Cloisters Demo

The Medieval Festival at the Cloisters is our largest demo opportunity of the year -- with tens of thousands of people visiting the site, it's a great chance to show off all of the things we do in the SCA, and we'd love your help sharing our passion with the public.

We're looking for more chatelaines, more fighters and fencers, more marshals and heralds, more artists and craftspeople of every stripe.

Please join us on Sunday, September 30th, in Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan.  (And yes, this is the site of the first official event held by the East Kingdom, fifty years ago.)

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Please join us to demo for an audience of approximately 60,000 at the 2018 Medieval Festival outside the Cloisters Museum in Fort Tryon Park.  From 11:30am to 6pm, we will be set up on the "south lawn" as a medieval village, under shady tents with tables, demonstrating medieval arts, crafts, sciences, combat, dancing and singing.

Email the event steward, Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin <231060@members.eastkingdom.org>, if you can help out with demonstrations, including the activity you would like to show, how much table or open space you will need, and whether you can bring tents & tables to the event.

In addition to our demo, there will be dozens of other artisans, re-enactors & performers, as well as an enthusiastic audience fully dressed for the occasion.  Come and enjoy the largest & most audience-participatory celebration of medieval & Renaissance culture on the Eastern seaboard, in its 34th year.  See the festival's website for full details on the fun:  http://www.whidc.org/festival/home.html

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Here’s a summary of some of what we’ll be exhibiting to the public:

The Society of Creative Anachronism will host a medieval village on the south lawn re-creating many aspects of life from the end of classical antiquity through the renaissance.

Learn how you can join our society, master these skills, and immerse yourself in living history, so you can experience “the middle ages as they ought to have been.”

Fine Arts & Practical Crafts:
Visit throughout the day for displays of fine arts and practical crafts, including calligraphy and illumination, spinning and embroidery, glass and metalwork, weapons and armor.

Performance & Pageantry:
Get an up-close look at the music and dance, clothing and ceremony of the middle ages.

• 1:00 Musical Performances And Medieval Sing-Along
• 2:00 Historical World Fashion Show
• 3:00 Medieval and Renaissance Dance
• 4:00 Musical Performances
• 5:00 Crown Provincial Court

Fighting Arena:
Armored fighters protected by steel and leather fight brutal battles with heavy weapons, while fencers engage in rapier duels that are more elegant, but just as deadly.

• 11:30 Fighter Practice & Challenges
• 12:00 Fencing Tournament
• 1:00 Armored Combat Tournament
• 2:00 Fighter Practice & Challenges
• 3:00 Armored Combat Championship
• 4:00 Fencing Tournament

Youth Activities:
Discover the kinds of games kids would have played five hundred or a thousand years ago.  Watch our trained child warriors fight to the (pretend) death, or let your own youngsters try some target practice with our foam-padded swords and spears.

Site Opens: 11:30 am (setup begins at 9:00am)
Site Closes: 6:00 pm (followed by teardown)