Stiofan’s Nice and Accurate Guide to Pennsic War Land Agenting
To start with the usual disclaimer, the obvious BIG CAVEAT: I have no official authority and I am in no way speaking for anyone official.
I am in the process of updating this for 2026. I originally wrote it for a friend who was a new land agent in 2023, and hope it may prove useful to others. When in doubt, check the official land rules on land.pennsicwar.org, check the Land Agent’s handbook and the Announcements page (both at the land web site), and check with the Land Office. Every single one of those sources supercedes the accuracy and reliability of my information.
Also, things change. This is being updated as of May 29, 2026. Things may change between time of writing and Landgrab, or you may be reading this in a later year.
Congratulations, you’ve decided to attend the Pennsic Wars. It’s a fun event, lots to do. But you need to figure out camping.
This page is an attempt to take more of a narrative, “day in the life” (or really “months in the life”) approach to describe how to be a Land Agent.
The process takes roughly two thirds of a year, from when Pennsic pre-registration opens on January 1, to when you drive off site at the end of Pennsic, somewhere around mid-August.
To give you a general idea of our plan of attack, here’s what’s going to happen:
For a way more detailed breakdown of these steps, see the section below “Not Quite So High Level Outline of Steps”.
I really just want to get down to the nuts and bolts information, and I know I shouldn’t have to say this, but… I have to say this.
This rule applies throughout the entire process, and really Pennsic in general (and the SCA in general). It applies to understanding and applying the rules, it applies to interacting with Pennsic staff (who are all volunteers who are not only unpaid, they paid, same as you, to spend their vacation volunteering!), and it applies to the actual landgrab negotiation process (see below).
For example, and this is the thing that inspired me to add this section: the past few years there have been some tweaking of the rules as far as troll at landgrab day, land agents, and car passes. The general aim of these rule tweaks is to make the actual landgrab process run faster and smoother (and by all reports, it’s working). The general theme of these rule tweaks is “land grab is for land agents, not for regular Pennsic-goers”.
But the various tweaks have also occasioned various questions, for example many land agents travel with their spouse or domestic partner, or kids, or an assistant who helps with the initial camp setup, etc.
The general answer to all of these questions is to follow the spirit of the rules. The Pennsic staff are not idiots, in both the positive sense – they will use common sense and their discretionary authority – and the negative sense – they will not take kindly to people trying to bullshit them.
Landgrab negotation is when the land agents for a block get together and sort out which camp goes where on that block. I don’t really talk about landgrab negotiation on this page. That’s because the rules change over time, the land changes over time, and the conditions vary very widely from area to area of Pennsic, so there’s no one size fits all rule – except the “act like an adult” rule.
That said, there are some broad principles:
These days the negotiation mostly happens ahead of time, via internet. Officially, you are required to have an email address to use for landgrab, and to respond to emails for landgrab negotiation..
Landgrab is a collaboration, not a competition. We’re all adults and we’re all expected to act like adults. I’m sure the Land Office greatly appreciates us doing so.
In the distant past, the rules explicitly stated that if your block can’t resolve a problem without involving the Land Office, the Land Office would do its level best to make everybody unhappy :-).
First and foremost, if this is your first Pennsic, it’s much better to make plans to camp with an existing Pennsic camping group. Pennsic is a complicated event and setting up a camping group is a complicated process and it’s better to learn about Pennsic on “easy mode” first.
If you’ve never been to Pennsic before and don’t know where to start looking for an existing group to camp with, a) consider your kingdom camp, b) talk to your local SCA group, c) post on the various SCA and Pennsic War facebook groups (there are some links to Facebook groups below, in the “Useful Links” section).
Each kingdom of the SCA has a camp at Pennsic and they generally accept any member of their kingdom who asks to camp with them. I’ve never done this, so I don’t know the details, but I’m pretty sure you have to ask them ahead of time, you can’t just show up at Pennsic without warning. Look into it.
Second, if you definitely want to have your own camping group, it’s still a good idea to attend a couple Pennsics with some other camping group first. Talk to their Land Agent about the process and get advice.
Third, it’s a very, very, very good idea to do some ground work before your first time running your own camping group. Talk to people about different camping blocks and talk to camps in those blocks. This will make you much more prepared to set up your own camping group.
As part of that, it’s a very, very good idea to look at the actual block the Pennsic before hand. Every land block is different and has its own challenges. Large chunks of the geography of Pennsic are… complicated, and it’s very hard to tell from the map what you’ll be dealing with in real life. It’s especially a good idea to walk around during Pennsic, look at where people are camping, and where they aren’t, and ask why a particular spot is empty – there’s very often a reason that spot sucks. If you can look over the area when it’s raining, that’s especially useful.
Note: These next three sections (“Two Big Changes etc”, “Useful Links”, and “Important Dates”) summarize some important and useful info, but if you’re a new land agent they probably won’t make sense to you until you read the rest of this guide, which starts below with the section “What’s A Land Agent”.
The following two big changes from Pennsic 2023 are still in effect for 2026:
Let’s start with the official Pennsic War land web site links, and Cooper’s Lake:
In addition, there are three facebook groups that might be useful.
At and during Pennsic itself, anything official with the Cooper’s is handled at The War Room, which is the small barn in EO3 (near Troll), at the corner of Brewer’s Road and Low Road:
Pennsic preregistration fees can be a bit labyrinthine, so in 2022 I wrote up and just now have updated an an explanation of Pennsic registration fees. You’re welcome to share that with your campers.
Here’s an experimental clickable version of the main Pennsic map, if you click on your block on the main map image, it should take you to the official Pennsic block map at the Land site:
This version is to make it easier to find where your block is on the main Pennsic map. It includes a list of blocks to the right of the map image. If you click on the link for your your block, it should highlight your block in yellow on the main map image.
