What is a Renaissance Fair?

[Nick the DSM]

I do believe the Star Trek gag started from the show 'Big Bang Theory' as one of the members decides to be Spock and explore the fair and point out "Inaccuracies".

Renfairs= fun.

[TurboKittie]

I do believe the Star Trek gag started from the show 'Big Bang Theory' as one of the members decides to be Spock and explore the fair and point out "Inaccuracies".

Renfairs= fun.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the Star Trek thing on Big Bang Theory was based on real life Ren Faire attendees. I love a show that takes real life occurrences and writes them in, especially in such a believable way.

[Zardoz]

Actually, I'm pretty sure the Star Trek thing on Big Bang Theory was based on real life Ren Faire attendees. I love a show that takes real life occurrences and writes them in, especially in such a believable way.

Yep, that's art imitating life. I know Starfleet 'away teams' have been beaming down to the Texas Ren-Fest for years before BBT did it. We have a couple of Stargate SG1 guys too.

[Nighthawk]

No you weren't. The typical "Jack Sparrow"/"Golden Age of Piracy" (ca.1690-1720) type "pirate garb" would be as silly at Highland Games as it is at "Renaissance" fairs!

OK, that's what I thought. That's been my experience at every single Highland festival I've gone to. I don't even like leaving my own camp in garb, because I know how out of place it is everywhere else. But I'll suffer looking a bit silly to see Seven Nations when they play at the Highlands Ranch games!

[OC Richard]

One thing I forgot to mention was that the performers and workers at our local Faire are supposed to talk in Elizabethan English accents.

What they end up doing is talking in bad modern English accents.

Of course we can't know exactly what Elizabethan English sounded like, but it was these very accents which gave rise to American accents, and some would say that a modern American sounds more like an Eizabethan Londoner than a modern Londoner does.

I've heard the theory that the Elizabethan southern English accent was somewhere between a modern Dublin accent and a modern American accent. Others mantain that the closest we can come today to hearing Elizabethan English is to listen to the people of Tangier Island:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIZgw09CG9E

[Galician]

The Cloisters Museum here in NYC hosts a medieval festival every fall. This is appropriate as it is perhaps the largest collection of medieval art and architecture in the West. It is great fun, especially as the museum sits in the middle of a huge park, which has a fantastic view of the Palisades on the Hudson River. Approaching it is rather like making a medieval pilgrimage, if you come walking through the park.

Some people, though, don't get it that medieval does NOT equal Renaissance, and you are likely to see lots of plaid sheets wrapped around young loins to serve as kilts, and many Capt. Jack's. A former Parks Commissioner usually came dressed as a Pilgrim Father.

[BonnetMaker]

At the end of the day its up to venues to either specify very strict dateline and accuracy requirements, or leave it open and encourage everyone to just have as much fun with costuming as possible. I'm fully in favour of both approaches, as long as you know what you have been booked to provide or have paid to attend. Its often harder to market a loose dateline than it is a specific one, especially if you think most of your patrons and visitors will be generally ignorant (in the nicest sense of the word) of the dateline in question before they arrive. Different events have different remits education, entertainment, sales, promotion of a site, and other variations on the theme.

Speaking as a 'professional time-traveller' (I'm an experimental archaeologist working largely on the re-enactment circuit when I'm not making hats these days), there are so many different ways to approach a historic event, but they can all offer a great day out as long as everyone involved in the planning and marketing is in full agreement as to what they are trying to offer.

[Cherub]

I managed to make a Rennie mad at me... She wanted to go to the Highland games in her pirate garb. I made the mistake of telling her that the games aren't a fantasy festival, like the Ren Fest, and that that kind of clothing would be out of place. I'm curious- how many pirates, faeries or other such costumes are seen at Highland games in Scotland? The games are an athletic competition and modern cultural festival, right? Was I off base and out of line telling her that going in costume wouldn't be appropriate?

You were not out of place. The 2 Fests the we attend and are merchants at are rather picky about what is sold at the ren fest less picky at the Pirate one as it encompasses a later period. After Dry Bluffs next weekend I'll post some pictures, If i remember to take any.

http://www.thepiratefestival.com/

If anyone is interested.

[Dale Seago]

I managed to make a Rennie mad at me... She wanted to go to the Highland games in her pirate garb. I made the mistake of telling her that the games aren't a fantasy festival, like the Ren Fest, and that that kind of clothing would be out of place. I'm curious- how many pirates, faeries or other such costumes are seen at Highland games in Scotland? The games are an athletic competition and modern cultural festival, right? Was I off base and out of line telling her that going in costume wouldn't be appropriate?

Right on target, Travis. A Renfaire is a (vaguely) historically themed fantasy festival, while the Games are a cultural festival. Going to the Games as a Pirate would be about as appropriate as wearing Pirate fantasy garb to a native American powwow.

[Irish Jack O'Brian]

Well, this film may be totally out of place, since it relates more to LARPing than Renfest, but the mixing of periods and costumes mocks humorously the genre. And, hey, Peter Dinklage AND Summer Glau!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnQ9Vp4fV4I