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So I went to the medieval fair today as a member of the public, rather than a re-enactor. Parents and relatives came along. next year there will hopefully be MORe parents and relatives 
A few random highlights from my day:
1. A lot of people come to the fair in costume (which is normal) which can be authentic to varying degrees. Today, some of the more bizarre costumes I encountered were:
-Two girls walking around in burlap sacks. And presumably not much else.
-Several dudes walking around in kilts. The ones with blue facepaint I knew was from another group that does some Celtic war-dancing. A running joke with one of the members of said group has been that his group runs the risk of his performance becoming a strip show if the wind happens to blow a particular way.....
-A few guys walking around in 25C weather shirtless.
-One guy was dressed up in a way that vaguely resembled some of the guys from my boyfriend's sister group. The thing that set him apart from everyone else however was his staff. It had a live snake on top of it. I kid you not.
-A friend's boyfriend resembled something out of Game of Thrones
2. My boyfriend's group had their turn in the arena twice today (which is not unusual, most groups get 2 rounds in the arena per day apart from 1 group which caused some suck-I'll explain in a minute). Now, with the group, we have about a dozen fighters all up, from 2 different states.
Our commentator in the past was a real awesome guy who could keep the show running and try to keep it authentic. Another commentator is our resident smartass. This year's commentator however....she has an acting background and used it heavily today. Some highlights from her commentary and performance:
-She pretty much YELLED into the mic at top volume sounding more like a rockstar. It worked though, the arena was PACKED
-Her husband happens to be one of the fighters. Throughout the show, she'd start egging on either him or one of the other guys and then going "it's ok, he's my husband." After two solo rounds of him vs. another guy, she kept referring to him as "canary legs". (he wears yellow pants...as do about 5 of the other men)
-She started encouraging my boyfriend, but broke character by going "COME ON <SO>!!!" when he was going solo. Let's just say that he does NOT have a good track record when fighting.
-After one particularly hilarious fight between her husband and another guy, when her husband was dead, she ran over with the mike and conked the guy on the head. In our world, a conk to the helmet translates as an instant kill.
-When it came time of the King and Queen of the day event (two young children are selected, one boy and girl, they divide the group up by schoolyard pick and they then battle to the death) she asked the boy for some rallying words. His words: "the best thing that they need is a high engine" or something along those lines. I think she was trying to hold in her laughter.
-Our resident smart-ass (who has done commentary in the past) was REALLY hamming it up both during the individual melees and king/queen for the day. He would NOT stop bouncing around. When they were doing the King/Queen for the day, he was bouncing around in front of EVERYONE else non-stop and continued to do so for about 5 minutes even after he was picked. He also did take part in a solo match (1-1) where after he'd killed the guy, he continued to play around doing a little jig.
3. The campsite for my boyfriend's group was...interesting. This year, they added some walls and a tower. Yes, an actual tower. I was so engrossed in my hunt for him the first time that I actually walked right past not only the tower, but he was actually taking watch! Needless to say, the tower got a few good-natured jeers from the general public. (more encouraging the guys on top )
4. Thankfully this year the belly dancers moved AWAY from the main arena, but you could still hear their music. Their performance though....let's just say that I might even consider doing bellydancing in the near future. Especially after I saw that quite a few of them had bigger guts than I did
.
5. I ended up speaking with one of the members today. Because my SO has changed personas (he's no longer Viking, he's a Norman crusader mercenary who ends up joining the Hospitalier) I was bouncing around the idea of what I could be with one of the female members. I admitted that my tunic in the past had caused some issues with the feeling that whenever I moved, I would split my tunic (it wasn't small, just tight in the arms). Having seen what our commentator was wearing today (her hubby is Norman and this year, she was Norman/Saxon or something like that) and her being a good size or two bigger than me, I suggested the idea of going Norman or similar. She suggested Saracen.
