Faire: Should it be Fantasy or Historically Accurate or a Mix?

[Cobaltblu]

Well, I have to ask..
What faires do you go to that meet these ideals??
Most faires have some fantasy element mixed in, even most people's idea of a pirate is not h/a.  And you certainly cannot control what playtrons wear.

As I said I want the faire to be as HA as possible and would consider not going if large numbers of people dressed as fantastical creatures.  I go to The Sterling Renaissance Festival in New York State which is very good for HA as faires go and last year I cannot remember any fantastical creatures at all (with the exception of one person dressed in a bat costume complete with big black abdomen and bug eyes and so on).  Perhaps I wasn't looking closely enough but I honestly do not recall any elves or vampires or etc.

What is important, obviously, is having fun and everyone has their own desires of what to experience at a faire.  My desires just mean I would never attend many faires around the country.

I suppose I don't see much point in calling something a renaissance festival and having elves and vampires and dwarves present.

Regards,

CB

[daylight]

 Taffy Saltwater said it best. The people going to the fair have a right to go to the fair in what ever they want to. The fair is suposse to be fun, and it encourages people to dress up. You know most people don`t have the money or the time to put together a H/A garb, so are you saying they should stay home or just come in mundane clothing. I sure hope not. I`am truly sorry you won`t go to a fair that has pirates and elves and so on, because you are going to miss a lot fun fairs and good company. Blu you have to lighten up and enjoy what is at the fair and judge it as a history project.

[DeadBishop]

This is easy.  All of the above. 

Why choose?  It's not like there's only one faire in existence.  I'd prefer a good mix.  With no variety, things would get boring real quick.  Faire is about one thing; personal enjoyment.  Go where you want, and enjoy what you do!

[theChuck]

i think i fall in between everyone on this one. im okay with the fantasy stuff, so long as it's within reason. somehow i just don't think people dressed as samurai/ninjas really belong there. if they had feudal japan faires it'd be another thing, but... yeah.

[Captain Cornelius Howard Duckman]

Honestly?

Don't Care.

I go to faire for the atmosphere, for the people. The freedom, really. As long as people are comfy and happy, i'm good.

[Athena]

Like others, I like a bit of both. To me, it's more important that a faire has a Renaissance or medieval-like atmosphere, and it doesn't have to be 100% H/A to achieve that. As far as patrons are concerned, I've said before and I'll say it again - a person who pays to get in is entitled to wear anything they please as long as it's street legal. Yes, I've scratched my head at some ensembles, but cest la vie. It really doesn't put a damper on my experience.

Not to knock anyone who is interested in historical accuracy - if that's what you're looking for in your garb and/or weapons, then go for it. I find the person who strives to be H/A just as interesting as an elf or a pirate. They all add something to the faire.

[Al-Nimer]

Elves, fairies, nymphs, dwarves, vampires, and Santa Claus were very real during the Renaissance, as were brownies, trolls, and ogres. Careful where your modern mind takes you.

I agree with Malcolm.  These things were very real to the people during the Renaissance, because most people believed in at least some of these.  It would be analogous to some people today believing in aliens.

I'm very happy with Faires being a good mix, as long as the fantastical creatures on cast are historically accurate 
I couldn't care less what the paytrons dress as.

[Lady L]

I have thought about that from time to time and I think it would be very difficult to be truly historical. I think it would be impractical to expect everyone working there to raise their own (now extinct) breed of sheep, shear and card the wool by hand, make it into thread and then weave that into cloth (with the proper thread count, no less) and then cut and sew it by hand. It would be interesting to try it, of course, but to expect the whole faire to do it, not going to happen. Same with flax to linen,  a very labor intensive process and that's just the garb. Consider everything else and it would be next to impossible. We don't have the same climate or resources. We are not illiterate, or controlled by the church, we find it difficult to assume the whole mentality. We aren't going to forego bathing and reek every weekend, or have fleas and other contagious diseases. We aren't going to execute/behead someone or use torture devices, etc. We don't want to start another war between the Protestants and Catholics. I think it's best to have a Renaissance theme flavor.

I watched "Manor House" on PBS, where they  put present day people back into an Edwardian time frame. It was a culture shock and an interesting experiment.

People really belived the world was flat and that there were sea monsters, dragons and mermaids, back then. They did think unicorns were real, too. So, I think having that at faires isn't so much fantasy, as it is what they believed. They also believed in fairies and gnomes.
I like middle of the road.

[cowgrrl]

While I appreciate learning about the time & era of a Faire, I don't need historical accuracy, especially from the playtrons.  My kids (for better or worse) see Faire as an excuse to wear their Halloween costumes.  DS dressed as a Grim Reaper this year & DD as an Asian girl & a young Ren girl.  Sometimes she just wants to wear her fairy wings & fairy feelers with her regular clothes.  I tend to wear 'danes so my attire is really, really not H/A.
Which brings up another point.  If we want true H/A are we going to require visitors to rent costumes & speak in accents?  Shall we have accurate toilets (I can only imagine the stench after a few hours in the hot TX sun!) & as someone else mentioned, not bathe for a week at a time.

Personally, our Faire would not be complete IMO without performers like Twig the Fairy.  My DD would be very, very sad were their no Fairies at 'her' faire.

