Festivals at Middlefaire

[cjacksonii]

Hello all. I wanted to post to alert everyone about the festivals we're having at Middlefaire for 2011.

The first is our Pirate Festival which is actually next weekend (May 7-8).

The second is our Medieval and Magical Fantasy Festival, which will be held the weekend of September 24-25.

Our main renaissance festival will be held for five weekends, starting the weekend of October 29-30, and running through November 26-27. (Yes, we know this competes with another major festival in the state, but these dates were chosen because of weather conditions and how they affect the festival site, and that other festival is at least four hours from ours.)

As the cast director for the for the festivals, I want to also post about some projects I'm doing for the festivals this year.

The fantasy festival weekend will be the debut of our mud show, in theory, and I am still casting for it. There's not much of a script to the show, will be much more of an improvisational style show, barbarian-themed, and parts of the show will involve LARP (Live Action Role Playing) game combat and foam/latex weaponry (so the cast will be relying on their own skills which will make the show more interesting in my opinion.). There will not be much rehearsal time for this show, mainly because of my normal job as a over the road truck driver, which keeps me away from the area most of the year and I will be one of the major parts of the mud show. [Note: The concept of the mud show is subject to change at any moment!]

During the fantasy festival weekend, I would also like to put together a large primitive style barbarian horde for the fantasy festival. Initially, I would be playing the leader of that horde (disappearing when I need to be in the mud show), unless we have a person much more suited, and better built, to play the part than I am, which will possibly make things easier for me. Ideally, the barbarian horde will be more fashioned around the fantasy stereotypical loincloth clad barbarian and prehistoric caveman image, but this is open to discussion between those involved. LARP Foam weapon combat may be involved with this for those that want to do some safe sword or axe combat during the weekend. [I personally would love to do a small melee during the weekend of all LARP friendly participants. We tried to do that last year, but it didn't really work because of competing LARP events taking place.]

On our main festival, I'm looking for some people to play a trio of werewolves for the first weekend, which is around Halloween. This is a perfect part for the mundanes as they will be dressed as mundanes during the daytime. I'm going to be needing two males and a female for this. The males will need to be strong enough to tear an undershirt off (when the "transformation" to werewolf is to take place).

Ideally, anyone being a part of these projects should be very open minded as we have people who are already part of the cast or vendors that are of various religious beliefs, lifestyles, and preferences. Also, please note that all cast positions are volunteer and we don't focus on the historical accurate for our cast, unlike many of the larger festivals, mainly because many of our cast are new to festivals and/or may not have the money to get all the garb necessary to be historically accurate.

If anyone is interested in being involved with any of these projects, please get in touch with me either by private message on this board or via email at clayton@terabites.com [Please put Middlefaire Cast in the subject so it will not be confused with spam.] Of course, we will welcome anyone that wants to be on cast as any other type of character of almost any historical category....we can always use more pirates, peasants, and royalty!

Have a great weekend!
Clayton Jackson
Cast Director at Middlefaire

[DonaCatalina]

http://www.middlefest.com/
Anyone going?
At this tiime we are tentatively planning on a day trip for opening.

[DonaCatalina]

Look who comes up when you google Middlefaire under images.

[Merlin the Elder]

That being AHE weekend at TRF, I doubt you'll have many takers, Doña. We'll be on the east coast that weekend.

[raevyncait]

Nope. I last went about 2 or 3 years ago on the first weekend of October, on complimentary tickets provided by friends who own a shoppe out there. Our group stayed maybe 2 hours, then left, having seen EVERYTHING in that time. We had much more fun invading a Burleson restaurant in our garb. The friends who own the shoppe are in the process of selling the building, and have someone else contracted to vend out of it this year because they have decided it's not worth losing more $ (handcrafted wood pieces, including goblets, hairsticks, chairs, games, belaying pins, swords/daggers, bowls, etc.).

