Pennsic set-up

[cellio]

We went up to Pennsic to help with camp set-up today. Johan was there yesterday too, when he got the house in place and set up the kitchen building. Johan is a huge help with managing the house, with both maintenance and set-up logistics. (It needs to be moved from storage after land allocation and before everyone else starts filling in the block, which usually means Saturday afternoon -- obviously a challenge for me. But since others in my camp depend on it being in place for their setup, someone can usually see that it gets moved out of self-interest, from which I just happen to benefit.)

Today we set up the pantry and some pavillions and unloaded all the stuff from the house. Oof, we have a lot of stuff in there. Time to thin the pile down again. This year we're going to try to find new homes for the two huge, heavy, well-insulated coolers; they're relics from the Sated Tyger, an inn that served Pennsic for many years about 15-20 years ago. For the right camp they'd be perfect, but we're not the right camp now.

The new pantry building is going to work really well. Having walls instead of canvas means more stability in a wind, but it also means more stability for the shelves inside -- we can anchor things to the walls, which of course never worked with the canvas. We've got more usable space in the same footprint (no center poles, can shove things right up against the walls), too. And it looks spiffy.

The new drainage ditch that the Coopers dug in/around our block isn't as bad as we'd feared but is still going to require something to straddle it at the entrance to our camp. Possibly just a piece of plywood; we're not sure yet. So long as we figure it out before the first rain we'll be fine. :-)

My medallion number is 1745. Dani's is something over 11,000. Yup, looks like they handed them out in alphabetical order this time. :-) (Last year looked like reverse-alphabetical. I'm waiting for the folks in the Ms and Ns to demand that they start in the middle and work outward, even though low numbers stopped being prestigious years ago. :-) ) I don't know how many low numbers are reserved off the top, but probably not many -- so over 11,000 people pre-registered for Pennsic this year. I wonder what the final headcount will be.

Several times today while we were obviously busy setting up an annoying person from next door wandered in with his kid, looking for a play group. Hello? The people you want to dump your kid on (yes, he wanted to dump and leave) are actually doing some work; no, we're not going to drop everything to babysit for you. Duh. He's done this before, and we usually have to be rude to him to get him to stop. I'd rather not have to be rude, but I suspect he'll leave us little choice. We'll see.

Comments

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

can you tell me the significance of the medallion/medallion number? Is it just like a registration pass that happens to have a number to keep track of head count, or does the number also help organize things (like order to enter certain events, etc).

[cellio]

These days the medallion numbers are not meaningful; they're used for cases where quick unique ID is needed, but nothing else. For example, you have the option to file a sealed envelope with the first-aid people, indexed by number, and if you're found lying in the street unconscious or something they'll pull the file before anyone treats you. (You're required to wear the medallion at all times, and it's probably easier to find than your wallet.) The numbers are also used by the marshals (safety officers for fighting), to make sure that the armor you're wearing was declared safe for you. If I borrow armor from the 6' guy and fight in it, the important bits won't be in the right places on me and I might get hurt -- so when they inspect your armor they write your medallion number on the pass sticker and they later check that when you show up to fight.

So, these days, medallion numbers are unique IDs but not specifically significant.

Pennsic didn't always have pre-registration; it used to be that you showed up, paid your money, and got the next medallion. Since the die-hards tend to show up early, some people felt there was some prestige in low numbers. So far as I know this was good-natured fun; I don't think anyone took it that seriously.

The first year they did pre-registration they handed out numbers in order of receipt. While that's more work, I think they missed a bet by not continuing it; if you can get people to buy into the "low number is good" meme, you can get them to send in their money earlier and you've got use of it. :-)

These days, the only prestige is that numbers under 100 are reserved for staff.