Wadfest
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"www.wadfest.co.uk"
Female
29 years old
United Kingdom
Last Login:6/29/2008
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Mood:
accomplished
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Wadfest's Details
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| Status: | Single | | Zodiac Sign: | Leo |
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About me:
Events Before Wadfest
The idea of the Wadfest (although it did not have it's name then), started at the 2001 Clarecraft Discworld Camping Weekend, but to understand why it came about you need to know a little bit of the politics of the Discworld Weekend get together.
In the 90s there were two Discworld weekend gatherings, Odd years Clarecraft Camping Weekends, and even years the Conventions, Clarecraft weekend were a semi informal weekend, that anybody could afford to go to, costing pounds in the single figures, the Convention on the other hand was held in Hotels with a full itenery laid on and costing a lot more pounds to go to. So as to never be a conflict the two different events are held on alternate years. In 2000 the Convention had to be canceled, and so as not to disappoint the Discworld fans, Elton (who organised the CCWEs at that time), organised an extra CCDWE for that year, and in a way this laid the first germ of the idea for the Wadfest weekend. This meant that there was three consecutive years of camping get together for Discworld fans. At the 2001 CCWE people asked if there was to be a CCWE camping weekend every year now and were told NO as the following year it was the Convention.
An Idea is Born.
It was at the 2001 Clarecraft weekend that several people were saying about it being a shame that there was not a Camping weekend the following year as they could not afford to go to the convention due to one reason or another, or that they prefer a camping freestyle weekend, rather than the more organised itenery of the Convention. On overhearing this conversation more than once I decided to ask people at Clarecraft if they would be interested in coming to Camping Event the following year. There were about six people said yes they would, so with this as a guide that it would be worth doing I decided to organize a LITTLE get together.
When and Where.
When I got back home after the weekend I started to look into the feasibility of running an Event, also into location and Dates, as I did not want to clash with the Convention on the following year. It was decided to hold it at the end of September as this was far enough away from the Convention, but still early enough to stand a chance of some warm weather, the location it was decided would be the Midlands, two reasons for this, it is central for everybody, it is close to where I live. With this information decided on I then posted on Elton's forum for anybody interested in coming to a camping get together the following September to email me. (It still did not have a name yet). About twenty people emailed to say they would be interested, so it was a quick look around for a place to hold it, and as a friend had just been to a Motor Bike rally at The Hurt Arms in Ambergate, I approached the landlord of the pub to see if it was possible to hold it on his field, amenities were a bit lacking, (toilets in the pub when open, across the road, (A6 public loo's) when the pub was closed).
Cost and Complications.
Based on what I had been told the cost per tent would be per night the costing of the tickets were worked out, I decided that all school children should be free as it was unfair for a parent to be charged full cost on a child that was still at school and therefore was not contributing to the family income, nor had money to pay their own way, this was quickly change to all school children that were accompanied by a paying adult when it was pointed out that every school child in Derbyshire would come for a free camping weekend. These prices were posted on the forum and I wrote a quick web page linked to my normal web site with a booking form on it that people could print off and send to me.
The Wadfest is Born.
As stated earlier, at this time the weekend did not have a name, and was being referred to on the forum as my little get together for want of something to call it, one of the regular posters then refer to it as the Wadfest (I have recently found out it was Lupine that first coined the name), and the name stuck at that time it was also given a tag line. "A Discworld Experience", this was so that people would know that it was to do with Discworld.
The Weekend Takes Shape.
In early November Dave Hodges, (Hodgesaargh), decided to elect himself on to the non existent Wadfest committee. This was the first turning point in the Wadfest history, as the weekend now had a well know name associated with it and a person who I was to find out would do anything he could to help get it going, (although not al of his ideas could be used due to time restraights on the programme), with Dave asking people to come as well, the number of people interested in coming started to slowly climb, and it was decided that instead of the get together weekend that was originally intended some form of programme had to be worked out. This is where Dave came into his own with throwing hundreds of ideas at me, some of which had to held back due to time restrainst, and cost of putting them on.
That's Magic.
In early 2002 Lupine asked if I would like him to do a Magic Show, as I knew he was a professional Magician I jumped at the chance and said yes please.
Live Thud.
In May Bernard Pearson (The Cunning Artificer) held the first Thud Tournament, wow live Thud at the Wadfest was the cry that went up from Sue, Oh No was the cry that went up from Bernard, and the live Thud game was born, although the first time it was held was at the 2002 Convention where I organised it whilst the Vampire Ball was on, for people who could not get to the ball.
Luggage Wars.
This started out as an idea of Dave's where luggage’s smashed into each other until one was destroyed, I took this idea and dismissed it, but used the luggage idea and based the wars on the American Robot Wars idea where they compete against each other over several heats.
Masquerade.
It was decided early on to have a masquerade, as this is a tradition at every Discworld weekend.
Decorated Tents.
I decided to revive this idea so as too make the camp site more jolly looking.
Animosity as the Weekend gets Near.
As the weekend grew nearer so did the number of fans who decided to come grow, we even had a contingent from Germany coming, and talk on the forum started to turn towards the Wadfest weekend. A chance remark by one forum member to another led to his reply of "The Wadfest! I would not be seen dead at that event, there is nobody going of importance or who I wish to speak to, I only want to talk to real people". At this point I would like to thank him for that comment as it did more to raise the profile of the weekend than anything I could have done on my own, it was also to lead to the basis of the Wadfest Shield. (But more of that later).
Waddy's Panics.
