Steel Jam takes place at the Clermont City Center. the address is:

620 W Montrose St, Clermont FL 34711

theres a ton of parking behind the venue, but you can also park street side if you’re edgy. Get it?

So, the event is technically 9am-6pm.

BUT

We really appreciate help for set up and breakdown, so if you get there at 8am to help us set up and/or can stay until 6:45 or 7pm to help us break down, you will have a special place in our hearts. That said, if you have a long drive, hit the road when you gotta.

We usually go to Suncreek Brewery after we break everything down, because it’s practically within eyeshot and there are lots of food options.

The address is:

790 W Minneola Ave, Clermont, FL 34711

Are you there but cant find us? Make sure you didn’t go do Clermont Brewing Company. that’s a different spot.

Maybe!

HEMA Ratings has a fairly narrow set of weapons that can be rated, but we try to have at least one rated tournament within each Steel Jam event. this fall in line with one of our goals: to get folx in the Florida area on HEMA Ratings, so that when they go abroad to other events, they aren’t unknown to the system.

That said, one of our other goals is to try fun, unusual rulesets/weapons, so often those cant be rated on HEMA Ratings. So, like, just have fun.

Steel jam is designed to be a mid-level state/regional event that is accessible to as many people in the state as we can make it. We want to get fighters who are interested in testing their skills comfortable with competing, which is why we strive to create straightforward rulesets, good attitudes, and positive vibes.

Florida has historically had a somewhat scattered HEMA event scene, so there are plenty of great fighters that have never done much judging or directing, which we will need if we’re ever going to run a larger regional/national event in the area. To that end, creating opportunities to practice and hone community members’ abilities and comfort levels with those roles is a big priority for us.

Furthermore, we want to cultivate the tournament planning scene in Florida, which means that if you have an idea for a tournament ruleset, reach out to us about it! We’ll try to work with you on developing it into something viable for a Steel Jam event. We’re small and nimble, and we run this often enough that we can try less conventional things. Will it draw a lot of people? Maybe, maybe not. But we see value in trying something new and interesting, so let's get wild and see what we come up with.

Steel Jam’s success is what we decide it is. We don’t want to grow it into a huge, super expensive, multi-day event. When we try that, it’ll be a whole different animal. For Steel Jam, we want to make our own playground for fun experiments, good natured competition, and opportunities for all of us to grow.

And most importantly, the biggest goal: have fun. Fight competitively, do your best - yes, all of that. But make sure you’re having fun while you do it, and make sure that the other people you interact with have fun being around you. This is the most important thing.

Well, we prefer not to ask! But why wouldn’t you want to?

So here’s the thing: HEMA events only happen if fighters are also willing to help run things. Which means that if we want our beloved hobby to grow, we have to put in the effort to fill roles like judging and directing, not just slinging steel at each other.

Will you suck at it? Maybe. Probably! That’s cool though. We all have to get through a certain amount of suckiness before we get good at anything. And I promise you that at Steel Jam, even those who judge poorly are appreciated for their willingness to try, rather than watching someone else do it.

We <3 you, we <3 those folx who are willing to put themselves out there to help, and we <3 those who might not be great yet, but they want to get good.

You don’t.

Actually, it’s a cardable offense to argue a call in favor of yourself.

But more to the point, Steel Jam isn’t about to fly in any professional judges from Europe, or whatever. One of the points of this whole thing is to improve our abilities to judge, direct, table, and run a tournament, so bad calls are going to happen (spoiler alert, they happen at all events). We have plenty of new judges, and I promise you they’re doing their best. The last thing we want to do is discourage them, because you cant have fun HEMA events without judges.

But here’s the good news: everybody gets more or less the same number of bad calls, except for those who fence really cleanly, so make it clean and it’ll be easier to get the calls right.

Also, don’t forget the golden rule: have fun.