Organising Historic Events

Just what are we talking about? The concept of using “ Living History ” in an event means the use of costumed interpreters, particularly “Battle re-enactment”, which is always a big draw. This guide is written from the point of view of a commercial event organiser running an outdoor event. However, many of the ideas can be adapted to different situations, e.g. museums and heritage sites, voluntary groups, indoor events or low budget.

Sharing Knowledge

Why should I want to share this advice with other event organisers and would be organisers?

• I am a re-enactment trader and living history demonstrator. Anything that is good for historic events is good for me.
• I run the Historic Events guide to encourage the public to visit Living History events, so this is a natural extension of my desire to give something back to a caring, sharing community that I have received a lot from.
• I am passionate about Living History and I am keen to ensure that organisers of such events learn from best practice of the Re-enactment events I have attended.
• I have been a Conferences and Exhibitions organiser in the past so I do have some experience of doing rather than saying.
• and to remind myself never to organise an event ever again.

So as an experienced event organiser I thought I would draw these ideas together. I can't claim that they are all my own and I would welcome comments and additions. In no way is this intended to compete with the excellent tome written years ago by Howard Giles when he worked for English Heritage because I have taken a different tack and based this on generating publicity rather than conforming to government legislation and organisational rules. Both are essential and hopefully complementary.

So if you have any comments and additions get in touch.

Dave Hewitt,

the Jolly Box Man, Printer, Publisher, Web Designer, Accountant, Barber-Surgeon, Silversmith, Bookbinder, Experimental Archaeologist, and Lord High Everything Else. “Psst, come over here where the accountant can't hear you”.

Marketing led

It is important that your event should be “marketing led”. You should not assume that the “product” by itself will sell the event, no matter how good it is. The programme of events needs to be good of course, particularly if you want your fame to spread by word of mouth. Your satisfied customers will return next year (or event) along with their families and friends. However, growing your event on the reputation of the product alone will take too long to ensure that you survive in business. Even if you are a non-commercial group you need to make a surplus to fund the inevitable “poor weather” event. Joust, for example, had to cancel their 2007 events because of flooding (up to the chest!) and it is not known whether they will survive. It is likely that there is only going to be one event like this per year in your immediate chosen area so you need to get your message across and you do this by designing your whole product/service using marketing techniques.

When choosing the Theme, Location and Date of the event you might be constrained by the reason for running the event. You might wish to support a particular location or be employed by a client with a location and date in mind or alternatively you might be a free agent choosing the circumstances to maximise the success of the event.

Preliminary planning

1). Location/Position Where is your event to be?

Just like shops selling groceries use their main road position with a lot of “footfall” to “remind” their potential customers of their existence you want the location of your event to work for you.

2). What is the Theme of your event?

Obviously this is related to a number of topics which will be covered in this discussion and will loosely be based on “Living History” in some form or other.

3). When will your event be?

Planning

Of course you need a good “lead time” to plan and organise an event. Planning should start quite early as you will wish to secure the best venue(s) and your choice of performers.

4). Who am I clashing with?

Unless yours is a particularly unique event you are not likely to get many visitors traveling more than a 1.5 hours journey time, i.e. within a region of the UK . You might like to check about other Historic Events. There are several resources that keep calendars of re-enactment events:

5). Who is organising the event?

The venue owners

A private organiser trading for profit

A not-for-profit group, e.g. a re-enactment society or “friends” of the property.

6). Who will attend my event?

To a certain extent this will depend on the theme that you adopt. Fetes of Arms are always popular with families. There is nothing like “Knights of old” or “Damsels in distress” or Military Uniforms to get hearts a beating.

7). Purpose?

What period out of history is it or maybe multi-period? What does it commemorate - a battle, a historic site, a historic event or historic artifacts from a museum collection?

What will it include?

8). Access

There are better guides than this to give you advice on these subjects and they are included here just as a check list of matters that you have to consider:

Local Amenities

            (shops, bank, station, police, petrol, post office, camping equipment)

Parking

Shops

Transportation

Ground conditions in wet weather

Wind exposure

Level ground

Police

Traffic Management

9). Site Facilities

I have made several comments but include a comprehensive list for your consideration:

10). Budget

11). Marketing

“The customer is always right”, was my Dad's philosophy when he ran a corner shop. Of course he had to make a regular living from a geographically immediate customer base. If they were not satisfied by his products and presentation they could walk 50 yards down the road to the next little shop.

12). Public Relations

Of course you will want to promote your event in all the free ways possible, e.g.

Press releases

13). Schools

If your event is in term time , write to the History co-ordinator AND the Head-teacher AND the Chair of Governors and tell them about the educational advantages of seeing the Living History camp based on the history content of the National Curriculum .

14. Other ideas not yet classified and Notes

A number of miscellaneous publicity ideas and some general notes that I not found a home for yet.