A take on Collegium and A&S
This is really just for the SCA people on my list. You non-SCA people are welcome to read it, but I'll put this behind a cut since it will be both long and potentially uninteresting to you.
So here's the basic deal. Over the years Collegium and A&S has steadily lost attendance. The question is both "why" and "how to get it back." Several ideas are being bandied about and discussed on various other lists, but since I actually have a lot to say, rather than try and say it there, I'll work the whole issue from start to finish here.
Before I really get into this let me just say up front that this is *my take* on the whole thing so I'm working from my perspectives and assumptions. I will lay claim to a certain amount of knowledge based on having been a Collegium Chancellor and having been a Principality A&S officer. For whatever that is worth.
Why have A&S events lost attendance?
1 - Calendar
Conflict of events is a problem for everything taking place, not just A&S events. This does tend to impact A&S events pretty heavily right now because of the lagging interest that already exists. Any given individual looking at a series of weekends with an event scheduled for every one of them is most likely to drop the A&S event off their schedule for the free weekend unless there is a compelling reason not to. All other things being equal A&S and Collegium events are easier to give up simply because there isn't as much "at stake" going on at these events. There are no "tourney winner" determinations, no coronations/investitures, no courts really taking place.
Therefore compelling reasons seem to be limited to being a teacher or a class of special importance. Other reasons that keep people from dumping the event entirely is that it is taking place close enough to them that they can "drop in" and leave again easily.
2 - Locations
A&S events generally have "special" requirements. Classrooms, power, kitchen facilities, easily accessible water, etc. The more accessible these kinds of resources are, the more possibilities for generating teachers. However the cost of such resources is such that acceptable sites are harder and harder to locate.
End result is that many sites are to expensive or less accessible to the bulk of the population. The costs are such that this becomes a "determining" factor for some participants.
(Note: I personally think that higher site-fees are simply a requirement of the times and the amount of effort we put into going to cheaper sites doesn't offset the few extra bucks spent going to someplace which better meets our needs. We, as an organization, need to grow the f*ck up and start realizing that *every* event we go to is dictated by it's opportunity-cost and start being the grown-ups our population suggests that we are and priortize the events we want to go to and how badly we want to go to them.)
3 - Interests
No matter how hard you try you will never get a slate of classes which can appeal to "everyone." A lot of effort is being expended to try and figure out "what people want." You'll never succeed thinking this way. It's useful to have, but you can't build on it, only around it.
Provide only what is popular and you are ultimately just killing off your audience. You start by losing the people who aren't interested in the current "popular thing" and eventually you use up all the people who were. As the popular thing changes you only switch one audience for another and build attrition into the process with every change.
Instead you have to offer a variety that includes the current popular but also provides plenty of room to explore the new and potentially interesting. Collegium and A&S, rather than responding to what is popular, should be actively engaged in finding the next "neat thing" for us all to find out about.
4 - Organization
Let's face it. The people who are in charge of A&S and Collegium need to be extremely well organized. These are really the only "Kingdom" and "Principality" level events where the autocrat(s) do not actually have the support of the entire rest of the officer corp. When doing a tourney, coronation or investiture the autocrat needs to do little more than find the site and arrange basic services. All the rest of the things that take place at the event are handled each in their own way by the respective officers/organizations already established. Heralds, Marshals, Chiurgeons, Merchants, etc etc etc. All of these groups have their own structures which are already well established and trained to take on the necessary jobs that make an event run.
Collegium and A&S officers have to arrange their own staff or do it all themselves. If they do it themselves they are likely to be overwhelmed. If they arrange a staff than they are likely drawing on people who may have little experience organizing a major event.
How do we get attendance at A&S events back?
1 - Teachers & Star Power
"Star Power" simply put is that certain something which brings people together under the direction of an individual or small group. Our royals are the fallback example of "star power." When the royals do something we all pay attention and they can lead.
