Geocaching Event At Another Festival

[wildrumpus]

 

I created a post a while ago asking how to set up an geocaching event at a festival Oct. 2 at a park where i am on the board. the response indicated it would not be okay to have a geo event when there is some other purpose to the festival.

 

here's the problem. i live in indiana. there are almost no events in this area and i think it would be fair to say that geocaching is just getting started here in the flatlands. even if i planned an autonomous event, i'm not really sure how many people would show up. cache logs in a five-county area are often all signed by the same teams, none of whom i've met in person.

 

so, can't i have a little corner of the festival for this? a few special event caches throughout the 200-acre primitive park and neat prizes. it would be just a chance for some of the cachers to meet eachother. there will be other things to do, but maybe a special place for geocachers to meet and eat. i think maybe if i made a meeting time of about two hours long and the rest of the time, if any cachers even show up, they could search for my caches or check out the rest of the small, small festival. (i think we had 300 people last year -- we're not talking about carnival rides and elephant ears here).

 

the trouble is, of course, that i have never been to an event cache myself. but i don't really see anyone within driving distance rushing to host one around here.

 

thanks for your help,

wildrumpus

[+Prime Suspect]

There aren't too many rules on event caches, but those they have are pretty explicit: "Event caches are gatherings for geocachers by geocachers to discuss geocaching. (...) While a music concert, a garage sale, a ham radio field day or an orienteering event might be of interest to a large percentage of geocachers, such events are not suitable for submission as event caches because the primary focus of these events is not geocaching and the primary attendees are not geocachers."

 

I'd suggest starting small. Create an event that's a casual get-together at maybe a local restaurant. Post it at least 1 month in advance. Publicize it in the regional forum section. You might be surprised at the turnout.

[+Kfam]

I think it's a great idea to have an informative booth with demonstrations at a festival. The best place to start would be asking your local approver. Not the knowitalls in the general forums. If some of these folks are raining on your parade, just don't list it as an event. Let the people in your regional forums know about it and I'm sure some will come visit or even help.

Check the GPS in Education forums for ideas and resources. Perhaps Groundspeak may help out with promotional materials. Just ask them!

There is one of these being discussed in the NW forums now with no problems.

Good luck!

[+Renegade Knight]

My experience in seeing the discussions play out is exactly what Prime Suspect has aleady said. That's how the site has chosen to view cache event caches.

 

The place to start is with your local approver. You may get lucky and have an approvable angle on the situation.

["Paws"itraction]

There is an IN-GEO cache event in September, but unfortunately it is in Indianapolis.

If you want to get to know the "local" cachers a bit better, you may want to try (if you haven't already) joining the Fort Wayne Cacher's Yahoo Group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ftwaynegeo

 

It's rather quiet right NOW, but it'll probably pick up after Labor Day and when the bugs & Poison Ivy go down. Genoist and Dogvetusa sponsored our Spring picnic at Chain-O-Lakes park, and they seemed rather interested to have another one in the area. I know that a lot of people from the Fort Wayne & environs area love to attend Geo-Events (and you're not that far away - I checked).

I know for sure that I'd do everything in my power to attend a geo-event if it's close enough!

Where's your festival, if I may ask? Are there any caches near it? We might be able to come out and say "hi", if nothing else, and sneak a little caching in at the same time.

[+RPW]

There are also people in the South Bend area to connect up with. A spring event just north of South Bend was well attended. See GCHPB3. You might be able to get some interest in jointly sponsoring an event cache. It is always more fun with at least a couple people doing the work.