This might be useful in explaining Pennsic fees to your campers:
Below is a table of important dates for Pennsic 2024, HOWEVER:
IMPORTANT Troll will NOT BE OPEN THURSDAY MIDNIGHT on 7/30/2026 for the start of the second week of pennsic. Historically they kept Troll open for 24 hours starting at midnight of the first Thursday, to allow people showing up for the second week to arrive late Thursday/early Friday and troll in. They’re not doing that this year, according to the Cooper’s Lake website. Troll will open at the usual time, 8am, on Friday morning, 7/31/2026.
See Land website announcements, calendar for full and up to date details, but below is a summary based on that page, in particular upon the calendar section.
| Preregistration | 01/01/2026 | Land website group registration opens opens. |
| 01/05/2026 | Pre-registration of individual campers (via Cooper’s Lake webstie) opens. | |
| 05/31/2026 | Physical Mail pre-registration of individual campers closes. | |
| 06/15/2026 | Online Pre-registration of individual campers closes. | |
| 06/15/2026 | Cooper’s Lake Pre-registration fee refund deadline. | |
|
06/15/2026 to 06/16/2026 |
Land agents should make sure any preregistration errors are solved,
i.e.: a) make any corrections to group details via the Land website, and/or b) get campers to use the Cooper’s Lake registration page to correct which group they’re camping with. |
|
| 06/21/2026 |
Land website disables land agents ability to update groups, Cooper’s Lake website disables campers ability to change their camping group. |
|
| Land Negotiation |
06/25/2026 to 07/04/2026 |
Land Office sends out land allocation emails somewhere in this time
period. 7 days after emails go out, land assignments become final. |
| 07/04/2026 | PMAP invitation (and ineligibility) emails go out.. | |
| 07/08/2026 | PMAP submissions open (if PMAP is allowed for your block). | |
| 07/18/2026 | PMAP submission deadline. | |
| 07/19/2026 | All final PMAP decisions have been made. | |
| 07/24/2026 | Land site Proxy form is closed; emergency proxies only after this date. | |
| Landgrab | 04/26/2026 | First Friday, 9am, “land grab” starts, troll opens for land agents/proxies only. |
| 07/24/2026 | First Friday, noon, troll opens for non-land agents who have preregistered with a group. | |
| 07/24/2026 | First Friday, 9pm-ish?, Land Office will stay open until probably around 9pm for land agents to check in and pick up their packets, but exactly how late Land Office stays open is up to Land Staff. Remember, their job didn’t start on Friday… | |
| Pennsic | 07/27/2026 | First Saturday, troll open as usual. |
| 07/25/2026 | First Saturday, 8am-10am, Land Office is open for late arriving land agents to check in. | |
| 07/25/2026 | First Saturday, 10am-noon, Land Office is open for groups with unsettled negotiations who need dispute resolution. | |
| 07/26/2026 | First Sunday, 10am, Single campers may enter and set up camp. | |
| 07/26/2026 | First Sunday, 10am-noon, Land Office open for assistance and questions. | |
| 07/31/2026 | Second Friday, “second week” begins.* | |
| 08/05/2026 | Second Wednesday, 10pm, Troll closes for 2026. | |
| 08/09/2026 | Sunday, noon, all campers must be packed up and off site. |
Okay, so you’ve bit the bullet, pulled the ripcord, done whatever other metaphors, and now you’re going to either start your own camping group or take over as Land Agent for an existing camping group. Here’s what that’s going to look like.
A Land Agent is the person in charge of:
This process takes roughly 8 months, from when the Pennsic Land Site opens for business for this year’s Pennsic on January 1st to the end of Pennsic (traditionally Pennsic ends the 2nd weekend in August) – the land agent’s job is not over until Pennsic over and the camp site is empty and clean. Hence the “two thirds of a year” in the title, above.
For Pennsic, the Cooper’s Lake Campground is divided up into about 80 large regions called “blocks”. Each block is assigned a number of camping groups. The Land Agents for those camping groups have to plan out and agree on where the camps are situated in their block, and where the boundaries are. This process is generally referred to as “land grab” or often contracted to “landgrab” (which is how I’ll be spelling it in this document).
The negotiating happens hopefully ahead of time, but the Land Agents of a block all have to show up at the beginning of Pennsic and sign off on a map, which they then have to submit to the Land Office, who sign off on the map. Until the camps of a block submit a map and have it signed off by the land office, nobody in that block is allowed to set up camp, or even drive their vehicles onto the campground.
Besides the Land Agent, the Land website lets you designate two optional roles, Proxy and On-Site Rep. I describe these in more details below, but the short version is:
Note that these days, Land has optimized the Landgrab Day process, which includes being rigorous about the use of proxies. If I correctly understand what has been posted publicly by land staff, then:
I’ll describe various aspects in detail below, but at a high level, the entire process is:
Create an account at the Land website (http://land.pennsicwar.org).
Land Agents and anybody who wants to serve as a
proxy or on-site rep
MUST:
Choose your group, you have two options:
Enter your block choice preferences for your group. Note, you have to enter all four block choice preferences or your land registration is not complete.
Get your camp members to:
After preregistration closes, for a few weeks the land website will still allow land agents to make changes to groups and allow preregistered campers to change which group they’re camping with. This will end at some point. Historically it ended a few days before the Land Allocation emails get sent out. There have been some signs that the Land Office will be going the extra mile to sort out honest mistakes, but don’t quote me on that.
A few weeks after preregistration deadline, receive the Land Allocation email from the Pennsic Land Office.
Contact your fellow land agents using the email addresses included in the Land Allocation Email and start discussing/negotiating your camp locations and borders.
Show up at Cooper’s Lake Campground on Landgrab Day, meet up with
your fellow Land Agents and sign off on a block map and submit it to the
land office.
See the list of steps below, in the section titled “Landgrab Day”.
