9). Site Facilities

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

Toilets

This is no doubt the most important part of the event. Good clean toilet can make an event. Dirty ones can break the event. It will just take one fastidious member of the group to take exception to filthy or poor toilet facilities and a return on a subsequent year to your or any other historic event will be vetoed. You will have lost the whole group and any personal recommendations that they would have made to family or friends.

One portable toilet provides for approximately 100 people depending on the duration and nature of the event and the frequency of cleaning. Separate urinals for men are useful since they tend to drink more than women. Your contractors will no doubt clean them each day if required but you should have a toilet monitor ready to close down any dirty toilets before too many people see them and to add toilet paper and water to the toilets to allow flushing in roasting hot weather. Particularly important times are first thing in the morning for re-enactors toilets and again just before the public enter and just after they leave.

Provide separate private toilets for traders and performers. This is particularly vital for sole traders who do not want to spend a lot of time away from their stalls.

Rubbish Skips and bins

If your traders do well there may be lots of packaging. Sawn off plastic bins placed at strategic places and emptied regularly will keep the place tidy. Maybe the venue has a supply.

Site Maps

Should be given to every group and have all the utilities marked - loos, water. first aid, skips, organisers. Oh, and the market, camps and arenas.

Showers

Always welcome by the re-enactors, especially in wet or hot weather.

Water supply

The water supply should be supplied from the mains because it will have been treated to remove bacteria. Advice to visitors should always be to boil the water before use if possible. In this way you will avoid accusations of poisoning your residents. Instead they will have to blame the shared bottles for shared infections. Static water in long runs of plastic pipe can get quite hot in warm weather and be a breeding ground for bacteria. Alternatively the water should be run for a reasonable period early in the morning and before anyone arrives on site. Limiting the water points will reduce the chance of bacteria building up in long runs of piping, although you don't want queues. Try and site the taps near a naturally draining area and use a pallet to give dry footing to users. Organise the water drawn for dehydrating the fighters to be as freshly drawn as possible. Members of the public will want to fill up their water bottles on hot days so a well advertised "battery" of taps will avoid long queues separate from supplies intended for re-enactors. This "public" water supply should be monitored by the "toilet" attendant to make sure that it is run before the public arrive to ensure cleanliness.

Power supply

Usually supplied by generators, Try and use the quietest possible and ask users of refrigerated lorries to turn them off when the night has become quiet.

Lighting

As above.

Signage, on and off site

On site signage is essential if people are to find their way around any but the smallest of events. There should also be various notices listing the timing and location of events. If the event only lasts half an hour, being 15 minutes late can be very annoying. For off site signage see “Posters”.

Linking craft displays "though the ages"

I once organised a "medicine through the ages" demo for EH. Most people involved were not part of re-enactment units so they did not miss being away from their mates or away from a "secure" environment of a "friendly" camp. There is a lot of valuable equipment involved.

We also discussed the idea of providing a "Medicine Map" with a medical field sign on the tent of each display that was scattered amongst the LH camps. Perhaps that could be adapted for other trades. Each demonstrator could have a supply of the maps so that the next display could be found. Now when do you produce the maps? Would you need a photocopier on site to do it at the last minute?

Event Guide/Programme

A programme is a useful source of income and help with directing people about the site and timings of events.

Public Address System

Stop the announcers saying "Safe journey home" at the end of the programme. This causes panic amongst the visitors to be first in the car queue. It also leads to road congestion which is another of those bad experiences that might lead to a family not returning to then event and not recommending it to their friends and relations.

Suggest that they visit the LH camps AND the market thus delaying departures and easing traffic congestion.

"Advertising" could fill the gap between events. I remember having a LH display at an EH event years ago before we started trading and only getting 5 visitors all day!! Things the announcer could mention (giving examples for added colour) are :

LH camps
Recruitment to societies
The Market
Suggestion that people book for the whole weekend next year to make the most of the whole event - offer a rebooking service on the day at a reduced fee.

Special effects

Bang!!

Safety

Black Powder Storage

Insurance

Arenas

EH use a good idea at Kelmarsh. They have a long "one sided"arena for their big displays (including the air "dog" fight) but it had two gates part way along so that it could be turned into a smaller three sided arena when needed. Presumably they had some system of erecting the double ropes early in the day for the smaller displays and then removing them for the latter part for the larger displays.

Emergency towing

Beer Tent

Food Vans

There may be a demand from re-enactors for late night opening. Providing separate caterers for the plastic re-enactors camp might be useful, as would variety.

Shop

ATM machine

Cover for wet weather

Indoor exhibition space/Marquee

Pay kiosk

Security

Staffing

Layout

Ambulance/First Aid

Meeting Point/Lost Kids