Today we went to Scarborough Renaissance Festival. Go ahead and look it up, I'll wait.
My sister owns a booth out there and we celebrate the birthday of a kid, so we make a party out of it. It's a lot of fun. You can wander around and look at various arts and crafts (available to a good home, for enough cash) and watch assorted performers.
The crafts can be simple like sandals up to blown glass. Pretty much everything in between also. Lots of period clothes, made of modern materials of course. Jewelry out the wazoo, period weapons, stuff marketed towards children like toy weapons and anything faerie or princess related.
The arts part are more temporary like face painters and hair braiders. Both of those are super popular with children and women. Other arts, even some things that could only be called performance art, are out there.
Of course the artists are a bridge between the retail side and the performers. These performers are varied, you have the knife throwers, jousters, jugglers, comedy (some kid safe, some not), acrobatics, and others. Let it be said that the musicians are all over the place and some of them have dancers, comedy or even poetry to go with it.
It is humorous to see the different influences come in to the faire. You'll see some ladies dressed up as faeries with the wings and leggings and combat boots. Sometimes you even get to see some steampunk influences creep in.
I like it quite a bit because of the history and capitalism. The faire is trying to make an authentic (within reason) show and the artists and performers are trying to make a living. Two things I like, history appreciation and capitalism. Plus, a lot of women wear bodices.
What could be better?
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