A few things you should bring with you:
Some notes about proxies and how troll works on Landgrab day.
Once your map is signed off by the Land Office, pick up your Land Packet from the Land Office.
Stay on site for the entire duration of Pennsic, in case the Pennsic staff needs to contact you. You can leave site for normal, brief periods (grocery runs, etc) but not overnight. 1. If for some reason you have to leave site for an extended period of time, use the Land website to assign an On-Site Rep. 2. You will need to get whoever you want to serve as your On-Site Rep to create a Land website account, enter their contact info and attest that they’ve read the rules, or they won’t show up in the web form where you would select an On-Site Rep. 3. The On-Site Rep can be assigned or changed at any time for the duration of Pennsic. 4. The On-Site Rep doesn’t have to have anything to do with your Proxy. The Proxy role is only involved in the process up till when the Land Office signs off on your block’s map.
Step one is to go to the land website (land.pennsicwar.org) and create an account for yourself.
You will need to do this to be a Land Agent, or to be a Proxy or an On-Site Rep. IMPORTANT: Every year, regardless of which of these roles you’re going to play, you will need to “update your contact information” and “attest that you have read the rules”, before you’ll be able to do anything else in the system. I’ll talk more about that below.
When you first create your account or login, if you scroll down
you’ll see this (click on the screenshot image to view a larger
version). There are several important links on this page, I’ll talk
about them down below.
I’ll describe each of these steps in detail further below, but the overview is:
First, the two announcement links. The announcement pages are actually pretty important, they’re not for fluff, they’re for practical information. You can also access them via the menu under “DOCUMENTS/Land Announcements”.
Second, “You must enter your email address and phone number.”
You MUST do this every year (even if they didn’t change since last year) or the site won’t let you do anything. You will not be able to register a group, or serve as a Proxy or On-Site Rep, until you have fixed this.
Specifically, until you’ve updated your contact info and attest that you’ve read the rules, your name won’t show up in the web form for Proxy or On-Site Rep. Also note, names on that web form are alphabetical by SCA name, so make sure that whoever needs you to be a Proxy or On-Site Rep for them has your SCA name as you put it into the website.
Third, “Please click here to choose a group”, that’s ultimately what this is all about. Again, I’ll explain that in more detail down below.
Even if you’ve been a Land Agent before, you’ll have to do this. The Land website requires you to re-enter your contact information every year, because too often, in the past, Land Agents never updated their contact information. It got out of date, and then they needed to contact the Land Agent to sort out a problem and there was no way to get in touch with them.
First click on “enter your email address and phone number”. This will
take you off to the Land editperson
page where you can enter your email address and phone number.
Once you’ve updated your contact information, you’ll now need to go read the Land Rules. It’s also a very good idea to read the Land Agent handbook. You’ll find both of them under the DOCUMENTS menu item. Then you can come back to the main page and click on “Attest”, to confirm that you’ve read the rules.
I’m afraid I don’t have a screenshot of the attest page, because I’ve already attested for my account.
Now, finally, you can click on the bit on the Land website that says “Please click here to choose a group”
You can also find this under the menu item “LAND AGENT MENU/REGISTER A GROUP”. Either one will take you to the Group Name Selection Page.
On the Group Name Selection page you have two options, either click on “Existing Groups: Click Here” to go to the page to choose an existing group if you’re taking over as Land Agent for an existing group (or returning as Land Agent) or scroll down to “*NEW* Group Name” and enter a name to create a new group.
Even if you plan to create a new group, it’s probably a good idea to
go to the existing groups page and check to see if your desired name is
already in use.
The “Existing Groups: Click Here” link takes you to a page listing all of the camping group names that were used in previous Pennsics but are not currently in use. This is useful because it helps eliminate spelling errors or otherwise inadvertant different spellings for group names. When it comes time for the Land Office to choose which block your group camps in, they will give preference for seniority, so it’s important to use the same camping group name from year to year.
The returning group page is huge:
Once you either select an existing group name or create a new group, then you need to tell the Land Office which region of Pennsic you’d prefer to camp in.
You get to, and must select four block preferences on the Edit Group page. Until you select all four block preferences, your group registration is not complete.
Ideally you get your first block choice. If that’s not possible (because too many people want to be in that block), you get your second block choice, and so forth.
You do this at the Edit Group page:
Land at Pennsic is divided up into about 80 “blocks”, which you can see at the Pennsic Land web site under “PENNSIC INFO/Block Maps”, which takes you to https://land.pennsicwar.org/map.php.
Here’s a
Clickable Pennsic Block Map which will take you to the block map for whatever block you click on.
You’ll notice that the blocks are all numbered, and also have a one-letter prefix of either:
The M, B, N, E, and W letter prefixes are to give you a quick, rough idea of where the block is located.
X blocks are special blocks that are outside the landgrab process and can be pretty much anywhere the Land Office decides to put them.
Note, besides the main map image at the map web page, there are links (at the top of the Pennsic Land site, just below the main site menus) to get PDF versions of maps of each of the blocks. You’ll need a PDF map of your block later on in the landgrab process, when you and your fellow block Land Agents make the agreed upon map.
The Land Office assigns some number of groups to each block, based on how big the block is, how big the groups are, what blocks the groups have expressed a preference for, and so forth.
The Land Office will assign your camp 250 square feet for each of your preregistered, pre-paid campers. That total amount will be in the Land email that the Land Office will send out a week or two after the preregistration dead line.
Note, that doesn’t mean each camper gets to set up a 25 foot by 10 foot tent. You need some footage for a fire safety buffer (last I looked that was 4’) between your tent and other tents; for an area in front of your tent; for access to the road; for maybe a campfire, etc. Most people in camping groups pool some of that square footage for common uses like a shared campfire area, a shared kitchen, and so forth. See the Land Agent Handbook at the Land website under “DOCUMENTS/Agents’ Handbook” for details.
