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FESTIVALS 101: WHAT MAKES A GOOD FAIRE?
by John-Paul, ATF Staff Writer

AtTheFaire.com is operated by a couple of renaissance festival fans. As such, the opinions expressed in this article are just that — opinions of two rennies. No advice is intended on the financial side of organizing such an event, and no legal advice is provided on matters such as insurance. This is not a business outline.

With that said... what makes a good renaissance festival? Here is a breakdown of some of the pros and cons of various faires we have experienced.

Types of Faires

Renaissance Festivals can be broken down into just a few basic types:

1. Renaissance Fantasy Faires - These events are created for pure theme park style enjoyment. History and authenticity takes a backseat. Most festivals contain some fantasy elements, and certainly no faire is complete without turkey legs (and Turkeys were not found in England).
2. Reenactments Events - These "living history" events tend to be more educational in nature. There are many renaissance festival groups, such as Clan Tartan, that do their best to recreate what things were like in their time period. There will be no dragons.

They are typically organized as follows:

1. Corporate Event - It is common to see "Inc." attached to many organizations that hold festivals, but often this is just to protect the individuals who run the show. A corporation has much more legal protection than an individual. The events referred to here, however, are those run usually by large entities with their own layers of bureaucracy around them. They are strictly for-profit events and, as such, are generally very heavily sponsored ("The Coca-Cola Stage Presents...").
2. Nonprofit Event - Festivals are often used as fund raisers for a school or organization. The Renaissance Foundation, for instance, holds a festival to raise awareness and generate funds for their mission. Salisbury Faire is another nonprofit faire. The difference between the two is quite extreme: Salisbury has many layers and is heavily sponsored, while the Foundation operates more like a small group hosting an event. Thus, in some cases a nonprofit event can still have all the heavy commercial undertones of a corporate event.
3. Individual Events - Faires in this category would include those hosted by small groups who just want to do a faire, or who may connect it with something else. There are wineries that hold festivals, and bed and breakfasts that hold festivals. These events are often the smallest and there are far fewer layers to deal with to be involved.

Example: At an individual event, such as the Iowa Renaissance Festival and Harvest Faire (operated primarily by a husband and wife team), it was very easy to end up being "part of the show" and get discounted or free admission. At a large scale corporate event like the Kansas City Renaissance Festival more people are employed to run the front gate than most smaller festivals even have on their entire organizational group.

Observation: Corporate events are the ones (usually) with the large scale permanent buildings. They can charge the highest admission and hire the biggest acts. They are basically theme parks.

Result: The average tourist type will probably have far more fun at a corporate event due the the grander scale and more Hollywood-type entertainment scale.

Entertainment

There are a few basic types of festival performers to encounter:

1. Large Scale - Groups such as the Hanlon-Lees do jousting (and other) shows full time. Often the renaissance acts are just a sideline. The Lees, for instance, put on wild west stunt shows as well. While renaissance is a large portion of what they do, it is still just a portion.
2. Individual/Small Scale Professionals - These are acts that basically make a living from performing. They may or may not strictly perform at renaissance shows. There are many magicians who do birthday parties during the week, and mystical magic at faires on the weekends. They are usually the types with real brochures and business cards, and generally cover a larger area.
3. Individual/Small Scale Part-timers - These are acts that may be as good (or better) than the professionals, but they all have day jobs. The Naughty Nobles is a fine example. They do faires (and anything else), but it is a sideline. Many of these types of acts would love to do it full time. They are often the easiest to work with (having professional experience) and are usually much easier to afford than the pros.
4. Local Talent - There are groups in Des Moines that perform once or twice a year at the local Iowa events, and that's all. They don't tour. They don't have an agent. The Orkes and Trolles are a madrigal group in Des Moines that everyone seems to know, though they only surface around festival time (or during Christmas in the guise of non-renaissance carolers).

Example: At Salisbury Faire, Bristol, Southern Illinois and Wybreg Village have the Hanlon-Lees doing variations of their show, yet each festival has a plethora of local talent that is not duplicated at many (if any) of the other faires.