Why? Two reasons:
1. Hospitaliers weren't married and he was joining as a brother-knight.
2. Saracens weren't allowed to marry during the era he was portraying.
So technically, I go from becoming his property to becoming his mistress. She's going to help me with a persona for future events. (and a quick Wiki search reveals that Saracens were actually Muslims...)
6. A few of my friends were running their own artwork stall. One of the rules of the fair is that it's a dry zone everywhere apart from certain areas. turns out that one of my friends had been sneaking mead into her drinking horn since 8am that morning-whoops! (she handles alcohol OK and had admitted that it helped her deal with customers better)
7. And here comes the slight suck: I've mentioned before that nearly all groups got 2 rounds in the arena each day, apart from 1 group (turns out it was actually 2 groups). Well, I actually discovered part of why that may have worked in their favour: their performances quite frankly SUCKED.
Group 1: They ran HEAVILY overtime (each group is allocated a 30-minute slot in the arena) and as a result, our groups performance was somewhat cut short. (Instead of several group melees for authenticity, we only had time to do several 1-on-1 skirmishes, 1 free-for-all, one State vs. State and one King/Queen for the day. In our time slot we would've normally added in some strategic moves that our personas would've actually used). Their performance? A lot of grudge matches, a lot of back-and-forthing between their non-fighting members and very few actual authentic style matches.
Group 2: Rumours had been spreading that this particular group had been teaching young members of the public techniques designed to seriously injure others, as well as having one of their members stumbling around drunk/stoned and stealing food from other campsites. This was from last year. Apparently they were banned and one group threatened not to attend if the other group tried to attend anyway (apparently that didn't happen since both groups were present). Their performance this year? They were apparently only able to show off their child warriors.
As for the remaining suck, it was mostly food-related and not entirely the fault of the food vendors. There wasn't so much a lack of food at the food vendors, but rather a lack of food vendors themselves.
A few random highlights from my day:
1. A lot of people come to the fair in costume (which is normal) which can be authentic to varying degrees. Today, some of the more bizarre costumes I encountered were:
-Two girls walking around in burlap sacks. And presumably not much else.
-Several dudes walking around in kilts. The ones with blue facepaint I knew was from another group that does some Celtic war-dancing. A running joke with one of the members of said group has been that his group runs the risk of his performance becoming a strip show if the wind happens to blow a particular way.....
-A few guys walking around in 25C weather shirtless.
-One guy was dressed up in a way that vaguely resembled some of the guys from my boyfriend's sister group. The thing that set him apart from everyone else however was his staff. It had a live snake on top of it. I kid you not.
-A friend's boyfriend resembled something out of Game of Thrones
2. My boyfriend's group had their turn in the arena twice today (which is not unusual, most groups get 2 rounds in the arena per day apart from 1 group which caused some suck-I'll explain in a minute). Now, with the group, we have about a dozen fighters all up, from 2 different states.
Our commentator in the past was a real awesome guy who could keep the show running and try to keep it authentic. Another commentator is our resident smartass. This year's commentator however....she has an acting background and used it heavily today. Some highlights from her commentary and performance:
-She pretty much YELLED into the mic at top volume sounding more like a rockstar. It worked though, the arena was PACKED
-Her husband happens to be one of the fighters. Throughout the show, she'd start egging on either him or one of the other guys and then going "it's ok, he's my husband." After two solo rounds of him vs. another guy, she kept referring to him as "canary legs". (he wears yellow pants...as do about 5 of the other men)
-She started encouraging my boyfriend, but broke character by going "COME ON <SO>!!!" when he was going solo. Let's just say that he does NOT have a good track record when fighting.
-After one particularly hilarious fight between her husband and another guy, when her husband was dead, she ran over with the mike and conked the guy on the head. In our world, a conk to the helmet translates as an instant kill.