See also, below, the section titled “Land Allocation Email”.
The Edit Group page is also where you can set your On-Site Rep and Proxy, if necessary. These are optional roles, for when the main Land Agent can’t perform those duties.
The definition and details of these roles have evolved (or been clarified) in recent years, so see the Land website and Land Agent’s handbook for details, but a quick summary is below.
Also, I’ve added a third subsection here, about changing land agents for a group.
The Proxy role is meant as an emergency measure when unforeseen events prevent the Land Agent from being there on Landgrab Day to sign off on the block map.
A Land Agent can login to the land website and set a Proxy for their camping group to handle Landgrab Day duties, i.e. final negotiations with other camping groups and signing off on the block map.
A Proxy can be anybody, even a member of a different camping group or a Land Agent for a different camping group. But note that the Proxy has full authority to negotiate for the camping group they are Proxying for, so you’d better trust your Proxy.
While the same person can act as Proxy for more than one camping group, each camping group can have only one Proxy
After Landgrab Day, the Proxy’s job is over and they have no further role or authority.
The On-Site Rep role takes over the “be the single point of contact between your camping group and the Pennsic staff” duties.
A Land Agent can login to the land website and select an On-Site Rep for their camping group.
Generally the On-Site Rep SHOULD (but not MUST) be a person who is registered to camp with your group, and MUST be present at Pennsic (that’s sort of the whole job).
When the Pennsic staff needs to get in touch with your camp about something, they’ll talk to the Land Agent or the On-Site Rep, whichever they find first.
This literally just came up in a post on the Pennsic War Land Agents Facebook group. A land agent just learned that he can’t be at Pennsic except for the weekends this year, and asked how to hand the Land Agent role over to another member over to another member of his camp.
Andy Kailhofer, maintainer of the Pennsic Land website, responded:
It’s easy peasy. You push the unregister button right on your home page so that you stop being the land agent, and the new person registers the camp.
[…] You just unregister yourself as the land agent and the new land agent picks it up. If you want to stay as the land agent yes, you can name that person as your on-site representative, but if you’re not going to be there you shouldn’t be the land agent.
To clarify a few details:
First, this occurred in early May, well before registration closed. If it happened later, things get stickier and you’re best off contacting the Land Office (email dmland@pennsicwar.org) and getting their help in sorting it out. The earlier, the better.
Second, obviously anyone who’s taking over the Land Agent role for your camp has to do the same Land website account registration dance as everyone else does, which I’m describing in the very next section after this, titled “The land Website Registration Dance for Proxies and On-Site Reps”.
IMPORTANT: Pay close attention to this section and the next one, because every year some people have headaches in trying to get their Proxy/On-Site Rep set up, because they didn’t pay attention to the process I’m about to describe. This boils down to two important things:
If you mess this up, you’ll get stuck trying to figure out why you can’t find the person you want on the dropdown list. It creates extra work and headaches for the Land staff. They’ll still help you solve your problem, but they’ll probably make funny faces at you when your back is turned. (Just kidding; they won’t wait for you to turn your back.)
An important additional tip – the Proxy and On-Site Rep dropdown menus list people alphabetically by whatever they entered as their SCA name, so if your Proxy is “John Smith aka Ulric Lord of the Gyrfalcons”, don’t look for “John Smith” in the dropdown, look for “Ulric” in the dropdown. And if John Smith entered his name in the Land website as “Lord Ulric of the Gyrfalcons”, look for “Lord Ulric” in the dropdown.
In the past, choosing a Proxy and/or On-Site Rep was an informal process, you just chose somebody and made sure you notified the Land Office.
In recent years, there is now a web form on the Land website to choose the Proxy and On-Site Rep. That web form provides a pair of dropdown menus for names for Proxy and On-Site Rep. That also means that anyone who wants to be a Proxy or On-Site Rep needs a Pennsic Land website account, and must jump through the contact info and attestation hoops, every year.
Also, in recent years the Land staff have, ahem, “clarified” the meaning of assigning a land Proxy. It’s no longer a “just in case” thing, it’s an “either/or” thing. If you assign a proxy via the Land website, they are the only person authorized to enter site during the landagents-only stage of landgrab.
For proxies, especially, I strongly recommend you notify the other land agents in your block.
Important: To get their name to show up in those dropdowns, the Proxy/On-Site Rep candidate must create a Land website account. When they do so, they must not (unless they’re also a Land Agent for a different group) click the “click here to register a group”, but must do the same two “confirm contact info” and “attest to having read the rules” steps that regular Land Agents must do every year. Until the Proxy/On-Site Rep candidate does this, their account name will NOT show up in the web form and the Land Agent will be unable to select them as Proxy or On-Site Rep.
Note that the Proxy form on the Land website turns off a couple days before Landgrab Day (see the Land Announcements page on the Land website for specifics). But there is an emergency process for a last minute Proxy, for example if you get into a car accident on the way to Cooper’s Lake (my first turn as Proxy was because of exactly that; the Land Agent for a neighboring camp broke her leg in a car accident on the way to Cooper’s Lake).
See the Land Agent handbook for details for emergency Proxy, but long story short, email dmland@pennsicwar.org, and also email all the other Land Agents in your block so they won’t be surprised. Make sure you include your Proxy’s email address and phone number in both emails, so the Land Office and your fellow Land Agents can contact your Proxy.
Important: Anywhere I write “preregister”, be clear that I mean both sign up via the Cooper’s lake website AND pre-pay. I just noticed that, yes, you can preregister without pre-paying, but everybody I know assumes “preregister” includes “and pre-pay”. Your camping group does NOT get allocated square footage for your tent unless you pre-pay.
Now that you have a group created, you have to get your fellow group members to preregister for Pennsic before the preregistration deadline.
