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350,661 visits (49 today, 121 this week, 831 this
month, 6,270 this year, 72 yesterday. Best day was 151
visitors.)
Our tip jar:
Official festival websites for events ATF may attend as of
4/29/08
:
Note: If you have an event in the Midwest,
and you would like AtTheFaire to take photos there and write a recap for
the Ren Reporter, drop me a note
and we'll try to fit it in.
May 3-4:
17th Iowa Renaissance
Festival
Amana Colonies, IA
13th Oklahoma
Ren Faire
Castle of Muskogee, OK
May 9-10-11:
13th Oklahoma Ren Faire
Castle of Muskogee, OK
10: Central Iowa
Celtic Festival & Highland Games
Des Moines, IA
6th Nebraska
Ren Faire
Papillion, NE
May 17-18:
13th Oklahoma
Ren Faire
Castle of Muskogee, OK
NEW! Midwest Ren Fest
(formerly Ren Faire of the Midlands)
Scary Acres
in Omaha, NE
May 24-25-26:
13th Oklahoma
Ren Faire
Castle of Muskogee, OK
NEW! Midwest
Ren Fest
(formerly Ren Faire of the Midlands)
Scary Acres in Omaha, NE
May 31-June 1:
NEW! Dubuque Ren Faire
Dubuque, IA
(A new event ran as a fundraiser for the Museum of Art there.)
Starting Labor Day:
3rd Des Moines Ren Faire
Des Moines, IA
Oct 11-12:
2nd Lincolnshire
Ren Faire
Decatur, IL
(Never been, but may check it out this year if I'm not busy doing Halloween
stuff at Sleepy Hollow.)
To find other upcoming festivals, visit Mike
Bonk's directorie.
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The Pub is dead. Long live The Pub! A
new message board will return, focusing - as The Pub originally did - on
local friends and events. Details in a few months... |
| Latest Headline as of
Monday, 12-May-2008 16:52:10 CDT
: |
At The Faire is a source for Midwest renaissance
festival information. Click on a link in the castle wall
to explore the major areas of this site: ATF
Shoppe features our merchandise; Faire
Folke is an index of festival performers, merchants and
rennies; Faire Info contains
articles, festival calendars, indexes and reviews; Faire
Photos is our gallery of over forty thousand festival
pictures and movie clips; Faire
Virgins contains
information useful to those wanting to get more into faire;
and Web
Services gives details on our low-cost hosting and web
design services for rennies, faires, and merchants. There
is also a Live
Photo Blog which will contain photos uploaded in real-time
from we festivals we are visiting.
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Check this news page daily! The most recent 14 news items from
the past two weeks will be available on this front page. For
older items, be sure to see the news
archives. If you have any festival news, rumors, or announcements,
be sure to let us know so we can post it here.
| Monday, May 12, 2008 12:43AM |
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12:43 AM - NebFaire complete. Up next: Midwest Ren Fest (posted by
JohnPaul
)
The Nebraska Ren Faire has concluded at its new 2008 location. I visited for a few hours today, arriving around 1:30 p.m. The site was very different than I expected, and has many good features. Once one looks past the entrance area (parking, buildings, etc.) and ignores the country music that was playing at a food place near there, the "village" itself was pretty good. There were western buildings scattered about, but most either blended in, or were lightly rethemed/covered (some even occupied by merchants) and it basically worked.
I am told Saturday was bad, rainwise, and the event did poorly. Sunday the weather was just fine, and there were people still trickling in to buy tickets at 1:30 when I arrived. I have about 800 photos from today I will be posting shortly, and I will want to point out a few interesting scenes that made the village look much like a "little Kansas City Ren Fest" or something. Much better than I expected!
And now our attention turns to the new Midwest Ren Fest which will happen the next two weekends. After closing, I went over to Scary Acres to meet with the DCL Events (event organizer) and see what they've done. I got to see all the old Midlands signs in a store room, and even was shown the trailer with all the pieces to the foam castle entrance that Midlands was famous for. The food court area was mostly set up (with these little booth things from Midlands), and about a half dozen little square free-standing "castle" buildings were scattered around. Two at the front will server as ticket booths (painted like castle stones) and the others will be drink stands. Of note: they covered the INSIDE of the booth with cloth -- so when guests look in, they don't see plywood! Good touch. I was told the booths will contain fans and padded floors for the comfort of the workers.
The jousting area was flat and nice, thanks to tons of dirt moving. The bleacher seatings are not installed yet, but I was able to get a good idea of how it will work. They will face in to the festival, so the crowds will all be on one side, and behind the joust will be the main pathway through the festival. When folks walk in to the event, they will see the joust going on up to the left on the hillside. That should be good.
