HOW TO PUT ON A GREAT DEMO

BY TJ MARSHALL & CAROLINE NORTH

 

Demonstrations by your club are a GREAT way to promote your club and the sport of mounted archery, and have a good time!  They aren’t that much work with a great support group!  Caroline and the Eternal Flame Mounted Archery Club have put on 2 hour long demos at their local Equifest in New York.  TJ and the Sagittarii Horse Archers have put two on in California. Here are TJ’s and Caroline’s Top 6 Tips and lessons learned on putting on a great demo to the public.

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 1. TJ—Demo Horses should have a demo pace.

I consider a demo pace to be the equivalent of riding a slow canter about 20 to 24 seconds on a 90 meter track.  If you are flying by missing targets, it doesn’t look good. Neither does walking and shooting. Luckily my horse has an awesome demo pace. Some do not.

  Caroline—Show a variety of speeds

 Shooting at the canter is the most exciting, but showing shooting at walk, trot, and canter by club members of all ages promotes this sport as all levels friendly, and encourages more folks  of varying riding abilities to take more interest that this is something they too can try!

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2. TJ—Shoot at targets you can hit. 

During the Desert Warriors demo, we brought out the Qabaq. It’s kind of a tough shot for most people and even more so at a demo. The cries of disappointment every time I took a shot at it were audible. The lane was super wide and Moke likes the right side. Well until I tried it left handed. Managed to hit it going Lefty. I guess there is a first time for everything.  There was a front shot, then the Qabaq, then a backshot. I could manage shots at all three, but was only able to hit the front/backs every time. There was enough spacing, but the Qabaq is a tough shot if you don’t practice it regularly.

At the Night of the Horse Demo, I spaced 3  targets 7 meters a part and 7 meters off the rail. I can hit this combo all day long at home, but it was a new arena, at night, and  new sounds and what not so only really managed targets 1 and 3.  Give yourself enough spacing on targets so you are able to hit them 9 out of 10 times

 Caroline—Keep Targets Simple

Since our demo was in an indoor ring and we had to tear down and set up super fast, we built a big target wall out of 4 Styrofoam targets and taped regulation faces to it.  This keep things safer and allowed us to shoot with more confidence.

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3. TJ—Be Visible

In my club we all wear Royal blue. We stand out. Make yourself stand out. Don’t look like a bag of rags. Even ground crew should be flying the    colors. Our demo wasn’t until 7 PM but we got there at 8 AM. We rode around twice with our bows and arrows. We were definitely noticeable. Hip and back quivers are definitely a good eye catcher. I use a polish quiver to shoot, but Hip and back quivers draw attention.

Caroline—Wear the Costume

Wear the costumes, traditional grab and fancy tack if you have it.  We were also invited to participate in a breed parade in the middle of the day.  Keep it fun and imaginative, it’s one of the things that sets mounted archery apart from the uniformity of other disciplines.

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4. TJ—Have a Booth

Our booth consisted of a 6 foot table on 12 inch pvc pipe extension legs. This helped facilitate taping the MA3 flag to the front of it and making it stand out. We added a couple of our club flags to it and also placed 3 targets out. Anyone driving by noticed us. At our booth we had business cards and a sign up sheet for a couple of our intro clinics. I’d probably add a laptop with some good video footage on loop as well as a 6x6 pvc framed archery net for potential ground shooting demos. Plus you can hang stuff off of it making yourself more noticeable.

Caroline—Organize a Booth and Schedule

The great thing about doing a demo is that you usually get a free booth for promotion.  We were indoors so no shooting allowed, but we needed to have a well organized table with a bow rack and arrows so that equipment wasn’t scattered all over the brochures. We also learned that we needed to have at least two or three people man the booth at all times because people would want to have in depth conversations about the equipment and sport,  and touch and feel the differences in between horse archery equipment and hunting equipment.

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5. TJ—Have a back up plan

I had no idea if my awesome Warhorse Moke would do a demo. Back on Ride 25 at the police horse clinic he didn’t much like the sound of music coming from speakers. So at horse archery events we’ve been riding without music. However, getting ready for the demo we rode to music at our last competition. We also got to do the DWSW demo. He rocked it so going into the Night of the Horse, I thought we would do ok. We had 900 or so rides under our belt at the time, so we had a good chance at success.  

I made sure we hand walked all over the site before saddling up and doing those two “Trail rides” for exposure and area familiarization for the horses. Well plus I had Sierra riding River and Maury riding Ranger. They were also my backup  plan. If any of the three horses couldn’t do the demo, then the other two could. All three horses rocked it. Our demo next year will be even bigger. 

Caroline—Be Ready to Adjust

My horses are very experienced at adventuring outdoors, but don’t show, so I was worried how they would react in a loud indoor with bleachers and speakers.  We got there super early to hand walk all over the arena all together. They took to the new arena and crowds as just another adventure, and it helped that we could keep them in a group together at one end and send them down one at a time.  I did use ear-plugs and ear bonnets as a precaution and this really seems to tone down reactivity. We were all prepared to assist each other as a club, and if one horse had trouble, take things down to a lead line level.  You can always show how  you prep a horse at the beginning of their mounted archery training if they have trouble.  We also discovered that our usual lane posts would not stay upright in the shallow footing, and needed to find cones fast to prop up our lane.

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6. TJ—Safety First

We had a safe direction to shoot at so we used regular arrows. Have blunts and FluFlus with blunts just in case. If you aren’t feeling it or your horse isn’t feeling it have a backup plan and or other horse/rider combinations. Worst case you may have to walk and shoot, but cantering is best. 

Caroline—Safety and Permission

We had to clear up what exactly we were doing and with what types of arrows right at the start with the organizers. They wanted us to have a larger insurance policy as well, and we feel for the exposure it was worth the cost of making them happy.  We used flu flus and only did side shoots at speed, as the arena were in wasn’t big enough to have a huge margin of safety.  We also had local newspaper photographers want to get right in the arena and stand in not great spots, so our Track Marshal had to really be one their toes!

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