You can have a camping group with only one member (you), it’s still worth doing even if you’re the only one, because you get to set up camp on Landgrab Day and you don’t have to wait until Sunday when they let the single campers in. But of course it’s more fun and easier if you have multiple group members to share the practical and financial costs, etc.
Your camp members preregister by going to the Cooper’s Lake Campground website Pennsic Registration Office page. When your camp members preregister, they have to make sure that they select your camp name from the registration form dropdown.
Pennsic preregistration fees can be a bit labyrinthine, so in 2022 I wrote up and just now have updated an an explanation of Pennsic registration fees.
One important detail, a camp member can preregister and pre-pay for the “second week” (which is really eight days) only, but your camp still gets the full 250 square feet of land allocation. If the camp member decides to arrive at Pennsic early, i.e. before the middle Friday of Pennsic (which is when the second week officially begins), they just pay the extra money at the gate (see the Pennsic registration fees link for more details on the amounts).
You will need to manage (harangue) your group members, because it’s possible (and not uncommon) for people using the the Cooper’s Lake Campground preregistration page to mess up.
As your group members preregister at Cooper’s Lake, their names will appear on your account at the Land website, under “LAND AGENT MENU/View Preregs”.
Every Pennsic there are a few people who make one of two mistakes, and sometimes a land agent who makes a third mistake. A couple dozen cases out of 10,000 or so preregistrations is not that many, but still enough to make headaches for the staff and land agents.
Let’s deal with problem #1 first,
There are two, no three, no four, basic facts that land agents and and camp members need to understand:
Your camp member can go back to the Cooper’s Lake Campground website Pennsic Registration Office, log back in and change their camping group selection at any time until preregistration closes.
You must communicate with your camp members directly, completely outside the Pennsic and Cooper’s Lake systems. Use phone, email, instance messaging, telegraph, semaphores, smoke signals, trumpets, I don’t care what, but the Pennsic Land website and Cooper’s Lake website do not have any standard support for communicating with your campers.
There is no way for the Land Office to directly contact any camper. The Cooper’s website does NOT forward the real name or email of preregistrations to the Pennsic Land website. (The Cooper’s take their customers’ privacy very seriously.)
In the event that a problem can’t be solved by the land agent and/or camper, the Land Office has to contact the Cooper’s and request that they contact the camper. This is a pain in the ass for everyone involved and they’ll make funny faces at you when you’re not looking (just kidding; they’ll make funny faces at you when you are looking).
Land agents ultimately have the final authority over who camps with their group (even up to and during Pennsic).
Mistake type #1 happens surprisingly frequently.
If a camp member fails to select your group, you’ll only know because you communicated with your camp member directly (outside the Land website etc) and they claim they’re registered with the group, but you don’t see their name in the Land website’s list of group members.
Make sure they haven’t changed their SCA name or something, and are showing up in the list under the new name.
If they really aren’t showing up in the Land website list of your preregs, then you need to coach them through going back to the Cooper’s Lake regstration page and fixing it. All they have to do is go back to the Cooper’s Lake prereg page, log in, find the camp selection dropdown, and select your camp properly.
If you see an SCA name you don’t recognize under “LAND AGENT MENU/View Preregs”, first talk to your group members and try to figure it out, make sure it’s not an existing camp member with a new SCA name, or some camp member’s friend or guest, etc.
If you happen to know the person in question, you can, of course, reach out to them and coach them through fixing their prereg. Their land agent will thank you later (and ultimately the Land Office, who would otherwise have to get involved to fix it at the last second).
If you and your camp members can’t figure it out, you can contact the Land Office by emailing dmland@pennsicwar.org, but the Land Office doesn’t have any more information than what they show you on the website. All the Land Office can do is forward the request to the Cooper’s staff. This is a cumbersome, manual process, so try to figure it out yourself before contacting the Land Office.
Even AFTER the preregistration deadline, the Land Office can, up to a point, fix problems and move people around, if you can get the people involved to contact the Land Office. Everbody involved (Cooper’s staff, Pennsic volunteer staff, Pennsic Land Office volunteer staff) wants Pennsic attendees to have a good experience. I believe that window for making changes ends when the Land Office finally sends out the Land Allocation emails, but don’t quote me on that.
Note that, as land agent, you’re the ultimate authority over who is allowed to camp with your camping group. If somebody preregisters without your permission and shows up at Pennsic and wants to camp with you, that’s their problem. You can say take a hike and now they’re a single camper.
Problem #3 is really just a variation on problem #1, the camper selecting the wrong group, but it’s a thorny one (because of the above mentioned fact that the Cooper’s website doesn’t send prereg contact info to Land), a camper registering with a group that has no land agent.
The camp names are saved from year to year, to reduce spelling errors or typos in camp names. Since camp seniority is a factor block assignment (but NOT in camp border negotiations) this can be important. However, the Cooper’s Lake registration web page allows campers to select one of these camp names even before a land agent re-registers the group. This is to allow campers the maximum amount of time to pre-register, but it sometimes results in problems when a camper pre-registers with a camping group but no land agent re-registers that group. Now the camper who preregistered is in a group that literally won’t exist this Pennsic.
Generally the Land Office solves this problem by trying to contact the land agent from the previous year, or in extremity by asking Cooper’s Lake staff to contact the campers (see above for why that’s difficult). Best case scenario, the camping group gets registered, median case the campers move to another camping group, worst case the campers ends up in single camping.
A “ghost registration” is when you intentionally do paid preregistration but there’s never going to be a person at Pennsic to match that paid preregistration, in order to get more square footage allocated for your camp. I’m not entirely sure of the rules here, but I’ve heard that strictly speaking a full price ghost preregistration is not against the rules.
But is extremely clear is that it is strictly prohibited to preregister “ghost children”, i.e. abusing the much, much lower child fee ($40 instead of $215) to gain more land allocation, by preregistering kids who are either fictional or who are real but you have no intention of them attending. Expect the Pennsic Staff to deal with any such abuse harshly, to quote the Land Agent’s handbook.
