The staff of Pennsic University stared at each other - figuratively - over at Slack where we do the planning. It's all well and good to just push Pennsic 49 another year but, even with the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, we already had hundreds of classes in Thing and well over a hundred instructors working on their classes. With so many people sheltering at home or already committed to a two week vacation during the Pennsic dates, surely this was the perfect time to teach a class, practice a skill, or learn something new.
What could we do? At Pennsic we have the ability to schedule 20 and more tents at the same time, all day, every day, for ten days: in a normal year at least 2000 classes. The thought of trying to duplicate that experience and coordinate that many Zoom sessions gave us a collective anxiety attack. There had to be a different way.
After looking around at the way several kingdoms were handling their classes, we settled on having a Virtual Pennsic University (VPU) YouTube channel. While we knew it would be a challenge to find teachers willing to record themselves so we could share them at VPU, in May we sent out a call for classes. Teachers responded and we have over 60 videos currently available. We also collected links to many other classes being taught across the Knowne World and archived on YouTube. Including these links - found under the channels tab at VPU - there are hundreds of classes available to Virtual Pennsic University attendees.
While you are at "Pennsic" this year, don't forget to head over to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcPqyAoBz-iFNF3T-kQt0eQ and take some classes.
The Virtual Pennsic University Staff
Captain Elias, Mistress Ciara, Mistress Gwynnyd, Mistress Artemisia