Quote:and a bit of luck.
shitton of luck
What would it take to ORGANISE a USA event.
Based on the only international slinging event, to ever be held in the united states - to date.
It takes:
1 retired engineer with 32 acres in wyoming
(pretty central) and enough spare cash and determination to hold an international slinging event.
1 englishman who's there to work AND cook
(my first job was to build the bbq george had bought for me to use) for 2 weeks.
So we had:
Loads of private land.
Onsite catering and acommodation and plenty land for camping, rv's etc
The world record distance slinger: Larry Bray
Plenty of local newspaper coverage
Permission to play sling golf on the local golf course - powell golf course.
Commemorative T-shirts and hats.
We did it right.
The sling ranges were made from threaded 2 inch metal pipe. I did the cutting and threading and heavy manual labour, george did the welding.
We built two full size ranges where the uprights slotted into recessed holders in the ground.
We also built a pretty large canopy - it got pretty hot.
It also got blown away - almost. At one point I was hanging on to an edge with my feet off the ground !
So who turned up ?
larry bray and his wife and nephew. A guy whose name I can't remember - but it's in the slingfest threads.
And 2 locals who turned up on the last day as we were packing everything up.
So, that's why YOU do NOT do it like that.
If you want people to turn up - FIRST you need to make sure there is a local group of sling enthuisiasts.
So a target and tennis balls and lots of slings at local events where people will already be.
The first sling event I held in england.
I made two target frames, with balearic sized netting and bullseye - although at the time I had no idea balearic slinging even existed. It's just a nice size for a target
I had a great field at a local farm - in the exact geographical centre of england.
I put of food and drink and hired a portaloo.
About 15 people turned up. We had a great day - check out the threads.
I gave the slings away and paid all costs myself.
Business was much better back then and I'm a generous soul by nature.
The third event I did was with david morningstar at a bushcraft camp in wales.
And was arguably the most succesful.
I took a new target and a bunch of tennis balls and sockballs, a lot of leather and all supplies and kit to make slings with.
We ran a sling making class the night I got there, a teaching sesion the following day and a competition on the third day.
So everyone who wanted a sling had one and had done some practice.
I charged £5 for leather and paracord to make a sling - it almost covered my petrol for the weekend. The arse end of wales is a long way from where I live.
And we ran the very first sling training and competition to be held in the uk
(at slingfest uk - we didn't have a formal competition) We had a captive and inclined group of people and it was very succesful.
And also very cheap to run.
The moral of this story is two fold:
1) where you hold an 'event' is a LOT more important than how much you spend to set it up.
2) If you Build it, they will NOT come.
So what you need is:
1) lightweight target that is easy to move around and set up.
2) a car to move the target around in.
3) somewhere you will find people - if they are already interested in history and primitive ballistics, survival craft, bush craft - all the better.
What NEEDS to happen.
Is for each and every forum member to make a portable target, make a load of basic slings - see
https://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1344443925Butterfly slings with my loop attachment method can be made from any reasonable tough fabric. tent canvas, denim etc - it does not need to be leather.
Buy a bunch of used tennis balls - I think I paid 30 pence per ball - all quality ex-tennis club balls. Look on ebay.
And just go find somewhere to set up and promote interest and recruit slingers.
You can sell slings. make them cheap and sell a sling and tennis ball for 5-10$
If you're lucky it'll cover any costs.
If you're Uwe and can charge a LOT more money for your slings - it'll make you rich
there is little or no point in trying to hold a big international event, without a pre-existing large base of slingers to draw upon.
And at the moment we are still very much at the early stages of creating a large enough group of slingers.
So what is really needed is a LOT of small events to build up numbers.
When you have local numbers you can think about running regular weekend or evening meetings and form a club.
At THAT point - where there are clubs in lots of places. You might think about running something on a more ambitious scale.
But - honestly - at the moment it really is not worth the expense and considerable effort required to run a large event yourself.
Trust me on this
Stop thinking:
Where can I ATTEND a sling event ? And start thinking:
Where can I HOLD a sling event !