To be clear, “life happens”, sometimes kids are preregistered but circumstances prevent the kids from attending. This happens, you are not automatically guilty of abusing the lower child registration fee if it does. But the Pennsic staff are not idiots, and they will notice a pattern.
Cooper’s Lake and Pennsic offer a very, very reasonable price for preregistering kids. I don’t know any more about it than the dollar amounts, but my impression is that Cooper’s Lake (and perhaps Pennsic also) offer this incredibly low rate in order to make this event more family-friendly in logistical terms. I don’t have kids myself, but I really respect and appreciate that they do this.
It would be the height of discourtesy to abuse that generosity by registering ghost children.
This is Pennsic. Pennsic is not a tourist trap. Let’s keep that way.
Eventually (see the Land Announcements page at the Pennsic Land site for dates) the Land Office will “push the big red button” and it will generate allocations and block assignments for all of the camping groups.
Each block’s land agents will receive an email listing the camping groups assigned to that block and each camping group’s total square footage allocation, Land Agent SCA name, Land Agent legal name, and Land Agent email address.
Land Agents are expected to contact each other via email and plan out where all the camping groups will camp in the block, agree on a map of that, and be ready to show up for landgrab and submit a map, signed by all of the Land Agents (or their proxies) to the Land Office.
Needless to say, Land Agents are expected to behave like adults. Needless to say, it doesn’t always go that way.
It is strongly recommended that Land Agents provide each other with their mobile phone numbers to coordinate getting together to sign off the map on Landgrab Day. I recommend you get that done early in the process, i.e. right after you get the Land Allocation Email, and get it out of the way while everybody still has attention span to spare. Doing it the last week or so, when everybody’s running around with their hair on fire trying to get ready for Pennsic, is not going to be easy.
In recent years there has been a process called “PMAP”, which stands for “Pre-approved Map” or something like that.
PMAP is a process by which a block can submit their block map to the Land Office ahead of Landgrab Day, for approval. Then the Land Agents can just show up one at a time, whenever it’s convenient, check in with the Land Office, pick up their land packets, and get on with life.
PMAP is an experimental process and it’s not always available, and it’s not available to every block. Generally speaking, PMAP is available at the option of the Pennsic Land staff, when they think it will speed things up. PMAP is supposed to reduce Land staff headaches, not increase them. As one example, if there’s a new group on a block this year, generally PMAP is not available for that block, because the new group won’t know the block terrain and won’t be able to make an informed choice ahead of time.
The Land Allocation email typically goes out several weeks before the start of Pennsic. It’s a good idea to start sorting out the land negotiations as soon as possible.
As I recommended up at the top, it’s a lot easier to go visit the block the year before and talk to the camps already camping there, with an eye for planning ahead for landgrab.
Ideally the Land Agents all sort out the planning and the map ahead of time, by email. Land Agents are required to communicate by email, but can also communicate, at their option, by other means, i.e. phone, facebook group, etc.
You still, unless your block is approved for PMAP and you have your act together enough to get PMAP done, have to do the actual paperwork on Landgrab Day.
Read the Land Agent’s handbook carefully and make sure you follow the rules.
Camp seniority counts for getting assigned to the block you prefer, but block seniority does not give you any special authority in negotiating the map.
The same goes, generally speaking, for camp size. While the Land Office will generally try to inconvenience the least number of people possible, i.e. move a smaller group rather than moving a larger group, camp size does not give you any special authority in negotiating the map.
Note: The Land site map PDFs have graph squares in the background. These can be useful in making sure your camp has the right square footage. Each graph square is 15 feet by 15 feet, making 225 square feet per graph square, or 112.5 square feet per half graph square.
This document is mostly focused on the logistics of the process, but I’ll put some general notes and tips on land negotations at the end.
Landgrab used to be a single day, the first Saturday of Pennsic every year, but in recent years it’s been expanded to start at 9am the Friday before.
I think (ask the Land Office if you want to be certain) that technically Saturday is still Landgrab Day, but you can now show up early, on Friday, if everyone on your block agrees to do so. I believe that technically, i.e. under the rules, land agents are allowed and entitled to wait until Saturday to show up. Of course, if the rest of the land agents on that block want to show up on Friday, that will not make them happy. More important, if land agents fail to communicate that intent to the other land agents, they will severely annoy them (and my guess is that they’d annoy the Land Office and Land One, but again, you’d have to ask them).
On Landgrab Day, the Land Agents show up, get together, agree on a map, sign it, and deliver it to the Land Office, which is usually at the New Barn on the Serengeti.
During this process, land agents may review the map together in person, they may possible walk down to their block together to check on things, to make sure nothing has changed, or to meet on the block en masse to make sure that what they are all imagining about the block matches the actual block.
This year’s Pennsic Land One posted this flow chart for what land
agents should do when arriving at Cooper’s Lake: 
No vehicles are allowed on site and no camp setup is allowed until your block is done with Landgrab.
The following was updated as of January 3, 2024, and was originally sent on July 20, 2023 by DM Land (aka Land One) via emailed to the land agents:
Greetings Land Agents for I wanted to share this for clarification for Land Grab
Land Agent order of Operations. Starts at 9 AM.
1.Prior to leaving have your Camping Authorization form and your Block Map Pre-Printed
2. Park on the battlefield
3. Troll in.
4. Travel down to the Great Hall
5. Go to table Land Agent Check in
6. If you are a PMAP Land agent go to the Pmap table. THEN JUMP TO: 9
7. Find the rest of the land agents on your block and finalize negotiations for your block.
8. Once you have finalized your map, bring it and the rest of the land agents back to the Great Hall to have your map approved by land staff. Once your map is approved you are almost done
9. Helpful and Friendly Land staff will put a sticker on your Camping Authorization Form
You printed that and filled it in right. You will also receive a Ziploc bag that will eventually hold your Camping Authorization Form.
