Earlier this month, I took part in the Age of Chivalry Rennaisance Festival in Las Vegas, NV. Originally, I had planned on taking a vacation to Vegas and visiting my friend and her family. However, her family heard I was coming and decided I should work it with them. At first my reaction was, "Great. I'm taking a vacation off work to go... work." But then it occured to me that I had never worked a rennaisance faire before, so why the heck not. So I made plans to work the faire and then spend some time in Vegas doing the Vegas thing.
The Age of Chivalry Rennaisance Festival is held in October, usually on Columbus Day weekend. It is three days long and is held at MacArthur Park. Whereas the previous faires I have been to feature one setting, such as Elizabethan England, there is no particular setting. It is simply a faire, and many countries and kingdoms are represented here. There are even some vendors, guilds and what-have-you that I shall list in the categorie of "other". These would include ancient Romans, faeries, barbarians and some other barbarians that looked like a cross between characters out of World of Warcraft and Raiders fans.
One cool thing about this faire is the size. This thing is huge! There is just row after row of vendors. There are also several stages, a field for jousting, a lake and many guild encampments. Also, everyone there was really nice.
I arrived Thursday afternoon to help set up and decorate the rest of our tent. My friend's aunt makes head wreaths, wands, flags, unicorn horns and dragons teeth. She started doing this because she wanted people to be able to go to faire and actually leave with something. So, the garlands made out of metallic garland sold for a dollar each. Everything else in the tent sold for six dollars or two for ten. This, I've been told, was and has been much to the chargrin of other vendors, who sold almost an identical item (usually the metallic garland we sold for $1) and $6 or more. One vendor, I believe, tried to sell theirs for over $20. It would be interesting to see customers come in and get angry because they very much over-paid for their item, when they could've purchased the same thing at our booth for barely a fraction of the cost.
But I digress. On to faire!
I just wanted to point out that I stopped at Baker on my way there. You can't get to Vegas from southern California without passing this place (well, maybe you can, but not from where I was coming). I stopped for a munch and took a picture of the world's tallest thermometer. You can't read it, but it says "98" degrees. We shall see about that.
So, as I mentioned, I arrived and help set up the tent. The wind was really blowing in Vegas. Really blowing! Several vendors who didn't have proper tents had seen theirs blow right over or further down a few spaces. Fortunately, ours was fine. This is on a different day, but this is our tent.
Here are some of our wares.
More to come.
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