The rehearsal for the July 4th Festival activity that we held last Saturday went well. Though there were less people than I had hoped for, wanting greater than 24 people playing tag to test out the line-up and flow, we still learned a few things and came up with some ideas for improvement for the 4th. By that virtue, the day was a success! For the deets, read the whole post. For those who would rather just go straight to the photo gallery, here you go:
Click here for the June 16th ALTC Game, “Rehearsal for the 4th” Gallery
Ingrid, the boys, and I arrived at the site around noon to begin setup. We needed to both determine how we were going to arrange things, as well as see how long it took to get it all done, so that we know how early to arrive on the fourth to be set up on time (10:30am). Ingrid and I got started with the canopies for the information table and the hosting racks and the boys helped unload things and set up chairs. We had those mostly set up by the time our helpers started arriving at 12:30. Between 12:30 and 1pm, we had the CAUTION tape “fence” well on its way to being up, and the barriers mostly up and secured. We didn’t bother with the barrier height extenders, because it was another random weather day, with wind then calm, rain then sun, and every combination of the four possible, and the height extenders don’t currently have a mechanism to hold them onto the barriers in those conditions.
So, here are some things that we learned for the next time:
- Bring work or latex gloves, or at least lots of wet wipes. The green paint on the bamboo stakes we used for the Caution tape comes off very easily, so prevention or clean up for that will be a must.
- Bring 2-3x as many bamboo stakes. They are brittle, and will not only break upon impact from a player, but also if the wind is wild enough to cause them to flex too much, they might break. We’ll also need more for a longer tape fence as well as more stakes in the fence for an overall stronger and more stable fence.
- Get small rubber bands to more quickly and easily, possibly more securely, hang the Caution tape on the stakes.
- Get another can (or two) of spray chalk to help mark the entrance, exit, area around “HQ” (the kids like that term for the hosting/debriefing station), and other markings needed for the ground.
- Make clear instructional signs to place along the “waiting line” area, so that I’m not having to fully instruct each group of players every ten minutes.
- Reinforce the instruction signs to prevent them from bending in the wind.
- Get a skirt and cloth for the table so that we can hide our “stuff” behind there that we need quick access to.
- Bring lots of fliers about the club for people to take.
- Try to install a simple “battery jiggle fix” in the tagger battery trays to reduce the occurrence of lockups and other malfunctions during a game.
- As long as our helpers are there by 9am, we should have no problem getting completely set up by 10:30am as required by Parks and Rec for the event.
As I said, I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t have more than 24 players to test with. I think we’ll do ok, though. The trick will be choosing the length of each game, depending on how busy things are. I don’t want to make ANY game too short, since it takes me a few minutes just to shut down all the taggers and join them all into the next game. I was thinking 10 minute games when there’s more or less no line up, then reducing game time to 7 or 8 minutes if there are more than 24 people in line, possibly down to 5 minutes per game if there is a long line with more than 24 people waiting for the next game.
Anyway, there you go. I hope that on the 4th, I come home so frazzled from insane numbers of players that I can’t believe I voluntarily put myself through it. 🙂
sounds like a lot of work…but fun family time!
Ah the joys! Here are a few more tips that might be useful.
1) Make sure all the taggers have new batteries (scopes too), or at least have replacement batteries available.
2) Have spare taggers and if you have help get someone to do the instructions and answer questions in the waiting line.
3)Do all the joining yourself(selves). Turn the taggers with the display inwards and join them. Once they have their ID turn them around and place them in order as you do so. This will make it less confusing and easier to get people in the correct order for debriefing.
4)If using all 24 in 3TMS, or 16 in 2TMS, do not enter the 24th or 16th tagger into the game until all the other taggers are turned around. Remember to press the host trigger so that it does not time out.
5)Instruct everyone, 10 times, to leave their tagger on the rack until they have a countdown.
6)Arrange the hides in a triangle formation which is best for 3TMS games, but also works for 2TMS.
7) Try Respawn games with no shield and 99 tags for 10 minutes. Respawn when all but one team is out.
8) For Team games set Tags and Shield to 10 times the numerical minutes played i.e. for a seven minute game; shield = 70s tags =70. Less for last man standing type games
10) but not least, give all your helpers a whistle
Good stuff, Peter, thanks! Here’s where I stand on those:
1) Done. I made sure all the batteries were fresh last week. We didn’t play much, so I don’t plan to check them again, but I am bringing 4 pre-filled battery trays for fast swap-out, and a pile of extra batteries.
2) Spare taggers to help explain the rules in line, gotcha. Hopefully the signs will do most of the work, but I can see how showing the kids an actual tagger up close can help.
3) Yeah, I do all the joining. Rather than turn them around, I just move along the outside of the rack while joining them.
4) I can’t pull the trigger on my Starbase very easily, but….
5) my plan is to instruct the kids to wait for the whistle before grabbing their tagger. That way, I can make sure the countdowns have all begun, then toot the whistle. This worked well on Saturday, except for my club member’s tendency to want to grab at the beginning of the countdown. 😉
6) I’m not sure what formation you mean. Got any diagrams? I think we came up with a fairly decent layout for the barriers given our play area, though.
7) That’s pretty much what we’re doing, except allowing the kids to respawn immediately, rather than wait for their whole team to be out. I completely forgot to try that on Saturday, so I’m not sure if I’ll try it on the 4th or not.
8) Unless numbers are really low and depressing, I don’t plan to host much of a variety. The idea is to give them a taste for LT by packing as much action into their game as possible. If turnout for LT is really low, then I’ll probably mix things up.
9) hey! there’s no 9!
10) Good idea!
Thanks!
-Greg