As many of my friends and associates know, I have been producing events for many years. Over the years I have toyed with the idea of producing an annual historical reenactment event. This is a tough field to get involved in with most of the established genre.
There is a genre that does not currently have that many organized events devoted to it. There are hundreds of fans in the local area, and many more in the region. I don’t want to go into it to much right now, but I am developing a position sheet and project outline. Once the paperwork is done I will post them and move forward with more info on this site.
I will go so far as to say that the concept is for a Steampunk Faire to be held somewhere in the greater San Francisco Bay Area with the possibility of additional events along the west coast or nationally. Another aspect is a Guild association of some kind. The guild portion I need to ruminate on a bit more.
I am very familiar with kind of operation after years of convention and ren faire work in all levels from volunteer to board member, and from actor to guild master and guild association member. There are many drawbacks to the fire format over the convention format, however, there are a lot of benefits to this direction as well. It sound crass to many of the participants when you start talking money and cost / benefit analysis, but it is a business, and I do intend to make a profit, otherwise the event wouldn’t keep going.
A group up in Washington state is starting a convention in the genre, but they opted to go the 501(c) route. Having been down that road and knowing what ultimately happens, I am not going to contact them for collaboration as I original wanted to. I wish them well and will do my best not to interfere with there operation. I do want to go to there event.
~FBJ