There were some other areas where clearing/flattening had been done (for living history I believe), and I was shown piles and piles of heavy tables and benches that were built for the food court. There was also a room with endless bench type seats (maybe from Midlands, or they built them). Apparently we'll only be using real wooden seats at this event rather than hay bails, wood planks, or whatever.
As with all festivals, there is still much to be done, but fences were going up, new walls were being built, gates have been added, and it seems the parking area and other roadways behind are now covered in rock instead of just dirt. I'll have some photos soon.
It sounds very promising. When I get caught up Monday, I'll post more.
http://www.midwestrenfest.com
(They even have an ATM, own their own porta-potties, and take credit cards.)
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| Sunday, May 11, 2008 10:13AM |
| Saturday, May 10, 2008 8:17PM |
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8:17 PM - Central Iowa Celtic Festival 2008 - photos. (posted by
JohnPaul
)
Pictures from today's 2008 Central Iowa Celtic Festival can now be found here:
http://www.atthefaire.com/photos/Iowa/CentralIowaCelticFest2008/index.htm
It started out as a dreary, cloudy and chilly morning, then cleared up and folks actually started showing up. Then, right before 3pm, it started to rain, and everyone left. The event closed a few hours earlier as merchants packed up and patrons had long gone.
The new location on the lot in front of Living History Farms seems to be a good one. It has great visibility to traffic driving by on Hickman Dr., and it's easy to get to right off the interstate. Also, by saying it is at Living History Farms, everyone can find it without needing to explain where it is on posters, etc.
Let's hope for a 2009 version! Their website is here:
http://www.2celts.com/
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| Friday, May 9, 2008 5:47PM |
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5:47 PM - Des Moines Celtic Fest this Saturday - FREE! (Volunteers needed!) (posted by
JohnPaul
)
If you are in Des Moines today, Saturday 5/10, consider swinging by Living History Farms to visit the Central Iowa Celtic Festival. It runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and admission is a "free will donation" (they suggest a mere $2, but I'm sure they'd accept more if you wanted to add a tip).
There will be Highland Games, rugby matches, musical acts (including our local Orckes & Trolles!), dancers, beer, some food and some merchants (and did I mention beer?). It's their third year doing it, and we really need to get behind them so they can grow the event.
It's a small one-day event (right near I-35/I-80 and Hickman Dr) so drop by for a few hours if you can.
And, if you want to help out, show up early -- they need some volunteers!
http://aceltictradition.com/
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5:08 PM - Another festival complains about photos they don't own :) (posted by
JohnPaul
)
(Wow, that sounds like the title of a DIGG.com posting or something.)
JP here with some quick news. I'll skip the details for the moment, but basically it looks like a rehash of what happened back in 2002 surrounding the poster for the Nishna River Renaissance Faire in Hancock, Iowa. Or was it Avoca? I was going to link to the old news postings, but it seems my news software has dumped anything earlier than 2004. That must have been lost with one of the crashes back then and I never realized it.
Anyway, back then, a small group was starting up a new renaissance festival in Iowa. The whole thing was put together literally in 90 days from "hey, can we do this?" to opening date! It was a blast, so here are some flashbacks:
Promotion at Omaha's Old Market, 9-15-2002
Old Market again, 9-23-2002
Newspaper Publicity shoot, 10-4-2002
Anyway, it was a great time. The event even has some posters which included photos of some of the Nishna performers. A few (or at least one) was taken of the performer when he was on stage at the Renaissance Faire of the Midlands. I took the photo, and we had permissions of the guy in the photo (the performer), yet someone at the organization running Midlands decided we couldn't do that. They placed a phone call to the Nishna number to explain why the image couldn't be used.
What they didn't know is that they were calling a lawyer's office, and the subject was apparently quickly dropped. It was just a case of a large event seeming to "bully" a new tiny event (that was half an hour away in a small town) for some reason.
Well, today I learned that a similar thing is happening again -- also in the Council Bluffs/Omaha area. It seems a festival has photos on their website of various performers who will be there. Fair enough. Some of these performers submitted photos taken of them at other places they have performed, and the organizer of one of the other festivals has apparently said they can't use those photos taken at his event.
:)
Well, as long as the photographer is okay with it, and the person in the photo is okay with it, and as long as there were no specific contracts signed or on the backs of tickets or posted at the entrance forbidding the use of photography, I can't see that this has any more validity than the Midlands issue years ago.
It's kind of a twisty complex situation because one event is being held where the former event used to be held, so there's all kinds of connections. I'm sure you can figure out which events we're talking about.
I hope they get it worked out, but after this weekend I should know more from both sides so I can understand the reasoning behind the request.
It must be something in the water...
