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Archeon 3D
Jan. 31st, 2011 09:47 amAn archery competition in a theme park... that must sound weird. But then, Archeon isn't your average theme parc.
Because of the winter, the park is closed and that made it a perfect opportunity for the Scuttery of Saint Sebastian and the NVVTH (Dutch organisation for traditional archers) to organise a 3D archery competition. It was a good thing there weren't any visitors though, because sometimes the range would just cross a path. And they made good use of obstacles from the park itself.
There were 30 ranges, with 30 animals to shoot. The styrofoam beasties (ranging from lions, bears and tigers to hawks, piglets, an okapi, beavers, frogs and even rats! were sometimes hidden in the scenery. The animals were placed sometimes near, sometimes far away.
Each group of approximately 7 people would start at a different range. We started at range 24, in the Roman arena. From the top tier of the arena we'd have to shoot a tiger that was hidden behind some christmas trees. I started off well with 11 points there!
NoKey focusing on his shot
The points were arranged a little differently than with a normal competition. There was a "kill" zone on the animal, usually on the torso, which would be 20 points max. Any other hit would just count as a "hit" with a maximum of 17 and minimum of 5 points. Points were awarded according to the arrow used. The first arrow is the most points (20 for a kill, 17 for a hit) and the third arrow the least (5 for a hit).
At #25, (our second target) I immediately lost one of my arrows. Out of a set of six, I was a little dismayed. It probably went through the fence there: plastic with vertical logs and some creeper growth. But I bought another set of arrows at Fairbow later. 12 bamboo arrows with the same colour flights.
#26 was where we had to climb up on some wooden construction in order to shoot over a wall. The wood was slippery and because of the shape of the thing it was hard to keep a proper archer's pose. It was just the first of many ( intersting conundrums )
Despite not all ranges being as safe as I'd like to see them, the organisers tried their best to make sure we were all safe. With 90 to 99% of the people there being very careful and aware of what they were doing, there were no incidents I know of, but some arrows flew out of the park through the fence.
One particular incident was scary: the "Hunter" target in the Iron Age. The beaver we were aiming at was at the other side of the ice, and when Fred from our group loosed his arrow it bounced off the ice, over the beaver and the boulder behind it, only to land in the road some four meters to the right of the next group.... Scary shit!
Still, it was a wonderful day, made better by our awesome group. Henk, Willem, Fred and Gijs from Helmond, who were marvellous archers and fun to boot. People nagging about points can make or break your contest, and I was glad to see that none of us really cared about the points as long as we had a fun day.
See the rest of the pictures over on Flickr!
Because of the winter, the park is closed and that made it a perfect opportunity for the Scuttery of Saint Sebastian and the NVVTH (Dutch organisation for traditional archers) to organise a 3D archery competition. It was a good thing there weren't any visitors though, because sometimes the range would just cross a path. And they made good use of obstacles from the park itself.
There were 30 ranges, with 30 animals to shoot. The styrofoam beasties (ranging from lions, bears and tigers to hawks, piglets, an okapi, beavers, frogs and even rats! were sometimes hidden in the scenery. The animals were placed sometimes near, sometimes far away.
Each group of approximately 7 people would start at a different range. We started at range 24, in the Roman arena. From the top tier of the arena we'd have to shoot a tiger that was hidden behind some christmas trees. I started off well with 11 points there!
NoKey focusing on his shot
The points were arranged a little differently than with a normal competition. There was a "kill" zone on the animal, usually on the torso, which would be 20 points max. Any other hit would just count as a "hit" with a maximum of 17 and minimum of 5 points. Points were awarded according to the arrow used. The first arrow is the most points (20 for a kill, 17 for a hit) and the third arrow the least (5 for a hit).
At #25, (our second target) I immediately lost one of my arrows. Out of a set of six, I was a little dismayed. It probably went through the fence there: plastic with vertical logs and some creeper growth. But I bought another set of arrows at Fairbow later. 12 bamboo arrows with the same colour flights.
#26 was where we had to climb up on some wooden construction in order to shoot over a wall. The wood was slippery and because of the shape of the thing it was hard to keep a proper archer's pose. It was just the first of many ( intersting conundrums )
Despite not all ranges being as safe as I'd like to see them, the organisers tried their best to make sure we were all safe. With 90 to 99% of the people there being very careful and aware of what they were doing, there were no incidents I know of, but some arrows flew out of the park through the fence.
One particular incident was scary: the "Hunter" target in the Iron Age. The beaver we were aiming at was at the other side of the ice, and when Fred from our group loosed his arrow it bounced off the ice, over the beaver and the boulder behind it, only to land in the road some four meters to the right of the next group.... Scary shit!
Still, it was a wonderful day, made better by our awesome group. Henk, Willem, Fred and Gijs from Helmond, who were marvellous archers and fun to boot. People nagging about points can make or break your contest, and I was glad to see that none of us really cared about the points as long as we had a fun day.
See the rest of the pictures over on Flickr!
