Auckland Longsword

Thank you to Auckland Sword and Shield for hosting the AAA tournament this weekend. Thank you to Nic, Alen, Dean and the crew behind the scenes for an excellent competition.

Auckland Longsword had 5 competitors this weekend and although only four of us could compete in Longsword, we had a great showing across many events. Well done to Alex and Reef in particular for taking part in their first competition and doing excellent. And it was President (Chris) vs Secretary (Christian) in the semi-finals for longsword with Christian just taking the final's spot.

LONGSWORD - Reef 11th, Alex 9th, Chris 3rd, Christian 1st (/13)
SIDESWORD - Reef 14th, Aniis 11th, Chris 5th-tie, Christian 3rd, Alex 1st (/15)
SABER - Reef 8th (/9)
CONT. SIDESWORD - Reef 5th-tie (/5)
MIXED WEAPONS - Chris 9th, Reef 5th-tie (/14)

The continuous and mixed weapons categories were a heap of fun to participate in and watch. We are looking forward to seeing them again next year.

Congratulations to all fencers who competed. And a big shout out to Reef for not just taking part in his first competition but also competing in every event - legend!

Two weeks ago, we held the inaugural March Hares event. A two-day longsword event featuring a tiered tournament with an emphasis on safety followed by workshops.

After the event we collected attendee feedback from which we've decided to share key takeaways as well as the average rating of specific areas. We are happy with the feedback and are glad to see constructive criticism, highlighting some key areas for improvements.

We had a miscommunication with one of our volunteer staff which led to an assistant judge performing head judge responsibilities for a few exchanges. We addressed this on the day as soon as we were made aware of the mistake.

On the second day we mislabeled one of the catering options. Unfortunately, this led to some fencers with dietary restrictions being left without clear options. We are very sorry for this mistake and will be paying close attention to how we label and clearly group our catered meals.

The final consistent piece of feedback we had was about the noise levels on the second day. Unfortunately, we could not control this and will be looking for an exclusive venue next year.

Additional considerations we’ll be taking forward include: more clearly communicating event details further in advance and potentially allowing wider fencer protests for judge calls. If anyone has further feedback, we’d love to hear from you! You can message us here or email us directly.

Thank you to everyone that attended March Hares. We hope to see you back in 2026.

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In the interest of transparency, we have included the average ratings from our feedback form.

Event Communications 4.4/5
Registration Process 4.7/5
Venue 4.3/5
Ruleset 4.4/5
Judging 3.7/5
Safety 4.8/5
Catering 4.5/5
David's Workshop 4.8/5
Nelson's Workshop 4.4/5
Social 4.7/5
Value for Money 4.4/5
Overall Experience 4.7/5
Would you attend again? 83% Yes11% Maybe 6% No