Reenactment numbers

[MeTheNorth]

Does anyone have an idea if the number of reenactment participants is dwindling, growing or the same in recent years?

 

[Rusk County Avengers]

The mainstream events have lost a lot of people due to age, politics, and a habitually unimaginative officer and staff corps running events into ground with repetitive scenarios, outright hostility to new ideas, plus going out of they're way to start political battles for control of events with other reenacting organizations. The 150th saw the largest loss of numbers with the age department, and it continues due to age and leaders.

The hardcore, or authentic, end seems to be holding pretty steady in numbers, but not always increasing contrary to endless claims. They ain't losing numbers, just holding steady with new blood every now and then. The increases in numbers they do get mainly comes from people getting into the hobby on the mainstream end and quickly becoming disillusioned with that and moving into the authentic end due to issues mentioned, and not. The problem with the hardcore is the "cool kid" mentality among many, (but not all) who know next to nothing of history, they're uniforms and accoutrements, yet take a rather perverse joy in thumbing they're nose at the mainstream as nothing but farbs, ignoring that mainstream guys are the same way towards undeniably farb outfits and sometimes are more knowledgeable about artifacts than many, just maybe not what a quality reproduction is due to money, or just don't care. The "cool kid" problem will eventually come back to bite the hardcore end if it ain't remedied quickly, as both sides need to and should co-exist peaceably, but the numbers of "cool kids" who stir the pot ain't dwindling.

If I were to make a wild guess at numbers, both sides combined maybe around 15 to 20,000 around the whole country. Maybe more or less, kind of hard to gage. The anti-Confederate hysteria has increased numbers, and could get more people interested if reenacting organizations on all sides stopped moaning and groaning about the problem instead of harnessing it.

 

[Rusk County Avengers]

Oh and welcome to CivilWarTalk!

 

[MeTheNorth]

The mainstream events have lost a lot of people due to age, politics, and a habitually unimaginative officer and staff corps running events into ground with repetitive scenarios, outright hostility to new ideas, plus going out of they're way to start political battles for control of events with other reenacting organizations. The 150th saw the largest loss of numbers with the age department, and it continues due to age and leaders.

The hardcore, or authentic, end seems to be holding pretty steady in numbers, but not always increasing contrary to endless claims. They ain't losing numbers, just holding steady with new blood every now and then. The increases in numbers they do get mainly comes from people getting into the hobby on the mainstream end and quickly becoming disillusioned with that and moving into the authentic end due to issues mentioned, and not. The problem with the hardcore is the "cool kid" mentality among many, (but not all) who know next to nothing of history, they're uniforms and accoutrements, yet take a rather perverse joy in thumbing they're nose at the mainstream as nothing but farbs, ignoring that mainstream guys are the same way towards undeniably farb outfits and sometimes are more knowledgeable about artifacts than many, just maybe not what a quality reproduction is due to money, or just don't care. The "cool kid" problem will eventually come back to bite the hardcore end if it ain't remedied quickly, as both sides need to and should co-exist peaceably, but the numbers of "cool kids" who stir the pot ain't dwindling.

If I were to make a wild guess at numbers, both sides combined maybe around 15 to 20,000 around the whole country. Maybe more or less, kind of hard to gage. The anti-Confederate hysteria has increased numbers, and could get more people interested if reenacting organizations on all sides stopped moaning and groaning about the problem instead of harnessing it.

Thanks for the extremely comprehensive analysis.

 

[MeTheNorth]

Oh and welcome to CivilWarTalk!

Sir, thank you, sir.

 

[bankerpapaw]

Welcome from NW Georgia. I imagine present day politics has discouraged quite a few reenactors.

 

[Mrs. V]

It seemed to me like Hale and Zoar were fairly well attended. I think they are "softer" events. You still have your stictch pickers, but you'll have that. I make my own clothes, but like many I don't have tons of money to spend on 60.00 a yard wool or wool silk blends..I'm more of 10.00 a yard or "hey I bought this at the thrift store" kinda gal. Son is better equipped, but then he is more on display with the artillary.

 

[Rusk County Avengers]

I've known several reenactors to get low morale on the political goings on, a couple of whom are my friends, and start stocking up on gear from other eras and moving into reenacting them, convinced that CW reenacting is doomed. The lockdowns shutting so many events ain't helped either.

