How to Autocrat an Event

19146 Steps to Running a Decent Event.

On the 16th, last month, I autocrated my second Summer's End. We were up against AEthelmearc's Coronation which was being held at the other end of the Kingdom. The event went well, and even though many of the out-of-towners, who would normally never miss Summer's End, went to support our out-going and in-coming Royalty, we still managed not to lose any money.

As I am stuck on a conference call, and have nothing better to do, I thought that I would jot down a few points on how to autocrat an event.

Now, there are plenty of resources on the individual points of running an event: just do a Google search for "autocrat handbook". I wish to use this post to cover the finer points that these handbooks tend to gloss over.


1) Have a plan. If you've autocrated before, you should know everything that is required. If you've never done it before, have an experienced co-autocrat to mentor you. Have a plan for each item. Write down every item, when it will take place and who will be responsible for it or who will help you with it. Get a spiral notebook and start making notes. One page per event thing.

2) Have a backup plan. Things go wrong; make sure that you are ready to switch to plan 2. Not plan B: plan B implies that you will only have 26 plans. It's a week out from the event and the site's ovens are no longer working; what is plan 2? Your TW marshal just went in for back surgery; what is plan 3? You rented the site on the performed date of Coronation; what is plan 4? It's started to rain and there isn't enough space for fighting and fencing to take place inside at the same time; what is plan 5? There are certain disasters that might kill your event, but make sure that the little things won't. Put your backup plans in your notebook on the same pages as the event thing. This will make it easier for you to find the backup plans if things go south. The day before, I was helping Master Charles of Alden mark out the thrown weapons range when the firefighters of the hall we were renting, kicked off of our range because Mercyflight was coming in for a landing. We then found out that we couldn't be within 100m of the helipad. Plan 6 was to move everything to the other side of the back yard and set up well away from the helipad, just in case.

3) Get the best people to handle the individual events at your event. And by "best people" I mean people who you can work with and who can work with you. An event can only be a success if everyone is working together. If you have a theme, everyone needs to be on board with that theme. If you have to make last minute changes, you need people who can adjust their plans. If you are constantly butting heads with your feastocrat over little details, you picked the wrong feastocrat. I asked my feastocrat for a menu with one dish with bacon in it, and a veggie/gluten free option for both the sideboard and for feast. Patrick said, "no problem" and I left everything in his hands. If he raised an unreasonable stink about making allowances for people with dietary restrictions, I would have found someone else to cook.

4) DO NOT MICROMANAGE. Pick a staff and tell them what you want and let them take care of it. Make sure that you are kept in the loop but it is not your job to do their job if you have the right people. I told Patrick what I wanted for the feast and let him take care of all of the details. He picked a team to take care of the sideboard and all I needed to know was a general idea of what the menu was. My marshals let me know what they had planned and what they needed and I left them alone. I told the marshals and MoL that I wanted tourneys to start at 11 and end at 4 and I left them alone. I suggested to our Baron and Baroness that I would like court to start a 5 and they agreed and I let them organize the details. No one likes being micromanaged. Stay in the loop and leave your staff to do their jobs.

5) Be prepared to walk. Even with a small site, you will need to do a fair bit of walking. At Summer's End, I walked 19146 steps. If you physically cannot walk around that much, get yourself a deputy who can. You, as the autocrat, need to know what is going on. If something isn't working, or running late, by walking around, checking out all of the things, you can nudge things back into gear. If you see something wrong, or missing, you can fix it before it becomes a major problem. 


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As an addendum: the next event I autocrat; no feast or sideboard. I'm calling in some food trucks.