When you receive that Bag it will contain 5 Car Passes. The Car Passes will allow one Vehicle per pass to enter After Noon. Till we open the gates these will be collected.
Everyone in the Vehicle Needs to be trolled in.
Should your camp need more car passes and Land staff hasn’t opened Cooper’s Lake to everyone Please come see Land 1 and I’ll hear your request and help if appropriate.
10. Set up your camp / Post your Camping Authorization Form / Help your neighbors / Have a good Pennsic.
Single campers aren’t allowed to come in and look for camp sites until the first Sunday of Pennsic, after Landgrab Day. I just want to mention this and get it out of the way first, because it’s less complicated than the rest of the information.
Every block, when the Land Office does the land allocation, has some square footage left over for single campers, so there should be single campers spread throughout Pennsic.
Every block, when negotiating their block map during landgrab, are required to set aside an area for single campers. This must be a contiguous block, and it must have road access. It does not have to be the nicest camping spots on the block.
Each group sends a Land Agent for Landgrab Day. Realistically speaking, it’s a long drive, and Land Agents often have spouses, kids, partners, assistants, etc, with them. But the general idea is that landgrab is for, well, landgrab. So you’re not supposed to bring anybody not necessary for landgrab itself. This is not a hard and fast rule, the Pennsic staff will exercise discretion and judgement. Generally it should be one vehicle, the Land Agent, maybe their spouse/partner/kid/etc.
Pennsic starts the last weekend in July. In 2023 that means Friday, July 28.
Nobody is allowed on to site before 9am, Friday morning.
9am to noon is reserved for Land Agents and their immediate parties only to troll in.
Historically people pulled in to Cooper’s Lake and were directed to park their vehicle on the battlefield, then walked down to Troll to pay the gate fee and get their site medallion. In recent years, that process has been revised. Depending on traffic and other conditions, you may be directed to pull your vehicle directly in to Troll and troll in, or you may be directed to park on the battlefield and walk in.
No vehicles are allowed on site (except for parking on the battlefield) and no camp setup is allowed until the block map is submitted to and accepted by the Land Office.
Troll in (see Land Agent “Express” Line, below), park your vehicle on the battlefield, meet up with your fellow Land Agents, walk to the Land Office (usually at the new barn, on the Serengeti) and submit your paperwork.
If necessary, Land Agents can walk to their block to check on things and to sort out details of the block map.
If you have assigned a Proxy, the Proxy’s duties and authority end as soon as the Land Office signs off on your block map.
As I said above, in order to expedite landgrab getting done quickly and smoothly, from 9am to noon on Friday, Troll is reserved for Land Agents or their Proxies, and their immediate party only. But we can’t assume all Land Agents will arrive before noon, so from noon on, Land Agents are encouraged to ask the Pennsic Staff to forward them to the head of the line. The exact form this takes has varied the past few years, there may be a big sign, or a staff member asking people getting into line if they’re Land Agents, or you may have to find a staff member and ask them.
Land Agents should have the rest of their immediate party go through the normal Troll line if at all possible (i.e. if the immediate party includes underage kids but no other adults, the kids can go through Troll with the Land Agent).
Only one person/party per camping group may use the express line. If you assigned a Proxy, the Proxy can use the express line but then you can’t. It’s unclear how exactly this will enforced. In the past, whichever showed up first (Land Agent or Proxy) got to use the express line. From some comments I’ve seen on facebook posts, it’s possible that this year simply setting up a Proxy in the Land website will bar the Land Agent from using the express line.
A recent post on the Pennsic Land facebook group said:
Andy Kailhofer
Okay, I’ve had a chance to talk to Land One after the spring DMs meeting which unfortunately I couldn’t attend this year.
The nine to noon thing on Friday, that’s real. Only Land Agents (or registered proxies), one other assisting adult from the single car, and as many minor children as are registered to those two individuals may troll in and enter site (on foot).
Celestia Vianello can clarify that if I haven’t hit that quite on the head.
From noon onward other people can troll in, but no cars will be allowed through gate unless they have one of the five car passes that each Land Agent will be given once a block is signed off and approved by land. So you could get there after noon, troll in and have to wait. In fact, it’s very likely. Once your block is signed off and the Land Agents or proxies are given car passes which number five per group and are consumed upon use, then, with a car pass you can go in if you are already trolled in.
There will come a time likely during the afternoon on Friday, and here’s the important part, we can’t promise when this is going to happen, that Land one and land two are satisfied that a significant number of blocks are okay and that number is around 90%, but it’s at the discretion of land one, when will [sic] tell the gate to let people in without car passes.
At that point people can go in and start setting up, unless, and this is a super big unless, your block isn’t signed off and approved yet. If you start setting up on a block that is not approved by land let, Land One reserves the right to eject you from Pennsic. Yes, you read that right, “told to leave”. A shade fly is not “setting up”, but pavillions and trenching are. Before you decide to play lawyer on that, decide whether you’re willing to risk your Pennsic experience on it.
It is an absolute certainty that land grab will not be done until Saturday. There are more than 550 groups across more than 80 blocks, there’s going to be some that aren’t resolved until saturday. Until land grab is over there can be no offical support for singles camping.
If I were a singles camper I would not arrive before Sunday morning. We cannot support Singles Campers prior to the end of Land Grab.
Once the Land Office accepts your block map, they’ll give each Land Agent a Land Packet.
The packet includes a form you’re supposed to fill out and post by the entrance to your camp, and 5 one-use car passes. You can also download and print this form from the Land site under the menu item “PENNSIC INFO/Camp Auth. Form”.
The 5 car passes are one vehicle, one-use only. The Cooper’s staff person on the gate will take the car pass from you when you enter. If your car exits before the Land Office declares car passes are no longer needed, you’ll need another car pass to bring your car back onto the site.
