EXARC Journal (Jun 2017)
The Movement - Comments on the Booklet How to Organize a Historical Event involving Reenactment Groups
Abstract
I have happily noticed that there is a movement within the re-enactment scene - a move towards discussing re-enactment and living history on a meta-level. In 2014 I published my festival guide How to organize a historical event involving reenactment groups (Aune Nilsen 2014). As a part of an EEA-grants project, we were asked to organize a re-enactment event in Transylvania. The Romanian hosts (Rasnov Municipality and Asociatia Mioritics) were eager to learn about all our best (and worst) practices. After years of doing Viking re-enactment and organising historical events, I felt that I had something to bring to the table. A booklet was born. The guide described the five phases of event organizing: preparatory phase, preliminary phase, moments before the war, war phase and aftershocks. It is written both from an organiser’s viewpoint, and from a re-enactors viewpoint - perhaps in an attempt to deepen the understanding between the two. The guide is far from all-encompassing. First of all, I mainly focus on the Viking and medieval re-enactment scene and the market-festival setting. I realise that the guidelines given might not be suited for re-enactments of other time periods, or for other concepts. Secondly, I do not go into detail on funding and budget planning. However, I believe that the guide both describes and opens for dialogue about events, re-enactors and the re-enactment scene. Asking not only what and why, but also how and more importantly who. To further contribute to the meta-movement, I will add a few comments to my guide.