[Synikul]

And, PLEASE, have a certain amount of respect for the time period setting.  If it's a straight fantasy fair it may be okay to combine pirates and King Arthur, but if you set your fair in Medieval times or during the reign of King Henry the Whatever, try to at least keep your fantasies consistant with those appropriate to their times.

You must have been to GLMF....what, two or three years ago? I have pictures of that atrocity. It was weird, but fun. The entertainment director has to have balls to feature a duel between King Arthur and the Pirate King as part of the cast show. I think it was ad-lib, but one weekend Guinevere was kidnapped by pirates and tied to a tree.

Otherwise, the fair reinforces the idea the the past is a contextless mess of knights, musketeers, Caesar's and Victorian Queens.  As Issac Asimov once put it (and probably better than my paraphrase), everything doesn't need to be educational, but things shouldn't mis-educate.

Think about the average paytron. To many of them the past IS a contextless mass. Fairs are great because they give those people a taste of something they won't see anywhere else.

[Emerald Shaunassey]

To first answer the question posed in the original post - I say BOTH!

As a reenactor who does portray a pirate, I must say this - Pirates ARE H/A!  As long as man (or woman) has been able to put a raft/curragh/canoe/trireme, etc on water there have been pirates!  Julius Ceasar was captured by ... pirates.  Queen Elizabeth I recieved Grace O'Malley, the "Irish Pirate Queen" at her court.  So yes, pirates are period.

All that being said - GAoP pirates (Jack Rackam, Blackbeard, etc) or 'Hollywood pirates' (Jack Sparrow, Capt. Barbossa) are NOT H/A at a Medieval and/or Renaissance Faire/Festival.  On that issue, I will be the first to agree.

As someone else pointed out, folks of the time, espeically the poor classes, DID belive in fairies, phookas, elves, trolls, ogres, changelings, etc.  Vampires ... eh, try old Transylvania and Romania for those folk tales.  If your milk went bad - fairies, elves, etc had been at it.  If the cow went dry, the elves, fairies, etc made her go dry. 

Patrons/Playtrons - wear what you will that keeps you out of trouble with the law and that you are comfortable in.  At least you dressed up and are wanting to be part of this world of escape.  Huzzah to you!!!  Some of my best lane interactions have been with a patron/playtron that came dressed as something not ren faire period.  I love these folks, they want to play and will play just as hard as your fellow cast/stage member.

So should faires be strictly one or the other - I don't think so.  I think we all need a bit of fantasy to make our lives better.  And what better place to get that fantasy than at your local ren faire?

Just my two cents worth, I apologize in advance if I offend anyone.

Fair Winds!
Emerald
"I believe in Faires, Dragons, Good Men, and Other Fantasy Creatures"

[Thistle]

The "different kinds of faires for different tastes" makes sense.

My *personal* favorite is "realistic fantasy" - that is, fantastical is fine so long as it fits within the general milieu of 'old timey' Europe. For example, I'd actually find someone in perfectly reproduced 15th century Japanese regalia more out of place than a well-done Mr. Tumnus if that makes any sense.

So -
elves and fairies and ents and such? neat! Especially if they're well done!
Pirates and gypsies? Enh, kinda late period but what's lost in authenticity is more than made up for in atmosphere and fun.
Ithilien Rangers all done up in costumes that look stolen off WETA's lot? Ooohhhh.. awesome!

Kids in shiny polyester princess dresses and Halloween costume cloaks worn over jeans and sneakers? Enh, they're trying... and they prolly look better than I did at 15.

But stormtroopers or trekkies playing "landing party" buzzing everybody with plastic tricorders? *shudder* yuck.
The better angels of my nature know its wrong, but the unseelie wriggling on the other shoulder keeps saying she hopes they get on the bad side of the Viking.... toy phasers versus steel axe sounds interesting, says she.

No! Bad fairy! bad!

[Sir Gawain]

Blu, is this the flying rodent you speak of ?

[Peddlin]

I don't believe that, in this day and age, it is possible to actually be historically accurate, but if people want to try, then I say they should go for it. But I can't imagine being offended by others who want to play "dress-up", just like we do, but don't have the knowledge or the money it takes to make it perfect. I say that everyone should go with what they are comfortable in and what makes them feel good about themselves, as long as it is within the limits of the law (as I would hate to see anyone carted off to jail for playing make-believe). The entire purpose of our kind of event is fantasy. We do not actually live in Elizabethan England, so no matter how we dress, we are all fantasizing, and I figure it is not my place to tell anyone else how to practice it.

[Lady Renee Buchanan]

One of the largest faires in the country, Bristol, has Queen Elizabeth I as the monarch. And who runs around the lanes?  Robin Hood, Maid Marion, and the band of Merry Men.  As well as the glade where the fairies spin a net.  And these are cast members, not playtrons.

Certainly not historically accurate, or even from the same time period, but judging from the crowds that attend every weekend, it's what the paying public wants -- or else they wouldn't be there.  I think commercial faires have to try to appeal to a wide variety of people to keep the revenue coming. 

And if it was truly historically accurate, I wouldn't be there.  At my age, I'd be dead already!