But as evidenced by a couple other threads, just today really, I think it'll keep going on. One local event I attend, that's been a farb fest from h**l, let me know some of my gripes with it may soon be remedied if I wish to contribute, with 300 new acres across the river from it now available to the event. Too late to do anything this year before the event, but I expect this fall an earthen river battery may be in that event's future. My contribution to ending what I said earlier about too many events with the same unimaginative events over and over again.

 

[archieclement]

Do you expect after a year and continuing lull due to Covid, many won't return?

Guess it would be hard to distinguish between solely the Covid lull...and political things through same time period.

 

[PrivateBrooke]

Rusk made a good post. He's right, the scene can be a lot of fun, but at the same time a very toxic environment. ESPECIALLY for new people. Politics, both real life and reenacting are hurting the hobby.

I think the lull from covid might help a bit. I imagine many are itching to get out there and will jump at the chance once it's all over.

 

[3rd North Carolina]

i would say it will all depend on the unit that you in if they accept you or they put a sour taste in your mouth that they never want to try it again cause they assume all units are like that one. That is why when a new person wants to join our unit that i give them an option of just trying us out for one unit to see if they want to be part of the unit or look for some other unit that fits their style.

 

[Rusk County Avengers]

Rusk made a good post. He's right, the scene can be a lot of fun, but at the same time a very toxic environment. ESPECIALLY for new people. Politics, both real life and reenacting are hurting the hobby.

I think the lull from covid might help a bit. I imagine many are itching to get out there and will jump at the chance once it's all over.

Well I never meant to paint it as toxic in anyway. It can be, but it really depends on who you join up with. A wise man, and officer once told me "Politics have part of reenacting since the beginning."

(WARNING Rusk word fits incoming!)

That being said, there's no denying it can be toxic at times. There's some people who I love like family, but engage in those politics, or get completely snowed by some event runners, and can be a major part of the problem and toxicity.

For example, there's a event local to me that has TWO separate reenactments going and competing the same weekend. The original one was once run by the local Chamber of Commerce, specifically a husband and wife couple who are really one of the sorriest pairs of backstabby humanity I've ever seen. They eventually got run off from the Chamber, the pair stole the reenactment, (along with a lot of money allegedly) and another reenactment was started up by the Chamber and a couple other local people and reenactors, (all good folks I've known since forever) who just wanted to see an event capitalize on the town's history as a inland river port, and that pair of backstabby folks lose money.

The reenacting organization I'm a part of, absolutely despises anyone who goes to the event not run by the backstabby couple. During all events the wife would be choked up and teary eyed at a ceremony reenacted of troops heading off to war when giving a speech, and my organization believes them to be patriots with a deep love of history and good Christians. Never mind that those crooks literally extorted businesses, and tried for years to put a friend of mine's Confederate museum out of business in the town when they were in the Chamber. I try to point this out and yet I'm mistaken, or in rare cases with some people an agent of the other reenactment who's trying destroy CW history.

To the average reenactor, it ain't noticeable or even known, its just seen among officers and people like me caught in the middle. Heck I usually attend both events, with only one side understanding I'm loyal to people on both sides.

Sad thing when you love the folks on both sides and in my fifteen years of reenacting that event has become the most toxic and pointless things I've seen. But this year marking the second year in a row the toxic event has cancelled, and now the other has more land with a possible opportunity to build a river battery near an original CS Powder Magazine, the tide may turn and end the mess, which don't amount to a hill a beans in my book.

 

[thomas aagaard]

Back in 1998 you had 26-27.000 participants at Gettysburg 135th.
15 years later you had half.

On top of the political issues, the basic economic fact is that an average young person who finished college today is in a worse situation economically than in the 1990ties.
Price of college gone up.(so they have student debt) The price of housing, healthcare and so on have gone up by a lot.
But wages have stagnated.
The end result is that spending the money on this hobby is comparably more expensive.

