My First ____ was held at the Palo Alto County Fairgrounds in Emmetsburg, Iowa over the course of August 18, 19, and 20 of 2023. The main day was August 19th and we had 18 classes taught, three vendors, and 115 guests including His Royal Majesty from Calontir and His Royal Majesty from Northshield. We held a five course feast at an outdoor event that had a 107 degree heat index; those who stayed for the feast were not the feint of heart!
During court two of our guests were awarded their Award of Arms, one of our group was awarded her Award of Arms, three of our own members were elevated to the Order of the Torse, and a dear friend of the group was elevated and honored to be appointed Herald Extraordinary. On top of that, we had almost a dozen people who received a gift from His Royal Majesty for attending their first event.
We also had fighting, including a King War between the two attending Royal Majesties and their attending knights and warriors. We also had the Broken Harp in attendance which was epic, and we are grateful for them making the trip.
It was a momentous event and it laid the groundwork for all of our future events! We are looking forward to hosting another event in the Spring of 2024 and potentially the fall of 2024 as well! If you couldn’t make it because of the timing (we were sandwiched between Pennsic and Cattle Raids) or the heat or other factors, we are looking forward to seeing you at our future events!
We could go on for thousands of words for everything that this event was, everything that we did, and every dignitary, every Excellency, and every new friend that attended the event, but ultimately that will all be lost to the fog of time.
Let it be known that we are extremely proud of the event that we hosted, we are grateful for our Sponsor group of Heraldshill for their help in making it happen, and the feedback we received was extremely positive and added a lot of fuel to our fledgling shire’s fire.
