In 2010, I spoke at a meeting for the Maine Association of Agricultural Fairs to discuss lumberjack contests. The lack of both information and enthusiasm from some of the fairs prompted me to get on my soapbox and write this article about running a good lumberjack contest. Most of the information that is included in this article is not original, but rather a conglomeration of existing methods with my own style added. Some of this may be controversial for those in the woodchopping community, but sometimes controversy can be a good thing. This article will focus on how to run an entertaining competition and won’t include all the logistical details of running a contest such as prize money, rules and wood procurement. Please keep in mind that my suggestions are meant for lumberjack contests in North America. I’ve never been overseas to compete and don’t have the first-hand knowledge to speak intelligently about shows on other continents.
First, I think it’s important to make a distinction between large and small competitions. They are completely different animals, and therefore must be approached differently. Many of the concepts that can be applied to smaller shows are not applicable to the larger shows such as Fryeburg or Boonville.
Large Competitions
Large competitions can be defined several different ways including crowd size, prize money and the amount of competitors. The most important factors are crowd size and the number of competitors because they are limiting factors when running a show. You can’t run a show efficiently with two people per heat when you have over 60 competitors. Likewise, crowd interaction is going to be somewhat ineffective when you have thousands of spectators at a fair like Fryeburg. Competitions like these need to focus on running efficiently. As long as you have a good announcer, it will be entertaining for the crowd. Also, because the level of competition is higher at these events, less effort is needed to keep the crowd engaged.
Small Competitions
The vast majority of lumberjack competitions fall into this category. I won’t attempt to apply an exact definition, but less than 60 competitors is a good starting point. This is where most of the change is needed and the rest of this article is geared to these types of contests.
The #1 rule to running a good lumberjack competition is ENTERTAINING THE CROWD. That’s it. Pretty simple, right? If you can keep the crowd entertained, everything else falls into place. Let’s take a look at the top five reasons that lumberjack contests fail:
#1 Poor Announcing
How many times have you been to a show when the announcer just calls off the names of the competitors and then gives a countdown to start the event? After that, repeat the process. Really? Come on, any bum off the street could do that! The announcer’s job should be to keep the crowd entertained during the down-time between events.
#2 Event Selection
I can’t stress the importance of event selection enough. You need to have a variety of events to keep the crowd interested. New England shows are the worst in this regard. A typical contest in New England will feature the underhand, bowsaw, logroll, xcut, jack’n’jill, axe throw and then 3 or 4 chainsaw events. Seriously, 3 or 4 chainsaw events! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a crowd disperse because the 2nd hour of chainsaw events in a row is starting. I usually use that time to walk around and see the rest of the fair, and I’m a competitor!
——Sidenote——-
In the interest of full-disclosure I must admit that I don’t particularly like chainsaw events. I think this is due to the way that they are commonly run in my area, they drag on forever. That being said, I do recognize the importance of having a hot saw event at every show. For many spectators, the hotsaw is the most exciting part of the show. Hotsaw competitors are some of the most passionate people in the sport, and certainly deserve to be recognized. I’m simply of the opinion that the chainsaw events can be run in a more engaging manner, and I will go into greater depth on the subject in Part 2 of this article.
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#3 Looks like crap, smells like crap, must be crap!
No matter how good your announcer is, unless the contest is structured well, it’s going to fail. You need to run your events efficiently, minimize down-time and keep the volunteers organized. Otherwise, the announcer ends up being the one organizing the contest and his/her focus is taken off of what is most important- entertaining the crowd. I fall prey to this every year when I emcee collegiate competitions.
#4 Long Drawn Out Events
Not all events are created equal. Some events can become boring because of their time consuming nature. Axe throw is a perfect example. If you have 40 axe throwers, it can take over an hour to run that event alone. The solution? Have preliminaries before the show begins, and then feature only the top performers in the finals during the show.
#5 Not Considering the crowd when planning a particular event
Events can be geared towards the crowd to make them more exciting. The log roll (dry land w/ peaveys) is much more exciting for the crowd if you select a fast log. Using a gigantic crooked hickory log may sound good in theory, but how is the crowd going to react when the event drags on forever(pun fully intended) because each team has to struggle to cross haul? It slows down the show and the crowd loses interest quickly. At the Stratham Fair in 2010, they featured a pulp throw for distance event with a 5″ diameter freshly cut hemlock log. The crowd was bored with the event because the longest throw was only 23′. Had they used a smaller dry cedar log, the crowd would have been awed by throws of over 60′. It’s all about presentation.
That concludes Part 1 of this article. In Part 2, I will tackle exactly how to run a contest to address many of the problems that I’ve mentioned. The focus will be on contest structure, announcing, and crowd interaction. I’ll leave you with a quotation from David Foster in The Power of Two:
“Without all this [referring to changing the status quo], our ancient sport will surely die out over the coming years, and it is time now to do something about it, but we need professionals to get this dragged into the modern world, professionals expert in promotion, rather than ageing ex-axemen who, though meaning well, are too conservative in outlook and too inexperienced in the areas essential for the real development of this ancient sport.”