I honestly think that in the beginning, the festival had a chance... they opened a few weeks before TRF did, and while a few of their weekends overlapped, not all of them did. I do not know when things turned, but the first time I went, in 2007, it looked promising. In 2008, there were a few MORE vendors, and more permanent structures. 2009 we didn't go because it rained so heavily on Saturday that they were pulling cars out of the mud (as the parking lot is literally a field, with no gravel or anything) and cancelled the festival on Sunday (when we were going to go). In 2010 we left after 2 hours, because it seemed there were fewer vendors than on the previous trips, and the only addition was a joust field behind some of the booths, which, as I understand it, was the doing of the Four Winds jousting troupe. We decided then that we were not going to return, as it's not worth the drive for several of us. 

I have nothing against small festivals, and I think they've got a unique opportunity to be more of a family than a larger festival, and really get to know their patrons/playtrons; but I don't understand why they insist on competing with TRF, especially when 3 of their weekends are 3 of the biggest ones for TRF as well (AHE, Highland, Closing). It just seems to be setting themselves up for even more reduced participation, by both vendors and playtrons.

[cjacksonii]

Personally, I'm looking forward to opening weekend at Middlefaire. I'm bringing out my minotaur character this year as a more "royal" character, being the "King of the Mythological Creatures", complete with updates to the old minotaur costuming (the old costuming made me look more like a viking than a minotaur). Since I'm going to be playing more of a royalty character, I'll be watching more of the shows and stopping at every single booth at the festival....that's going to make me a very busy person, not including all the other tasks I have to do at the festival!  The Haunt we're going to have on Saturday evening sounds like it's going to be interesting,  with some very cool stuff going on. DonaCatalina, I look forward to seeing you at Middlefaire this year! Opening weekend will be a blast!

I know that we compete date-wise with TRF and the Middlefaire site is one that is not very "rain" friendly. I do remember the weekend you are referring to, raevyncait, in 2009 when we closed on the Sunday of our closing weekend due to heavy rain. It was raining all day on Saturday, and that did hinder many guests from coming out. I think that was one of the major reasons we did not open on the Sunday, that and the mud problem at the faire. We tend to not have too much of a problem with a passing shower, but when it rains continuously, problems do tend to happen. The prior weekends to that one were actually relatively nice and the weekends went relatively well. That actually led to the dates being changed. When we ran the faire in September, it was either too hot or too wet. Moving into late October/Early November gave us much better weather conditions. I'm hoping this may give you some insight as to why we are open on some of the weekends that TRF is also open.

Another reason, and it's one of my arguments, albeit probably not a good one, for the dates we hold Middlefaire's main festival is that not everyone who lives up in north Texas is going to be able to afford, in today's economy, multiple trips down to TRF. (It's been several years since I went, not because of Middlefaire, but because I just couldn't afford the trip down there.....in fact, I havn't been able to afford the extra funds to even visit Scarborough since 2006 and I've probably lost quite a few friends from the cast there that I had there because of not visiting and my association with Middlefaire. I'm personally hoping that in 2013 I can make a trip to Scarborough as my pirate character(and perhaps revive those friendships?), TRF as my barbarian, and Sherwood Forest faire as my barbarian (although I might take the minotaur out there...), all pending time, money, and if I can get the trucking job home time to be able to go.) Sorry, I went on a tangent there, back to the point I was making at the beginning of the paragraph. I would imagine that Middlefaire would be a nice alternative for those that can't afford trips down there every weekend, and at least give them that little "ren faire fix".

I'm personally hoping that in a year or two, I'll have the time and money to build a maze out there, unlike anything normally seen at a renaissance festival. I've mentioned about it in the past, but in essence it's a maze with a walk-through show inside it. Not going to give away too much, but when it's built, it'll be very impressive....at least it looks that way in my mind.

Clayton Jackson
Fantasy genre cast director at Middlefaire
aka Asterion, King of the Mythological Creatures
aka Clon the Barbarian
aka Pirate Captain Morick Towain

[beckgam462]

so is the update schedule posted for summer 2013 yet??  Pirate Fest  ARGGGGGGG

[Clarendon]

Anyone going to the Pirate Festival this weekend at the Middlefaire grounds?

[DonaCatalina]

So- November 2 we are planning a day trip. Anyone else going?

[Clarendon]

Is this Fair still alive???

[Toua Taru]

According to their website they have 2014 dates.