There are other individual who have "Star Power" as well. Teachers with great reputations for interesting material and good teaching skills have star power as well. When those teachers talk up their classes well in advance, their attendance tends to improve. When the autocrats talk up those "stars" on the schedule attendance also improves.
Spending some effort on cultivating individuals with current "star power" to help build the event attendance is something which I think should be done. It has been suggested elsewhere that requesting classes from various royals, former royals or fighters of high renown might be a good example of this and one that I completely agree with. (As a couple of examples I know that His Excellency Roric would likely be a good person to discuss putting together those final touchs that make a complete Viking ensamble. I would think that maybe a class from him could be good. I do believe that Sir Janos could teach us a thing or three on "The Knightly Virtues" in period.)
Groups with "Star Power" within the SCA have been tapped to be "sponsors" of tracks in the past. These sponsored tracks or classes have come from royals who have requested their guard teach during their reign or from Queen's Artisans, Lady's of the Rose, Guilds and other groups.
2 - Contracting for Continuity
One of the things that makes events continue to be of interest is the sense of continuity they provide. We always go to event X because it always has thing Y and we have fun with people Z.
Here is an idea I had last night and discussed with roswtr. Even if no other group adopts this idea I do believe that we, as Baron and Baroness of Darkwood, will be going forward with it.
Individuals or groups who "sponsor" a track at a single event build interest but not continuity. But if an individual or group (such as a Barony) chooses to contract with Collegium and A&S for the year, promising to provide at least X number of classes at each event, that would build a kind of continuity. It invests teachers from that group as well as members of the group in coming to all the events. It gives them sufficient time to plan in advance so that they will put such things on their calendar and commit to them.
Collegium Chancellors could offer up "prizes/rewards/recognitions" for the sponsoring groups which fullfill their contracted obligations thus providing a return on investment from the group. This could also be used to spin "competition" between groups. Fighter households might compete with each other as could Baronies or even Principalities.
If groups are known for something they could sponsor/contract for classes on that thing. For example Crosston is well known for "The Crosston Ball" and having classes on dancing raises that awareness. Which, I believe, is exactly what they did this past Collegium.
Regardless of how it is encouraged, there does need to be some form of encouragement that will get any group to engage in this kind of contracted continuity, otherwise they may have a problem seeing their way toward commiting. One would generally hope that "success" is reward enough but in reality it doesn't always work out that way.
(Note:But I did mention that roswtr and I have already decided we are going to do this in some fashion. So, for the future record, Darkwood plans to offer up a series of classes over the course of the year. I believe our plans will basically be to try and request a "Darkwood Track" and to ask each of our cantons to promise two classes to be taught. They can get them completed at a single event, they can do them one at each Collegium and A&S or some mixture there of. Something along those lines. I believe we'll need to discuss it with our A&S officer, but roswtr and I are both determined. And I'm sure we'll be teaching as well.)
3 - Advertising/Marketing
The Page has long been an inadequate form of advertising for events. It is used as an information source for a calendar, directions to events and little else.
The use of on-line sources such as SCA-West and other group lists has become more of the go-to place for advertising. This form of advertising reaches people more completely and more frequently especially because of it's more "interactive" nature. Information is more available and questions more quickly answered and more broadly distributed.
How much advertising needs to be done? Well, that's a matter of opinion but the factors there are frequency of posts and proximity of event. Typically I think that one begins the long range advertising about three months out. As you get closer and your plans finalize you use that material to write your advertising. ("Hey everyone! We just got so-so to teach their class on X at Spring Collegium! Don't miss this class!") This kind of advertising keeps people informed on the event and keeps it in their interest up as the event gets closer. It helps them to feel more and more committed to going.
I mentioned the term "opportunity cost" earlier, but I didn't really explain, so I'm going to go there now.
