UPDATE:
Hi gang,
Some rather turbulent news regarding the search for the perfect event site. It's been very up and down. If your interested in the developments, read on, if not... skip it! I'm putting it out to keep everyone informed as to the current situation as a courtesy.
We are down to one last hope with the event site. We have gone through and nixed two AMAZING event sites. When I say amazing, I mean AMAZING. Problem is, one is a dry site until 2010 and the other is just too Vanilla for this kind of event. I'll give you some basic details on both and if anyone wants further details, your welcome to PM me or email.
Vanderventer: Ok, this site is a boy scout camp that is just about as perfect of an event site as what I could ever imagine. Complete with a stockade and all that. Unfortunately, they built a really really really nice dining facility two years ago. During that time, the site was a wet site (alcohol allowed) and the first time it was rented out, the group renting it got really drunk and rowdy and did some considerable damage. The result was the boy scout council voted to go strictly DRY. Well... that just won't work with foam fighting.
The City of Waterloo is trying everything in their power to get this event to come to their city and have offered considerable support. Everything from serious cash backing to media advertising, to beer and food vendors. The problem was still with the Boy Scout Council. Well, after meetings with the Chamber of Commerce, Mayors office, as well as the Boy Scouts, we got the policy for this site reversed and they are going to allow alcohol once more at Camp Vanderventer. The aggravating part of it is, the way their by-laws and procedures are, this won't kick in until the following event season. In short, had we got this vote pushed through in Dec. 08', the site would be good to go Jan 09'. Since the vote was this week, we won't be good to go until Jan 2010!!!!!!!
So, LoW will likely be coming to Vanderventer in 2010. *sigh*
The second option we nixed was Camp Wartburg. This is a Luthern Church camp with ultra-modern facilities. You could easily put multiple Raganroks inside this property it's so big. Ton's of cabins, group buildings, all with bathrooms and showers, common rooms with kitchenettes, you name it... trail networks, and all sorts of other do-able terrain types, just about as perfect of a place for a massive field battle event as you can imagine. The problem here is, its just not very magical.
By magical, I mean the atmosphere of the event. Going from Vanderventer where you would be in your own unit/realm campsite, just inside a beautiful woods with fire rings, and picnic area, sitting beneath the stars, or down at the bardic ampitheater alongside some amazing river bluff... you would be surrounded by prime Illinois farm land. Well, thats just not quite what the event is going for. You could have 100 massive combined battle games featuring the best of the best in the foam world, but you'd have missed out on all the great things off the field that make this hobby so super special during the best of times. It was a very very hard decision to pass on this site because it's just so damn good, but hopefully the attention to quality will make it worth it in the long run.
That brings us to where we are currently... The Waterloo Sportsman Complex. This was our original site location. Massive site. Great facilities. Enough parking and camp space to host any number of people. All in all, a great site. The catch here is, it's an exclusive private club that requires a whole lotta hoops to jump through in order to secure it. The biggest problem right now facing us is the fact that we are in some pretty hard economic times. This event site plays host to a lot of RV's and campers. There is a very real concern that as the economic down turn continues to adversely effect people everywhere, people who are losing their houses and assets are turning to other options. Members of the Sportsman complex who have already been hit have already made arrangements to literally move onto the complex and live in their RV's while they get back on their feet. If this trend continues, it is unlikely that this private club is going to want to share space with hundreds of foam fighting goof balls running through their backyard storming castles. If it does happen, woo hoo! At this point it's a 50/50 shot. The club has it's members meeting on Feb 3rd to decide this for us. You can expect an announcement sometime shortly there after.
We still have the city pushing hard on our behalf to make this happen, and hopefully it will all come together. Already we've pushed a lot of time and money into the pre-production of landing the event here in the STL area. If this doesn't pull through and the event goes to Stonehouse, we will be sadly disappointed and will be making plans for 2010 at Vanderventer.
If things don't work out and we end up looking at an additional 3 hours on the road trip to this event, I hope the midwestern foam fighting community will continue to support the effort and make the trip anyway. A successful first event means an even bigger and better second year with even more community support when we go back to the Waterloo City government.
As for what we can do as fighters and members of our hobby in the missouri area to support the effort in the meantime, is to keep our fingers crossed and hope it lands here. This really is an exciting event and time in foamfighting. Thanks for the enthusiasm thus far and hopefully we'll be marching to war either together or across from each other in 9 months at either Waterloo or Stone House.
Will
PS. Overhead google earth images with overlays of the Sportsman Complex can be viewed on this photobucket site:
s454.photobucket.com/albums/qq267/wisner/