P.A. SYSTEMS

There's disagreement about the value of public address systems.

They didn't use a P.A. system at Spring Hill, Tennessee in 1995, so there was no central source of information on the field--no-one to prep us on history, no-one to announce lost parents. But, other than the wind, it was blessedly quiet. The battle was grand and spoke for itself. Without competition, we could hear its special quiet voice.

Put a mic in front of some announcers and a re-enactment becomes a sports event, with mindless play-by-play and color commentary. Announcers can become perpetual trivia machines, unable to enlighten and incapable of shutting up no matter how compelling the battle action is. We've seen this inability to let the battle be itself at event after event. Once, at Cedar Creek, after lots of mic-time, we heard a young boy say "Dad, are we for the blue team or the other one?"

NEVER put mics on troops in the field. This bright idea--straight out of Monday night football--was tried a while back at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, Virginia, by organizers out of Gettysburg. What came across the speakers was definitely not period language!

P.A. is not only inauthentic but terribly distracting during a battle. Most people don't realize that sound, not vision, draws your attention most in a lot of situations. Try watching tv normally, then with no sound, then while listening to a radio talk show. See where your attention goes.

If you set up a P.A. system, use it for crowd control, background information on what will be re-enacted and what it means--and, of course, to find lost parents. But don't hawk vendor-wares. And NEVER blab during the battle. That's majorly inauthentic.

ON THE RADIO

NEVER simulcast battle action on the local radio station. It might seem a way to avoid paying for a P.A. system. But on the spectator line it's maddening with dozens and dozens of radios at different volumes around us, creating strange echos, reducing words to a garble. Radios get turned up louder once shooting starts. And, of course, the commercials, news and weather cut in regularly.

And we inevitably get a surprisingly large number in the crowd who--having been given permission to have the radio on during the battle, like everyone else--decide to tune in to alternate stations during the battle, perhaps to rap groups or heavy metal bands.

Back || Next

Main || Our Side || Your Turn || Event Links