 

[MeTheNorth]

Thanks to all for welcoming me into your forum and for your personal and passionate responses to my query. I would think the three biggest effects to the future of reenactments would be: politics, Covid and demographics..... the last touched upon by Mr. Aagaard. I truly believe we will get past Covid soon and return gradually to some semblance of normalcy, not withstanding the tremendous loss of life, employment and business. But demographics should produce the greatest grind to the numbers. I'm a Baby Boomer with two Millennials. They have no interest in many of the activities that I was exposed to by my parents and which I adopted or embraced. Furthermore, as was mentioned, they have no money. The Generation Z and Alphas are in an even more precarious state. Here in Toronto the average price of a single family dwelling just crossed $1,000,000 CAD, almost $800,000 USD at current conversion rates. Most of these cohorts will never be able to buy a house. I would imagine offspring of those steeped in the tradition of reenactments will strive to carry on that tradition but at some point the attrition will continue to escalate. I don't mean to step on any toes but that's the way it appears to me.

 

[captaindrew]

Despite the grim outlook some people like to paint there's still plenty of us out there enjoying the hobby and still good events going on. Even despite covid I still managed to get a dozen events in last year albeit they were mostly small scale campaigner type deals that flew under the radar and put a ton of miles on my truck to do it but still had an enjoyable season. We'll see how this year goes, hopefully somewhat back to normal but a lot of potential events are still up in the air. The biggest challenge is getting more young people involved. And for the older guys to quit sitting around complaining about politics and how great it used to be, it isn't exactly the best way to get new people excited. Politics and personal rivalries are unfortunately part of any organization, can't bombard new people with that BS. We'll probably never see the huge mega events again but there's still plenty of us around to put on a good show. We all need to remember why we do this and what we love about the hobby and all the wonderful folks we've met along the way and pass that along to the new people. And for gosh sakes get to some events and not sit around and complain why we don't. If we do it will live on.

 

[drezac]

I do think this year will be hard to judge due to COVID. In my case, my participation in events will depend on the COVID situation, when I can get the vaccine ( I should be scheduled for it sometime this week). Everyone in our house is considered high risk, so I will be very careful about what events I do attend. I'm sure there are others that are in a similar situation.

Overall, I think there has been a decline in participation. I do get frustrated when I hear some complaining about needing new members, but then are not overly welcoming and supporting of new members when they do come ( something I have personally witnessed a few times). In our battery, we have a few younger members that have trouble participating due to work requirements ( I am really thankful that my job allows quite a bit of flexibility in regards to taking time off). I have seen a trend of jobs demanding more of employees time. My son was Captain of our battery, but his work requirements started to limit his ability to participate, requiring late nights and weekend on-call duty.

Over the years, the events seem to be getting smaller. I remember one Gettysburg a few years ago where I think the artillerymen outnumbered the infantry. It looked more like two companies of infantry ran into each other between the Union and Confederate artillery parks.

 

[Dave Hull]

All the above observations hold, between COVID and cancel, events have been fewer and further apart than years ago.

My advise, go to events and have fun with the guys who are there. If you want to retain your sanity, stay off line. Experience has shown me fellas who behave themselves live and in person my not be able to maintain any hint of civility on line. Avoiding discussions of politics, modern or historical, and religion is always a sure bet to ensure relative peace and harmony. Find a good bunch of guys that you can spend a weekend with and give not a hoot about anything outside that Company.

Some folks enjoy the big circus events, some the smaller engagements, others living histories or even parades. Personally, I would just as soon go out somewhere, play period card games, eat some good chow and hang out with the fellas. Even the big events, it really does not matter if there are 7 or 70 thousand guys there. You are only going to interact with your mess mates, maybe half a good sized company. All those other fellas do is get in the way when it comes time to pop smoke at the end of the weekend.

If you cannot carry your stuff in and out on your back, you have too much stuff. Get out, get wet, hot, cold, miserable and have a great time.

 

[archieclement]

What has spectator numbers been doing the last three years?

 

[captaindrew]

What has spectator numbers been doing the last three years?

I think they've been pretty good. Last summer at one of the Daniel Lady Farm events I attended despite right in the middle of this mess a very respectable crowd came out. The events last winter in Florida right before the plague started shutting things down were well attended. If you put on a good event reenactors and spectators will come. Some of the ones that had been struggling before the plague are probably gone for good. We'll see

 

[PrivateBrooke]

Mullica Hill NJ last year had a great attendance. We could have used more participants, but we made do, and the spectators showed up. I think they said we had 1000 people total, between the two days. And this is for a small event, in a random small town in NJ, that didn't have a battle fought there. It's literally held in someone's yard, and honestly it's an amazing event.

DL Farm in October we had a good crowd too. People are definitely interested.