When we talk about "opportunity cost" what we are actually discussing is the balance between what the cost is to do one activity versus the opportunity to do something else. There is a cost to going to every single event we go to. We give up the opportunity to do something else (like sleep in on the weekends!) in order to go to that event. How much we want to do something reduces the cost of the event as measured against the opportunities otherwise passed up.
Improving the opportunity cost is how you deal with calendar issues and can be done by not just advertising the event but by actually "marketing" it. What do I mean by that? Marketing implies targeting your audience more directly. Right now we advertise broadly to the entire West Kingdom population. But marketing the event to specific groups of people within the population in order to improve over all attendance makes sense.
This is more of the underlying idea that was attempted by having a "theme" but theming is to limited in nature. Targeting specific classes or tracks at specific groups of people is the way to improve the attendance. The event still has the broad base of offerings, but a dance track might be more properly marketed by being talked up on "dance specific" lists or lists that have a higher population of dancers. Cooking specific tracks marketed to the cooking lists, costuming to costuming, etc etc etc.
If attendance is to improve at A&S or Collegium than the opportunity cost of going to those events must be brought in line with other more popular events. People have been talking all along about making these events "sexy" but that isn't the hook. The hook is "rewarding." What makes going to those other events more "rewarding" than going to A&S and Collegium?
There is no one single fix here. That isn't a surprise. But to summarize the above I think that hitting on the following will make a distinct improvement:
1 - Organization
Autocrats need a better support staff than they already have, people with experience who can keep organizational continuity.
Advertising/Marketing needs to be more regular and more targetedand capitalize on "Star Power" teachers and tracks to build enthusiasm.
2 - Offerings
Actively seeking out individual teachers with "Star Power," teachers who might have otherwise hidden talents.
Contracting long term support from groups to provide continuity and encourage competition between groups to support class tracks for a year
3 - Locations
Suck it up and go with the better locations. Teachers can use the better resources and students appreciate the better learning environment. Complaints about cost rarely continue past the initial experience.
In the end we are still dealing with a volunteer organization and attendees who are, in the end, hobbyists. This is a thing we are all doing with our spare time and spare income. That means that there are factors which we will never be able to predict nor to control.
But maybe some of this will help.
So here's the basic deal. Over the years Collegium and A&S has steadily lost attendance. The question is both "why" and "how to get it back." Several ideas are being bandied about and discussed on various other lists, but since I actually have a lot to say, rather than try and say it there, I'll work the whole issue from start to finish here.
Before I really get into this let me just say up front that this is *my take* on the whole thing so I'm working from my perspectives and assumptions. I will lay claim to a certain amount of knowledge based on having been a Collegium Chancellor and having been a Principality A&S officer. For whatever that is worth.
Why have A&S events lost attendance?
1 - Calendar
Conflict of events is a problem for everything taking place, not just A&S events. This does tend to impact A&S events pretty heavily right now because of the lagging interest that already exists. Any given individual looking at a series of weekends with an event scheduled for every one of them is most likely to drop the A&S event off their schedule for the free weekend unless there is a compelling reason not to. All other things being equal A&S and Collegium events are easier to give up simply because there isn't as much "at stake" going on at these events. There are no "tourney winner" determinations, no coronations/investitures, no courts really taking place.
Therefore compelling reasons seem to be limited to being a teacher or a class of special importance. Other reasons that keep people from dumping the event entirely is that it is taking place close enough to them that they can "drop in" and leave again easily.
2 - Locations
A&S events generally have "special" requirements. Classrooms, power, kitchen facilities, easily accessible water, etc. The more accessible these kinds of resources are, the more possibilities for generating teachers. However the cost of such resources is such that acceptable sites are harder and harder to locate.
End result is that many sites are to expensive or less accessible to the bulk of the population. The costs are such that this becomes a "determining" factor for some participants.
(Note: I personally think that higher site-fees are simply a requirement of the times and the amount of effort we put into going to cheaper sites doesn't offset the few extra bucks spent going to someplace which better meets our needs. We, as an organization, need to grow the f*ck up and start realizing that *every* event we go to is dictated by it's opportunity-cost and start being the grown-ups our population suggests that we are and priortize the events we want to go to and how badly we want to go to them.)
