I recall a journalist describing Renaissance Festivals as Disneylands with more boobs and booze. He probably put it more delicately than I did, but I’m sure we’re not in disagreement. Prior to visiting RenFest this weekend, I imagined it as a massive field of live action role players, culturally and historically accurate to the point that it would hurt. I was so glad to have instead found the aforementioned amusement park of beer stands and ill fitting corsets.
Historically relevant to a Renaissance time period? No, not really. Am I complaining? No, not really. I imagine any event where costumed dressing up is encouraged usually gets taken with an attitude that values enthusiasm over accuracy. I love that.
These popular Conan the Barbarian styles of wardrobe are so regressive that they can be considered the complete opposite of a Renaissance, but man, these have gotta be the coolest looking characters at the fair.
Some attendees treat the RenFest as an excuse to walk around in their underwear though. This honestly makes no sense to me. I think it’s things like this that make RenFest seem like some kind of dark place for deviants.
Of course when The TXFreeHugsGirl (I’m sure there’s more than one though) comes out, that theory gets tossed on its head. She just oozes all kinds of nice vibes. Kind of an aside, I would love to see a hippie fair. Everybody would come out wearing pastel colors to play in the mud and trade each other home made jewelry. It’d be like Woodstock 99, but with much less rape, looting and fires. Okay, maybe a different Woodstock entirely. Anyway.
It’s a very nice place to be if you fancy watching a performance, or rather if you happen to be a fancy performer with a tip jar.
Seriously though, these Statue Ladies have got the system figured out. I’ve never seen anyone make so much by doing so little. The joke here is that doing very little takes quite a bit of effort sometimes. Try explaining that to your boss.
Every instrument that exists on this earth was played at RenFest by at least one person. I’m still not sure what this one is called.
This Centaur guy has apparently been doing his schtick for quite a few years. I was uploading photos to flickr this morning and saw him in the same costume 5 years ago. He looked exactly the same. Centaurs don’t age, they just transform into a bottle Elmer’s glue once their time is up.
There’s a whole lot of walking on the fairgrounds so it’s not surprising to see people napping or loitering lazily in some places. This ninja was camped out here for a good while. Funny part is that Ninjas are Renaissance period correct.
I guess I should leave on this picture since it’d be fitting with the way this post started. Love how friendly everyone at the fair is. I thinks I should invest in some more casual shoes and make my way back out there for a part 2 tour.
I was there today and saw the centaur, the black man with barbarian outfit, the medusa statue lady, and the free hugs girl. Lol
The crazy instrument the woman is playing with the keys and the hand crank on bottom is called a Hurdy Gurdy. It’s a medieval stringed instrument. The crank turns a wooden wheel that continuously rubs across the strings like a violin bow while pressing the keys breaks one string at different corresponding lengths to produce different tones like the frets of a guitar. They’re awesome!