Observation: One will see the same large scale groups (often doing the same act year after year) over and over much like hoe one finds the same shop in virtually every mall. They are the Payless Shoe Store. The individual and small scale acts are like the regional restaurants, such as Sonic in the south, or Carl's Jr. on the West coast. Local talent is like the mom and pop shop at the corner or the independent kiosk in the mall selling color change T-shirts that can't be found in Spencers Gifts.

Result: Casual tourists appreciate the commercial professionalism of the big acts and generally won't be visiting tons of faires in a year so they don't encounter the repeats. For rennies, the regional or local talent often generates a special connection and following since they all have some common ground to walk on. A careful balance must be achieved to keep the biggest supporters (the rennies) interested while still giving the tourist mindset the theme park entertainment they expect. As as starting point, have a few highlight acts, more of the professional regional ones, then stuff the village with locals.

The Money of Color

Many corporate events are operated with payroll and official job positions. Oddly, they can usually get plenty of volunteers to help out during the show. It is hard to imagine Wal-Mart being able to recruit volunteers to work as greeters, yet corporate events seem to have no trouble with this. Rennies are a generous lot.

A good festival encourages the village to be full of costumed characters. At corporate events, every soda stand has someone in garb though, it seems, these employees aren't able to even speak with an accent or play along. Rennies, on the other hand, can add to the show.

A good even should have plenty of "color". From hired street characters to volunteers, a festival should be alive with activity even if it is nothing more than a group of wenches wandering through the village making some noise. A faire does need at least a few strong paid (or at least paid-quality) performers. Rufus the Rude and Sauboo the War Troll come to mind. Their characters seem to be well recognized in the Midwest. Sir Thomas, the official greeter, adds an enormous amount to any festival where he teaches hand kissing. Every festival needs royalty (that can properly act royal), as well.

As one strolls through the congested paths of the Kansas City Renaissance Festival, they encounter bakers, beggars, gypsies and wizards. This is the most important thing that separates a festival from a "craft show with costumes and a joust".

Many nonprofit events rely entirely on rennies for their color. Sometimes rennies have some of the best characters, but it is usually only the pros that are always on time and in character. Balance this out and have the pros which can be relied on lead the show while the volunteers help fill the village just as it really would have existed five hundred years ago. One or the other alone itself is not enough.

Let There Be Music

A good festival simply must have music. There should be professional stage acts with CDs and T-shirts for sale, yet there should also be wandering minstrels and harpists sitting under shade trees. Just like a theme park has canned background music playing through speakers or a movie has a soundtrack, so should a festival. At the 2001 Iowa Renaissance Festival, music was very lacking. At the 2000 Spring Wybreg Village event, the extreme opposite was true -- one couldn't go anywhere in the village without hearing a tune.

Food, Glorious Food

Tourists want their Coke (or Pepsi), but try to avoid the blatant soda cans or bottles. Nothing ruins the moment than seeing soda cans all over the place. Tourists also want their hamburgers and fries, but at least try to have them themed. A turkey leg becomes a "Dragon Leg" while burger is "The Kings Beef". Ideally there will be a selection of unique food items that won't be found at every mall or amusement park.

My Kingdom for Some Ale

For many, a good festival is best enjoyed while drinking a glass of wine or a mug of ale. Nonprofit events, especially when connected to a school or something "proper", will typically avoid alcohol. Corporate events often go for a site-wide liquor license and thus beer carts and wine stands are abundant. Not everyone drinks, so perhaps the perfect compromise is having a "tavern" where one can partake in a simple beer or a more appropriate mug of mead. By having certain "drinking areas" the faire can generate substantial income without giving it the appearance of a sporting event where ever guy is carrying around a Budweiser.

Make it unique. Invite a local brewery or winery to sell their best. In the past, one Iowa event had a winery offer wine tasting and grape stomping demonstrations. Alcohol was sold only in the bottle and was not to be consumed on property. This seemed to work out well for an event without an open container license.