3 - Interests
No matter how hard you try you will never get a slate of classes which can appeal to "everyone." A lot of effort is being expended to try and figure out "what people want." You'll never succeed thinking this way. It's useful to have, but you can't build on it, only around it.
Provide only what is popular and you are ultimately just killing off your audience. You start by losing the people who aren't interested in the current "popular thing" and eventually you use up all the people who were. As the popular thing changes you only switch one audience for another and build attrition into the process with every change.
Instead you have to offer a variety that includes the current popular but also provides plenty of room to explore the new and potentially interesting. Collegium and A&S, rather than responding to what is popular, should be actively engaged in finding the next "neat thing" for us all to find out about.
4 - Organization
Let's face it. The people who are in charge of A&S and Collegium need to be extremely well organized. These are really the only "Kingdom" and "Principality" level events where the autocrat(s) do not actually have the support of the entire rest of the officer corp. When doing a tourney, coronation or investiture the autocrat needs to do little more than find the site and arrange basic services. All the rest of the things that take place at the event are handled each in their own way by the respective officers/organizations already established. Heralds, Marshals, Chiurgeons, Merchants, etc etc etc. All of these groups have their own structures which are already well established and trained to take on the necessary jobs that make an event run.
Collegium and A&S officers have to arrange their own staff or do it all themselves. If they do it themselves they are likely to be overwhelmed. If they arrange a staff than they are likely drawing on people who may have little experience organizing a major event.
How do we get attendance at A&S events back?
1 - Teachers & Star Power
"Star Power" simply put is that certain something which brings people together under the direction of an individual or small group. Our royals are the fallback example of "star power." When the royals do something we all pay attention and they can lead.
There are other individual who have "Star Power" as well. Teachers with great reputations for interesting material and good teaching skills have star power as well. When those teachers talk up their classes well in advance, their attendance tends to improve. When the autocrats talk up those "stars" on the schedule attendance also improves.
Spending some effort on cultivating individuals with current "star power" to help build the event attendance is something which I think should be done. It has been suggested elsewhere that requesting classes from various royals, former royals or fighters of high renown might be a good example of this and one that I completely agree with. (As a couple of examples I know that His Excellency Roric would likely be a good person to discuss putting together those final touchs that make a complete Viking ensamble. I would think that maybe a class from him could be good. I do believe that Sir Janos could teach us a thing or three on "The Knightly Virtues" in period.)
Groups with "Star Power" within the SCA have been tapped to be "sponsors" of tracks in the past. These sponsored tracks or classes have come from royals who have requested their guard teach during their reign or from Queen's Artisans, Lady's of the Rose, Guilds and other groups.
2 - Contracting for Continuity
One of the things that makes events continue to be of interest is the sense of continuity they provide. We always go to event X because it always has thing Y and we have fun with people Z.
Here is an idea I had last night and discussed with roswtr. Even if no other group adopts this idea I do believe that we, as Baron and Baroness of Darkwood, will be going forward with it.
Individuals or groups who "sponsor" a track at a single event build interest but not continuity. But if an individual or group (such as a Barony) chooses to contract with Collegium and A&S for the year, promising to provide at least X number of classes at each event, that would build a kind of continuity. It invests teachers from that group as well as members of the group in coming to all the events. It gives them sufficient time to plan in advance so that they will put such things on their calendar and commit to them.
Collegium Chancellors could offer up "prizes/rewards/recognitions" for the sponsoring groups which fullfill their contracted obligations thus providing a return on investment from the group. This could also be used to spin "competition" between groups. Fighter households might compete with each other as could Baronies or even Principalities.
If groups are known for something they could sponsor/contract for classes on that thing. For example Crosston is well known for "The Crosston Ball" and having classes on dancing raises that awareness. Which, I believe, is exactly what they did this past Collegium.