I will put a quick note here of what was happening on the week before the Event, as a few people may like to know some of the problems us organisers have. On the Tuesday before the Event, I rang the Hurt Arms to check it was still Ok for an advance party to come to the field on the Thursday, only to be told Wadfest? No don't know anything about any Wadfest Event, we have a Balloon Rally and a Camping Club of GB rally on this week end. Panic now ensued until the next day when they told me yes we have you down for coming, but there was that little niggle about those other Rallies as I had been told I had the whole field, and by now was up to 50 tents and 100 people coming.
Come the Thursday and my worries were confirmed, instead of having the whole field, we was tucked away in a little off shoot of the field which meant it got a little cosy when all the tents were in, but never mind it all worked out Ok in the end, well apart from my Reconditioned WW2 petrol stove almost blowing up.
The First Event.
I will not say too much about the event here as you can read about it on the 2002 Wadfest site, but more a sort of highlights that we learnt from.
After a bit of dispute over the size of the field, or more to the point definitions of all the field, we managed to get everybody in. Friday was decided to be a relaxed day with everybody getting to know one another. Saturday was the main day and the programme went to pot as we tried to get things done. Sunday was quite a relaxed morning with just the auction, and then somebody suggested a photo shoot.
What was learnt.
1) When booking a site get in writing costs and what exactly the site consist of.
2) Organise a programme for the Friday for the early arrivers.
3) Delegate, I tried doing everything and ended up with a lot of items being missed.
4) Ask for volunteers, people were willing to help but didn't know that it was needed.
5) Give certificates out as soon as possible to the event, the next day people have forgotten the excitement of winning.
6) Do the photo shoot on the Saturday when the maximum number of people are still around.
7) When sorting out a programme of events make it flexible so items can be added.
2003 and Onwards
A New Venue is Chosen.
Due to the lack of amenities of the 2002 site, and lack of the space we were allocated, it was decided very early on that we would need a bigger site, The Nottingham Rugby Club was approached but turned us down after several months, in the mean time I had a word with The Cunning Artificer about my worries, and he suggested looking at commercial sites. I was a bit apprehensive about doing this because of cost, but though that there was nothing to loose as it was just a few emails to send out.
This proved to be the best solution to the problem, as one of the first sites I wrote to was Callow Top, after discussing my needs and expected number of campers I was informed that they had a Rally site that was connected to the camp site, and that if I booked it we could use all the camp site amenities as well, these included toilets, showers, swimming pool etc. Great but what of cost?
After some negotiation on both side, i.e.. If you do this I will charge that, I managed to get the price to a level that we could work on, although day visitors proved to be a bit of a stumbling block to start with, but again after some negotiation an amicable agreement was reached.
Benefits of the New Site.
As stated in the paragraph above, it has plenty of amenities that make for a more civilised weekend, it also has room to expand, at a rough guess the site will take 1000 units, but I have been informed that if we need more space they have another six fields that we can use, that means Waddy will not have to panic about space until we get in access of 3000 tents wanting to be pitched on the site, and if that happens I will probably have other things to panic about.
During the Town Twinning of Ankh-Morpork the discussion turned to the Wadfest, and a spin off of that discussion was that we required a shield to commemorate highlights of the first Event, the motto had been decided on, "An Event for Real People",
Prof. Artley helped with the Latin, "Casus pro veris populis", the main events that happened over the weekend that were to be remember on the shield were, Luggage Wars, Loz's Camp Fire, the Marquee, and Thud, a W was added to represent Wadfest, John Pagan worked on the art work and the finished article I am sure you will agree looks stunning.
Bernard was approached about doing a model of the shield, and has decided to produce it as a PYO piece for the Wadfest this year (2003), along with an Event piece.
Because of having a shield it was also discussed about an opening ceremony and again this was decided to be based on happenings from the first Event.
So as you can see the Wadfest is starting to mature and hopefully over the coming years will bring a lot of enjoyment to all those that attend.
As each Wadfest takes place I will add to this page so future Wadfesters can see how the Event developed.
2003 less traumatic, but still some hiccups.
Based on what I leant at the 2002 Wadfest I decided this year to try to let other people run a few of the items in the programme, big mistake, the name of the game is to let other people run all the items.
Yet again things did not go according to plan, Dave could not get his hands on a generator, but I learnt from Terry, if you can't do anything about it forget it, with this in mind I told Dave "No Worries" that is a lovely sentence.
The main thing I learnt this year Delegate, and after delegating let them get on with it. To this end I aim to just oversee what is happening at Wadfest in 2004 and leave it to others to run things, we will see what happens.
Talking of 2004 with this being the third Wadfest things are starting to settle down and get organised earlier. Lupine set the theme way back in July 2003 for Wadfest 2004, Koom Valley and I aim to put a lot more effort into decorating the camp site.
2004 Koom Valley
When the tag line "I survived Koom Valley" was added to the 2004 event little did we realise how apt it would be. Boy did it rain on the Friday and the Saturday morning.
But not to be discouraged, the fans carried on and enjoyed themselves. This did teach us another lesson though, allow for inclement weather. I did think that I had allowed for it, but it turned out not to be enough.
Due to the inclement weather in 2004, it was decided to change camp venues again for a site that supplied better wet weather amenities, plus more flexibility towards visitors, as an extra we were also able to book the site in the school holidays.
2005 Don't go near the castle.
A visit from a VIP
At last Wadfest is recognised as an official event, although Terry allowed me to call it an official unofficial event, so I suppose one way or another it has got official; status. Yes we had a visit from the man himself, Terry Pratchett, although visit is the wrong word, as he spent the majority of the weekend with us, even taking part in some of the games.
The new site seemed to go down very well, with plenty of positive feed back, both from the fans and the owners.
Now that Wadfest is getting bigger, committee meetings have to take on a more organised structure, I am hoping this will not cause Wadfest to loose its spontaneity.
It was interesting to see how Wadfest has changed since the first Event in 2002, for the better I hasten to add.
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