reflections of the Celtic Music Festival and Highland Games

[rengypsy]

Our First Annual Sherwood Forest Celtic Music Festival and Highland Games was a huge success, but...

This last weekend, Sherwood Forest held its First Annual Celtic Music Festival and Highland Games on our beautiful grounds in Central Texas.  It was a great time.  The musical talent was fantastic. We enjoyed the influx of Clans from around Texas. The crowds astounded us.  The attitudes that permeated the experience were affirming.
Kudos to my partner, George, who conducted a perfect marketing plan for the faire.  He and Zane Baker and our many volunteers did a wonderful job at getting word out.
Pirous, Shane and Gilder had the grounds looking good...in light of being negatively affected by the Bastrop Fires.

Here are reflections:
•   The Celtic Music Festival and Highland Games was not to be like our faire in the Spring.  It was intentionally to be a different venue.  While we thought this was conveyed, a handful were disappointed.  But as we add new weekend events/activities in the future, maybe some of those perceptions will be altered.  (I hear we are contemplating Steam-punk themed festival in 2012)
•   We needed to have more children-specific activities for all events. 
•   Our Calculations for the number drinks consumed during winter/spring months at faire did not translate to how much folk drink at the end of summer.  We were slammed and under stocked, but attempted to make adjustments throughout the weekend to minimize negative impacts.  We apologize and will be better prepared next year.
•   Only half our booth owners were available to be open for the Celtic Festival.  That's natural as many travel the circuit and were not in the state.  Yet, while a few patrons thought half the place was closed, in truth, we have as many or more vendors open than most Celtic Festivals in the state...even though it was our first year.
•   Attendance numbers were higher than either us or our food vendors expected, thus, the lines were long, folk ran out of food, and we simply did not have enough food and drink venues open.  Again, thank you for bearing with us during our growing pains.  We will be better next year.
•   We need to increase our seating throughout the grounds.  By Faire in the spring, we will have this corrected.
•   As we hope to host more weekend activities on the off season from Faire, we need to eventually add screen shading around our stages that are surrounded by trees.
•   The GPS Coordinates are not calibrated properly to our 1883 Old Highway 20, McDade parking lot address.  (anyone with ideas on how we can correct this are welcome)
•   Out patrons are the most gracious and understanding anywhere.  We appreciate you  and respect you.  We will continue to make our faire and various festivals/gatherings better for you—because of you. 

Attendance was a bit over 6,000 for the weekend. 

Our family of Sherwood inspires us every time we are privileged to be in your presence. 

We look forward to seeing you the run of our 2012 season, February 11-April 1.

Check us out on the website: www.sherwood forestfaire.com

[Mead Swilling Lech]

I just want you to know that I am very grateful to have Sherwood so close to home and, more importantly, that the Sherwood management is so open and welcoming to all suggestions.  I understand that not every suggestion can be taken, but to have the interaction that you make possible, definitely makes Sherwood feel like a community and I believe Sherwood will benefit from this as much as the patrons.

[rengypsy]

we love the sherwood community and are privileged and humbled to be among you.

rengypsy

[BryanPopp]

Rengypsy
I don't think anybody knew the Fest would do that well. I know I was happily surprised every time I passed the gates and saw people heading into the grounds.
With that in mind your entire staff handle the flood of people graciously. I guess the best Texas way of putting it is.....
Ya'll done good!!!!!!!

Thanks for a great weekend.

[rengypsy]

generous understanding.  thanks.
-rengypsy

[Zardoz]

Well, I thought it was a lovely event  

I don't think anyone forsaw the number of patrons that would come out! It looks like you have ideas to help with the seating issues, more vendors etc.
I don't think the Houston Highland games and festival pull half of the 6000 customers you had, that's in a city of 4 million people. The clan conveners I spoke with were quite pleased, most said they had talked to more folks and/or had more sign-ups by Saturday afternoon than they might all weekend at other games.

I know you can't please everyone, and there were some negative comments on the FB etc., but reading through them, most of them sounded like folks were disappointed that they were not at a ren-faire. This confusion is easy to understand given the location of the event, and the fact that so many folks were in garb inside the gate.

I was not suprised to see all the garb, but I gotta tell you; folks that take their Highland games seriously (not me, BTW) treat them as cultural events, and I know this is hard to understand, but they often do not care for folks in costumes of any kind other than serious re-enactments of Scots or Celtic history.  I think maybe next time you could try to put a little more distance between the Faire and the games, maybe a seperate games website without the faire trappings etc.  I know it's important to promote the faire, but maybe just keep it contained a little bit.

a couple of other suggestions for next time;
How about some outside Scots and Celtic food vendors, like Caledonian Kitchen, they have a wagon set-up that vends  Haggis, Scotch eggs and other celtic foods.

I was quite pleased with the music line-up, but I would have enjoyed more pipe bands.

And what do we need to do to get the county to do something with the access roads !?!

[<Alex>]

I was not suprised to see all the garb, but I gotta tell you; folks that take their Highland games seriously (not me, BTW) treat them as cultural events, and I know this is hard to understand, but they often do not care for folks in costumes of any kind other than serious re-enactments of Scots or Celtic history.  I think maybe next time you could try to put a little more distance between the Faire and the games, maybe a seperate games website without the faire trappings etc.  I know it's important to promote the faire, but maybe just keep it contained a little bit.

  I was a little apprehensive about going in garb, particularly because I have nothing Celtic themed.

  I checked online, but didn't see any rules/guides on garb. I asked around beforehand, and people encouraged me to garb up anyway.  I ended up going in garb, and the response was entirely positive and didn't feel out of place.

  So if anyone had reservations or if the faire was aiming for a different type of atmosphere, I would have happily complied.