Regardless of how it is encouraged, there does need to be some form of encouragement that will get any group to engage in this kind of contracted continuity, otherwise they may have a problem seeing their way toward commiting. One would generally hope that "success" is reward enough but in reality it doesn't always work out that way.
(Note:But I did mention that roswtr and I have already decided we are going to do this in some fashion. So, for the future record, Darkwood plans to offer up a series of classes over the course of the year. I believe our plans will basically be to try and request a "Darkwood Track" and to ask each of our cantons to promise two classes to be taught. They can get them completed at a single event, they can do them one at each Collegium and A&S or some mixture there of. Something along those lines. I believe we'll need to discuss it with our A&S officer, but roswtr and I are both determined. And I'm sure we'll be teaching as well.)
3 - Advertising/Marketing
The Page has long been an inadequate form of advertising for events. It is used as an information source for a calendar, directions to events and little else.
The use of on-line sources such as SCA-West and other group lists has become more of the go-to place for advertising. This form of advertising reaches people more completely and more frequently especially because of it's more "interactive" nature. Information is more available and questions more quickly answered and more broadly distributed.
How much advertising needs to be done? Well, that's a matter of opinion but the factors there are frequency of posts and proximity of event. Typically I think that one begins the long range advertising about three months out. As you get closer and your plans finalize you use that material to write your advertising. ("Hey everyone! We just got so-so to teach their class on X at Spring Collegium! Don't miss this class!") This kind of advertising keeps people informed on the event and keeps it in their interest up as the event gets closer. It helps them to feel more and more committed to going.
I mentioned the term "opportunity cost" earlier, but I didn't really explain, so I'm going to go there now.
When we talk about "opportunity cost" what we are actually discussing is the balance between what the cost is to do one activity versus the opportunity to do something else. There is a cost to going to every single event we go to. We give up the opportunity to do something else (like sleep in on the weekends!) in order to go to that event. How much we want to do something reduces the cost of the event as measured against the opportunities otherwise passed up.
Improving the opportunity cost is how you deal with calendar issues and can be done by not just advertising the event but by actually "marketing" it. What do I mean by that? Marketing implies targeting your audience more directly. Right now we advertise broadly to the entire West Kingdom population. But marketing the event to specific groups of people within the population in order to improve over all attendance makes sense.
This is more of the underlying idea that was attempted by having a "theme" but theming is to limited in nature. Targeting specific classes or tracks at specific groups of people is the way to improve the attendance. The event still has the broad base of offerings, but a dance track might be more properly marketed by being talked up on "dance specific" lists or lists that have a higher population of dancers. Cooking specific tracks marketed to the cooking lists, costuming to costuming, etc etc etc.
If attendance is to improve at A&S or Collegium than the opportunity cost of going to those events must be brought in line with other more popular events. People have been talking all along about making these events "sexy" but that isn't the hook. The hook is "rewarding." What makes going to those other events more "rewarding" than going to A&S and Collegium?
There is no one single fix here. That isn't a surprise. But to summarize the above I think that hitting on the following will make a distinct improvement:
1 - Organization
Autocrats need a better support staff than they already have, people with experience who can keep organizational continuity.
Advertising/Marketing needs to be more regular and more targetedand capitalize on "Star Power" teachers and tracks to build enthusiasm.
2 - Offerings
Actively seeking out individual teachers with "Star Power," teachers who might have otherwise hidden talents.
Contracting long term support from groups to provide continuity and encourage competition between groups to support class tracks for a year
3 - Locations
Suck it up and go with the better locations. Teachers can use the better resources and students appreciate the better learning environment. Complaints about cost rarely continue past the initial experience.
In the end we are still dealing with a volunteer organization and attendees who are, in the end, hobbyists. This is a thing we are all doing with our spare time and spare income. That means that there are factors which we will never be able to predict nor to control.
But maybe some of this will help.