There is a special land agent car pass that was introduced in 2023. Initially it was not going to be used in 2024, but as of May 21, 2024, the Deputy Mayor for Land announced that it will be used for 2024. Full text of the Deputy Mayor’s post is at the end of this document. TL;DR, each group gets one land agent car pass, it’s single use like all car passes, and only land agent car passes will be allowed to drive onto site before noon. From noon to whenever Land declares Land Grab “done (enough)” the usual five regular car passes will be required to drive onto site.
A ghost camp is a camp with nobody on site for an extended period of time (think days). If the Land Agent can’t be there most of the event, they should use the Land web site to assign an On-Site Rep, somebody who’s registered with the camp and can be there most of the event.
This section is not a substitute for reading and understanding the rules. Just about everything below is also covered in the rules, you should refer to the rules and make sure you understand the details.
I’m just using this as a place to stick random, rules-related tips and gotchas as they occur to me. All of these should be covered by the regular rules. Most of these are not tips about the landgrab process or landgrab day, so much as they are tips about the rules for camps (since land agents are defacto responsible for and in some cases penalized for what their camp does).
I will repeat for the fourth or fifth time: Neither I nor this document is official. I am including information here based on the rules as I understand them, but rules change and I’m fallible. In any case where the rules conflict with this information, then this information is wrong, go with the official rules.
In no particular order:
Do not put your camp sheet walls right at the edge of the road, if you’re situated along a road. Camps are required to leave at least 3 feet of shoulder between the road proper and their sheet walls.
The land agent’s job doesn’t end until your campsite is packed up, cleaned up and every group member is off site. The rules allow for penalties to camping group land seniority if you overstay, or leave a mess, etc.
Pursuant to packing up and cleaning up, take photos of your campsite just before you get in your car and drive away. It’s good to have documentation. I also suggest you take photos when you first arrive, to document any existing problems.
While I’m on photos, I strongly suggest you take photos of your campsite when it’s all set up, so you can refer to it next year when you’re trying to figure out what went where.
Take photos of uncampable land and submit them to the Land Office. They can’t magically make that land campable, but they can at least deduct that square footage from your block total, so that they don’t allocate more campers to your block than your block has room for.
In particular, I recommend taking photos to document the actual problem, i.e. if a spot turns into a pond during heavy rains, take a photo of the pond. It’s also probably a useful idea to include a photo of the spot when dry, since the land staff sent to check on the problem probably aren’t going to do it during a rain storm.
Last I heard, anything official with the Cooper’s is handled at The War Room, which is the small barn in EO3 (near Troll), at the corner of Brewer’s Road and Low Road:
Click the image for a full-sized version
You can also email the War Room at: warroom@cooperslake.com
If there’s nobody at the War Room, go ask at the Cooper’s store, they may be able to put you touch with the right people. Obviously this might have changed, and also, obviously check the Pennsic rules and Land Agent handbook first. At one point, twenty years ago, the Cooper’s were telling us to put down hay or stray in muddy spots. Then they changed that, hay and straw were forbidden; it turned out the hay and straw didn’t decompose down in the Swamp, under the trees with no sunlight. Never assume, first check the written rules, then if it’s still not clear, check with the Coopers at the War Room.
Every user hooking into a Cooper’s Lake water faucet is required to use both a backflow check valve and a splitter:
This section is somewhere to stick random tips on land negotiation.
First I’ll repeat what I’ve already said a couple of times – it’s much, much, much easier if you scout out the terrain, both geographical and social, the year before.
By social terrain, I mean talk to the other groups that camp in a block, ask around, find out what that crowd is like, think about social compatibility (if you camp in the heart of the swamp, expect to hear drums until 4am; if you camp up near the battlefield, expect grief if you’re making loud noises late at night). Also, make friends, get advice on camping spots, etc.
Back to geographical terrain: On some blocks the terrain is flat and open and it’s pretty obvious. On other blocks the terrain is more… challenging. Covered in trees. Vertical. Mud, water, etc.
Pay attention to the lay of the land and think about how water is going to flow and where it’s going to end up. When it rains, look around and study the water flow to improve your understanding of that.
If you don’t have much experience with this, ask your campers and neighbors for advice. If you look at a spot and say “I wonder why nobody camps there”… you should probably think twice.
The Land office is probably the part of the Pennsic staff that spend the most time in direct contact with Pennsic goers, so various questions come up that are not strictly part of the Land process, but often get asked of Land Agents, or get asked by land agents. I’m going to try to keep an eye out for these things and collect them all here, to hopefully save land agents and land staff future headaches.
Note: It’s quite likely that most of this stuff will be from facebook posts by land staff or by Pennsic staff. I will include useful comments from those posts but will remove any identifying information from the commenters unless they are Pennsic staff.
The Pennsic Staff Directory has email addresses for the staff (look for the tiny envelope icon at the bottom of each listing). Remember, these people are all volunteering their time during the vacation that they paid for, just like you so be polite.
For emergencies call 911 but often there are not-quite-real-emergencies. The Pennsic Event Safety Staff usually has a phone number for not-quite-real-emergencies. That number is only active during Pennsic, and this year it is: (540) 428-9630
Questions about things related to arriving and getting in, for example paperwork required for minors who are attending with adults other than their immediate legal parents, should be directed to the Troll office.
Questions about things like whether merchants need car passes or when they’re allowed to set up their stalls on merchant row, etc, should be directed to the merchant office. See “Useful Links” near the top of this document.
I used to have a section here with a bunch of excerpts from Pennsic announcements, Pennsic staff social media posts, and useful comments clarifying points of confusation. However, it got really long, so:
If you want to see announcements for the current year, see Current Communications of the Pennsic Staff.
Older announcements are at Older Communications of the Pennsic Staff.