Panmankey

During the course of a year I probably end up speaking at 10 or so different events (since many of those last a week or so, it's more than plenty!). Typically, the type of event will dictate how many people show up. Sure, the size of the festival matters, but not as dramatically as you might think. So what follows here are some observations (and generalizations) about Pagan public speaking and the 3 levels of events I tend to turn up at.

1. Indoor Festivals

Even at a smaller indoor festival, I tend to have more people at workshops than at the biggest of the big outdoor festivals. I think the main reason for this has to do mainly with "focus." People tend to go to indoor festivals (like Pantheacon or Convocation) to go to workshops. Sure there are parties and other distractions, but workshops are a big deal to most indoor festival goers. 

It's also easy to go to workshops at indoor festivals because you don't have to stand in line to take a shower, or fire up the grill to cook breakfast/lunch/dinner. Indoors your creature comforts are generally taken care of with very little muss or fuss. Workshops are also generally close by, since you are in a hotel and everything is pretty self-contained, you don't have to walk up a hill to get to a workshop.

I'll also add another observation about indoor festivals: even the most advanced subject will draw an audience. Newbie Pagans generally don't cough up the 400 dollars or so it takes to hit an indoor festival. I've seen some less experienced Pagans at indoor festivals, I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but the majority of folks seem to have been doing this for awhile.

2. Outdoor Festivals

Outdoor festivals are full of distractions: like having to find food, or wait for the shower. It's harder to get going when you are living in a tent, not to mention the all night parties and the complete exhaustion that comes with them. I'm not saying you can't draw a lot of people at an outdoor festival (I have in the past), but generally it takes a combination of several things to pull it off. First of all you need to be slotted in at a good time (late morning/early to mid afternoon), and scheduled at a place that's rather central in location. 

A few years ago at Starwood I did a Led Zeppelin workshop that attracted about 75 or so people (a little less than 10% of the entire festival-a pretty good number!). It was at 2:00 pm in the afternoon near Merchant's Row right in the center of the campground. I did the sequel "Heavy Metal and the Occult" the next year, on a rainy day at the most remote workshop location available, I ended up with 30 people. People will literally skip a workshop they might otherwise go to when it's an extra half a mile walk. This kind of stuff just happens, lots of workshops and only so many places to host them, so it's not anyone's fault, sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't.

I've always thought that outdoor festivals were more about what goes on at night anyways. I fret and worry more about things like "Party Like a Rockstar" and "The Morrison Ritual" than I do workshops. The focus is just different when it comes to indoor and outdoor festivals.

3. Local Events

The only place I've ever failed to really attract a crowd is at super local events, like "Pagan Pride Days." This isn't an indictment of those events, just a reflection on the reality of the situation. It's hard to draw a crowd when you are talking about Pan on a picnic bench. 

Local events tend to draw in more "newbies" than the big festivals, and as a result they probably don't want to listen to me babble on and on about Gerald Gardner or Dionysus. That's cool, I don't think I would have wanted to hear that when I was first starting out. Last summer I was invited to Sacramento's Pagan Pride Day, they paid my airfare and took care of me for the entire weekend, and did workshops for about 20 people total. Was I surprised by this? Not at all, it's just how local type events are. 

If you want to draw a big crowd at an event like a Pagan Pride your best bet is to come up with something crafty or magickal. I ended up with a very solid, we are just about out of room, crowd of 25 people at a Grand Rapids Pagan Pride event by doing a "Candle Magick 101" workshop. It's certainly not my area of expertise, but if I'm going to do a workshop I'd rather have people there, and I'm willing to set aside my usual pseudo-academic bullshit to attract one. 

Anyways, that concludes this lovely note. See you around, and most likely at an indoor festival if you are coming to a workshop, and at a ritual if we're outside.