-When it came time of the King and Queen of the day event (two young children are selected, one boy and girl, they divide the group up by schoolyard pick and they then battle to the death
) she asked the boy for some rallying words. His words: "the best thing that they need is a high engine" or something along those lines. I think she was trying to hold in her laughter. -Our resident smart-ass (who has done commentary in the past) was REALLY hamming it up both during the individual melees and king/queen for the day. He would NOT stop bouncing around. When they were doing the King/Queen for the day, he was bouncing around in front of EVERYONE else non-stop and continued to do so for about 5 minutes even after he was picked. He also did take part in a solo match (1-1) where after he'd killed the guy, he continued to play around doing a little jig.
3. The campsite for my boyfriend's group was...interesting. This year, they added some walls and a tower. Yes, an actual tower. I was so engrossed in my hunt for him the first time that I actually walked right past not only the tower, but he was actually taking watch!
Needless to say, the tower got a few good-natured jeers from the general public. (more encouraging the guys on top ) 4. Thankfully this year the belly dancers moved AWAY from the main arena, but you could still hear their music. Their performance though....let's just say that I might even consider doing bellydancing in the near future. Especially after I saw that quite a few of them had bigger guts than I did
. 5. I ended up speaking with one of the members today. Because my SO has changed personas (he's no longer Viking, he's a Norman crusader mercenary who ends up joining the Hospitalier) I was bouncing around the idea of what I could be with one of the female members. I admitted that my tunic in the past had caused some issues with the feeling that whenever I moved, I would split my tunic (it wasn't small, just tight in the arms). Having seen what our commentator was wearing today (her hubby is Norman and this year, she was Norman/Saxon or something like that) and her being a good size or two bigger than me, I suggested the idea of going Norman or similar. She suggested Saracen.
Why? Two reasons:
1. Hospitaliers weren't married and he was joining as a brother-knight.
2. Saracens weren't allowed to marry during the era he was portraying.
So technically, I go from becoming his property to becoming his mistress
. She's going to help me with a persona for future events. (and a quick Wiki search reveals that Saracens were actually Muslims...) 6. A few of my friends were running their own artwork stall. One of the rules of the fair is that it's a dry zone everywhere apart from certain areas. turns out that one of my friends had been sneaking mead into her drinking horn since 8am that morning-whoops! (she handles alcohol OK and had admitted that it helped her deal with customers better)
7. And here comes the slight suck: I've mentioned before that nearly all groups got 2 rounds in the arena each day, apart from 1 group (turns out it was actually 2 groups). Well, I actually discovered part of why that may have worked in their favour: their performances quite frankly SUCKED.
Group 1: They ran HEAVILY overtime (each group is allocated a 30-minute slot in the arena) and as a result, our groups performance was somewhat cut short. (Instead of several group melees for authenticity, we only had time to do several 1-on-1 skirmishes, 1 free-for-all, one State vs. State and one King/Queen for the day. In our time slot we would've normally added in some strategic moves that our personas would've actually used). Their performance? A lot of grudge matches, a lot of back-and-forthing between their non-fighting members and very few actual authentic style matches.
Group 2: Rumours had been spreading that this particular group had been teaching young members of the public techniques designed to seriously injure others, as well as having one of their members stumbling around drunk/stoned and stealing food from other campsites. This was from last year. Apparently they were banned and one group threatened not to attend if the other group tried to attend anyway (apparently that didn't happen since both groups were present). Their performance this year? They were apparently only able to show off their child warriors.
As for the remaining suck, it was mostly food-related and not entirely the fault of the food vendors. There wasn't so much a lack of food at the food vendors, but rather a lack of food vendors themselves.
I AM the evil bastard!
Real, actual burlap?! What the hell were they thinking?! Splinters, rash, itchiness...I do not envy them the pain they must've been in at the end of the day. (It is possible they were wearing monkscloth, Osnaburg or something else with a visible weave but much more comfortable, but still, they could've chosen something that looked better.)
Why is there always a group of jerks who have to ruin the fun?!
. (I also had to remind them that there are children around-this is one of the reasons why Captain Smartass offered not to commentate this year, he told me that his smartarse nature had gotten a tad too smutty)
Renaissance Faire =/= Science Fiction convention! Some people just baffle me utterly...
I mean, in a way, it would make sense...
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