Ye Olde Shopping Mall

Obviously, one of the major reasons a festival exists is for the merchants. Don't duplicate products if possible. Larger corporate events are sometimes as difficult to deal with as malls. A local mall has more than enough shoe and jewelry stores, for example.

Whenever possible, find artisans that deal in hand made items. Demonstrations are very important. Glass blowing, metal working, and loom weaving are all special touches that make the festival memorable.

Wandering merchants are also a big plus. A little girl selling roses can make a memory. A beer wench can make great tips. Just don't overdue it and fill the streets with peddlers. It may be wise to restrict the hard sell approach.

The Perfect Faire

Eventually AtTheFaire.com plans to represent the perfect virtual faire. The first phase is the multimedia gallery already filled with thousands of pictures and even some video clips. Eventually there will be a map along with the ability to tour merchants and even purchase things from them. Music clips will be available as well as videos of performances.

A real festival requires much more effort and money than needed to slap together some HTML pages and encode some MP3s. If one could take bits and pieces of several regional faires and merge them together, then a "faire" representation of perfection might be achievable. Here is what it might look like...

• Take the beautiful location of Salisbury Faire or Wybreg Village and add the permanent structures from Kansas City as well as a permanent jousting arena.
• Pull in the big acts from the Faire of the Midlands (less those that require amplification), and the local acts from Wybreg.
• Hire Rufus and his mud, Sauboo and his whip, and Past Times with Good Company with their princess. Fill the rest with every die-hard rennie that can be found.
• Have turkey legs and roses for sale, and perhaps some wine and mead. Consider branded souvenirs from T-shirts to mugs to keychains.
• Find some jugglers to roam around, and a big one for a stage show. Find at least one magician. Look for a sword swallower or fire eater.
• Hire some interactive acts such as storytellers or those who pull people from the audience to play roles in their "plays".
• Arrange for a free children's area with activities and games.
• Hire the Hanlon-Lees for a four Knight performance. Their storyline progresses throughout the day meaning repeat viewings.
• Add romance (or something like it) by having wenches and rogues.
• Stage street performances. Have a "fight" break out at the tavern, or a domestic dispute near the mud pit. Let the big rogues pick on the town fool only to have him defended by a bigger rogue. Make the street a stage and then fill it with performances.
• Put EVERYONE in costume from the ticket takers to the soda sellers. Coach them on speaking in accent. Force them to watch Monty Python. Make sure they "get it" and can convey "it" to the patrons.
• Let the rennies in free (or cheap). Encourage them to bring their friends. If the event is made rennie friendly, free publicity will follow.
• Promote! Have a web site. Give the connected world a way to find out about the event. Circulate discount coupons in all print media to track their effectiveness.

This, of course, is just the beginning. No one festival does everything on this list. There have been wonderful locations with dreadful jousters. There have been amazing jugglers at events located in city parks surrounded by buildings. It is nice to dream, though.

The Future

The Renaissance Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1997. Ultimately they plan to build a living, breathing renaissance community complete with a Great Hall, permanent jousting arena and festival site. This could very well end up being the ultimate festival location. Take a moment to visit www.renfound.org and learn about their mission.

Help keep us online. Book your travel here, or patronize some of these folke:

1. Des Moines Ren Faire (IA)
2. Iowa Ren Festival (IA)
3. Iowa-Minnesota Pirate Fest (IA)
4. Greater Quad Cities Ren Faire (IL)
5. Midlands Pirate Festival (NE)
6. Nebraska Ren Faire (NE)
7. Ren Faire at Sleepy Hollow (IA)

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4. phoenixswords.atthefaire.com
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1. anothercrappypodcast.com
2. atthefaire.com
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6. renreporter.com
7. sirclisto.com

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Permanent festivals in our area: Kansas City Renaissance Festival, Bristol Renaissance Faire, Des Moines Renaissance Faire and Minnesota Renaissance Festival.
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