One reason why we exist is to help improve battle events by making shared advice about how to avoid problems available to anyone who wants to sponsor or organize an event. We think we can help by providing feedback about how events have--or have not--worked for spectators.

We've gotten our experience over the past 10 years from attending many battle reenactments in a half dozen states--from the tiny to the gigantic, from Rhode Island to Tennessee, including most battles held in the Gettysburg area. We were already familiar with the July re-enactment site at Bushey farm because we attended last year's 135th there.

Some of the problems discussed here may seem obvious, common sensical, and not in need of as much explanation as we give them. But if that were really true, the event problems we talk about would not have existed in the first place.

We believe certain criticisms are needed now because the Gettysburg organizers have announced a followup re-enactment which will take place in late September on a site we are very familiar with, the Yingling farm. We hope that our comments will help avoid the problems of July's event from being repeated in September.

Although we deeply appreciate the risks and hard work of putting on a civil war battle event, sometimes a 'thank you for your efforts' must be followed by a critique. We hope that sooner or later all event organizers will have learned how to avoid all the basic problems. Our criticisms may at times appear harsh, but we hope them to be helpful. Of course there is always room for differences of perception and opinion on these issues.

An undeniable fact of life is that any sponsors of Gettysburg battle events over the July 4th weekend are always in a position that organizers of events elsewhere don't have. They can take advantage of the fact that many tourists who arrive day after day don't know about the scheduled events, have no experience with battle events, but are immediately attracted to the idea.

With that special advantage comes special obligations to make sure that the inexperience and sometimes lower expectations of newcomers to reenactments is not used against them.

We welcome responses to our criticisms from the event's sponsors and organizers and will give them equal space to air their views. We also welcome the views of anyone who attended the July event, especially spectators who attended on the days we weren't there: Saturday and Sunday, July 3rd and 4th.