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| Monday, May 5, 2008 10:59PM |
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10:59 PM - Entertainers and Merchants announced for MWRF... (posted by
JohnPaul
)
Looks like the website has been updated for Midwest Ren Fest -
http://www.midwestrenfest.com
Merchants are listed, as well as photos of some of the performers we can expect.
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| Sunday, May 4, 2008 11:17PM |
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11:17 PM - Iowa Renaissance Festival 2008 concluded. (posted by
JohnPaul
)
This year's Iowa Renaissance Festival has now concluded. For the first time in about seven years, I wasn't performing, so I didn't spend the weekend there. I did manage to day trip out on Sunday, arriving late afternoon to take some photos and get caught up with some folks.
Most of the entertainment was new this year, including Tuey the tightrope juggler from the MNRF. He had massive crowds and seemed to put on a heck of a show. Other new acts on the schedule included Matthew the Magician (as seen at KCRF performing with Dr. Dumpe) and several others. I didn't catch a single full show other than the final joust of the day. I saw glimpses of Tuey, Matthew, Chicago's "Three Legged Race" improv team, and chatted with Kids With Fire (not performing; but helping with Joust Evolution).
Photos soon, though the GPS was acting wonky so I'm not sure if it all worked.
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| Saturday, May 3, 2008 12:58PM |
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12:58 PM - Random Plug: ToBeAPirate.com (clothing merchant) (posted by
JohnPaul
)
I just heard from these folks today...
http://tobeapirate.com
It's a website full of all kinds of relatively inexpensive pirate clothing and accessories.
Can someone piratey check them out and let me know what you think of their stuff and prices and such? Thanks!
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| Friday, May 2, 2008 12:22PM |
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12:22 PM - Dotted line signed: Midwest Ren Fest = Ren Faire of the Midlands (posted by
JohnPaul
)
I just got a call from Don, owner of DCL Events (operator of Scary Acres haunted attraction in Omaha). It's all signed and official -- DCL now owns the rights and all properties of the 24 year-old Renaissance Faire of the Midlands. This includes the name itself, as well as all properties (trailers, props, stages, signage, and that classic foam "castle" ticket booth everyone identifies Midlands with).
A press release will be forthcoming, but anyone with any media connections in the Council Bluffs region may want to pass this along so the news can be spread.
I also noticed today that the Midlands website now redirects to the Midwest Ren Fest site:
http://www.faire.org
And the torch has been passed. We'll see how much of the old Midlands properties get used this year. Some stuff, like the stages and -- arguably -- the castle ticket booth, are such classic visuals to the Midlands crowd that having them set up at Scary Acres might be a great link to fond memories of the past. Other things, like the cheesy backdrop facades so old they still contain logos for long-gone telephone companies, probably need to be scrapped (or repurposed). I feel confident the DCL crew will make good use of the resources, though how much they can do in the next two weeks may be in question. (And even though it's a regional "icon," do they even want to bother with the foam castle facade when Scary Acres already has a "real" castle building?)
Stay tuned to ATF for the latest... Two weekends to go...
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| Tuesday, April 29, 2008 5:33PM |
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5:33 PM - Renaissance Faire of the Midlands - SAVED!!! (posted by
JohnPaul
)
Hear ye, hear ye! Today news came down from the castle towers that a white knight has once again ridden in on his steed to "save" the Renaissance Faire of the Midlands. This event would have been celebrating it's 25th anniversary (after two or three times of "ending") this year, but those of you reading my news postings know the hustling story that has gone on over the past few years...
Anyway, it now turns out that the folks at Scary Acres have purchased the former Council Bluffs event. As it says on the website:
http://www.midwestrenfest.com
"Formerly know as Renaissance Fair of the Midlands"
So, the torch has been officially passed, with properties of the old event (I assume this means the props and stagings and such) now going to a new home -- and a home that was to be the site of this year's new Midlands event anyway! I guess it all works out in the end, and it removes the thought that Midlands might have returned next year to make "yet another" event in the area (which already probably has one too many).
So, what else is in store for the new Midwest Ren Fest (formerly known as Renaissance Faire of the Midlands)? It sounds like tons. I have been told they blew past their original budget of $20,000 for entertainment, and now have clocked in at $25,000. Some classic Midlands folks will be returning, too, like the Singing Executioners:
http://www.smeeandblogg.com/
Also on the list will be pirate group, The Scallywags, Iowa's Orckes & Trolles, and many others (including a few still negotiating availability). Acts have been contracted, and it sounded like there are a number of contracted street performers (I think the number was around 70? could that be?) lined up as well.
Sponsors, too.
I am told we can expect the website to be updated shortly, and the old Midlands domain will end up redirecting over to the new Midwest Ren Fest site.
See ya "at the faire!" (I'll be there for opening weekend, but may be in Oklahoma during the second weekend.)
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