What to take - Preparing for your first event can be difficult. Be sure to take the following things to make your experience enjoyable:
Garb - bring a simple t-tunic, a belt and a pouch or borrow something from Gold Key.
Feast Gear - If you are eating feast, bring a wood or ceramic plate and bowl, a spoon, a knife (forks are not really period, but are optional), and a mug or goblet. Candles, a cloth napkin and a tablecloth are optional. Feast gear is also available from Gold Key.
Bedroll - blanket, pillow, air mattress
Personal Comforts - toiletries and a change of modern clothes
Money - enough to cover site fee, feast, gas and extra meals or other things you might pick up
Getting there - Usually you can catch a ride with someone already going to the event. Bring enough money to chip in for gas, and be a courteous passenger. If you are driving yourself, be sure to make sleeping arrangements and have a map to the event site and the place you will be staying.
When you arrive - First of all, you will want to find the place you are "crashing" or the event site. When you get to the event, check in at the "troll booth" and pay the event fees. Remember at all times to be courteous and try to maintain the medieval atmosphere.
Daytime - During the day, you can participate in the fighting if you are a fighter, and in the arts and sciences activities. Try to meet new people and get involved.
Evening- In the evening, feast and court will be held. Respect the alcohol policy at the event site. Courts are for making announcements, giving awards and making presentations. They might be long or short, so try to be patient.
Revel - Revels and post revels are parties after the event. There will be singing and socializing. If you decide to drink, be smart: don't get out of control and don't drive.
Special note on weaponry - In the SCA, we allow people to wear real or costume weapons. Gentles wishing to wear weaponry must abide by the following rules:
1. All weapons must be in sheaths or scabbards and peace-bonded, which is a way of securing a weapon into its protective covering so that it can't be drawn or uncovered easily.
2. No weapon is to be drawn in anger. The only type of weaponry we EVER use is our feast daggers and then ONLY for cutting meats, cheese, bread, etc.
3. Weapons may be drawn to show an interested gentle. If this is done, the gentle drawing the weapon should say "clear!" loud enough for gentles in the area to be alerted that unprotected steel is present.
The Tournament
The most typical SCA event is the tournament, where everyone comes in pre- seventeenth century garb (from the simplest peasant tunic to the most elaborate court gown) and spends the day, or several days, immersed in the current Middle Ages.
The most visible activity at a "tourney" is the fighting. Participants study and practice the medieval martial arts, making their own armor and simulated weaponry. Besides combat to determine the King and Queen, there are also many challenge matches, melees and other competitions to test skill at arms.
For those whose main interest lies in areas other than fighting, a tourney or event also involves the pursuit of the gentler arts, such as music and dancing to while away a pleasant afternoon. There are also competitions to test the artistic and knowledge skills of the participants. Areas of interest are as varied as the culture itself: heraldry, manuscript illumination, archery, metalwork, lacemaking various needlecrafts, dance, music, poetry, cooking, brewing, costuming and much more. Forward into the Past
While Society events are often colorful to observe, the deeper satisfactions come from becoming a participant. To realize this, one need only experience the feeling of accomplishment which comes from having a piece of research result not only in a paper, but in a suit of mail, a costume or a medieval meal. In addition to having fun, we gain a wider perspective on our own world by learning to do as our predecessors might have done; by discovering things about the past, we discover things about ourselves. We walk, not backward into the future, but forward into the past.
