This Sunday a friend and I put on a medieval swordfighting/history show, trying out the version of our show that we are going to be performing to youth/community groups in the future (one booking, another possible on the way).
We had some useful feedback on timings and what bits work/don't work. It's clear that mixed age ranges of children work less well than single age ranges - hence it's probably better to work with 7-10 year olds and older groups separately. I don't know if it's our mental level but we seem to get a better response from the smaller ones anyway.
The shield wall demo was good (see photos) and I think the personal heraldry activity we have planned would be a useful chnage of pace/craft thingy too. The scrolls that my friend put together to reward people for taking part in an activity were well received too - proved a good colouring-in opportunity for one small child too.
On the whole I think it went really well and will get even better in the future, will probably help that we are performing again next week as repetition always helps..
Photographs:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50501&l=a7f5d&id=706175940 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50506&l=a3092&id=706175940