attend for the weekend or just for an afternoon, your help is needed!
The medieval village portion of the demo will be a walk-through medieval encampment that includes the live arts demonstrations. Currently there are 26 period tents in the village (with room for a few more), and arts demonstrations of the following crafts: Spinning, card weaving, archery, brewing, games, heraldry, enameling, embroidery, blacksmithing, soapmaking, medieval confections, bardic, and scribal arts.
The demo coordinator, Lady Sigrida Arnsdottir, is still looking for additional artisans to participate in all or part of the live arts demonstrations, particularly in the areas of armoring, stained glass, and medieval foods.
If you would like to attend and camp in the medieval village, please contact Lady Sigrida to reserve space. Campers must be in period tents, must pre-reserve space, and must be prepared to have their camp open to the public during the day. Campers should be prepared to be set up from Friday afternoon through 5 pm Sunday. Above ground fire rings only! Carry in, Carry out. No alcohol is allowed as it is a public park. Public hours for the medieval village walk through are Friday 4 – 9 pm, Saturday 10 am – 8 pm, Sunday 10 am – 5 pm.
For those not able to spend the entire weekend at the Festival, there are many other opportunities to get involved. Many hands are needed to man the information tables, and the demo staff welcomes all authorized fighters and fencers to come and show your stuff.
Armored combat demos will take place on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, combatants muster is at noon, and there will be combat demos (rapier and armored) from 2 to 3 pm and again from 5 to 6 pm. On Sunday, there will be a “vikings invade the village” battle at 1 pm, plus other activities during the “family fun” portion of the festival from 10 am to 1 pm. There will also be a youth combat demo if enough youth fighters and marshals are available.
Scadians from everywhere are encouraged to attend and get involved in telling festival attendees about this great hobby we all enjoy.
The demo coordinator is Lady Sigrida Arnsdottir. Please contact her at sel210@gmail.com or via phone at 207-890-5349 (leave a message).
For questions about the combat demo, please contact Syr Marcus Blackaert at syr.marcus.blackaert@gmail.com.
For more details, including directions, please see the announcement on the East Kingdom Webpage.