2016 Kiwanis Faire/Mudfest Ft. Myers

[RenFaireOnline]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/137622677@N08/albums

The album is broken down into 2 categories. Kiwanis2016all which has all the photos taken at the faire (good & bad) and KiwanisJan162016 which I have gone through and removed most of the bad photos as well as doing some quick touch-ups.

I think this is the first faire of 2016. Based upon the Renaissance magazine information this faire seemed promising. Listed attendance of 30k over 100 vendors. Count me in!!!
Made the 3 hour drive from Orlando down to Ft. Myers ready to go. Followed GPS to the address provided only to have it showing behind a large brick wall. I continued driving about .25 miles and finally found the entrance. Wondered if I was at the right place because I there was no signage advertising the Faire. I continued to drive through the park and was able to find the faire entrance. I timed my arrival to be around 10am an hour after the faire opening.

After paying my admittance fee and entering not more than probably 50 feet I encountered my first nature provided moat(the first of many). Unbeknownst to me Ft. Myers had just had a severe storm the night before with 2 tornadoes touching down in the area. The Faire grounds were a mess. Some stages requiring rain boots to even get to.  Numerous times throughout the day I heard the faire referred to as the mudfest and woostock. The deep mud was causing people to lose both sneakers and flipflops as they were trying to walk. I dont know how many people I saw that just went barefoot.

I was greatly disappointed in not being able to get more pictures of costumed individuals. Costume participation was extremely sparse. Due to the weather and still trying to get their tents setup many merchants never had the time to dress. Also due to the conditions of the property the county refused to let the jousting horses take the field. The jousting team made the best of it and ran themselves down the field which made for quite the spectacle. There are some pictures in the album.

Overall this was a nice smaller size faire. It was just a bad time due to weather to have an opening weekend. Hopefully this upcoming weekend will be nicer for them.

[Toua Taru]

Ugh! That's really disappointing to here about yours and some of the vendors experiences. Myself I've never frequented that particular faire. Also haven't checked out your photos (I will after I reply).

Yeah we had a really bad front of storms travel across the state both on Friday and today. Cold fronts are a blessing (cooler weather) and a curse (darn rain!)

Hopefully you can check out some of the other faires here in south Florida

[RenFaireOnline]

Sadly it appears there were a couple of deaths related to the early morning weather down that way.
According to Barely Balanced FB page they shut the faire down today.

My goal is to hit all of the Central and Southern faires. This is my second faire since moving to FL.
The first was Lady of the Lakes http://www.medievalfest.com/ which I greatly enjoyed. More than I expected.
The setting(walking through the forest feel) was great, excellent entertainers, very interactive support walking the grounds.

I may give Kiwanis another shot next year if they are still around.
Kiwanis is the first faire I have been to that had the completely open layout with no cover. Everything is just laid out in a big oval and you walk the circle.

Two weeks and it will be time to hit Hoggetowne and Brevard.

Will you be attending either of those?

[Toua Taru]

Yes, the weather was horrible and its extremely sad that people did pass away because of it. 

I have to say those are some awesome goal to have. I have a similar goal to visit the Florida faires and then some of the larger ones across the country - some day.

I'm a Florida native and I've really only frequented Florida Renaissance Festival (FLaRF) down in Deerfield. That's definitely one to hit on your list. I've heard good things about the Bay Area Renaissance Festival (BARF) as well. I went to Hoggetowne once like back in 2007.

I will actually be at Brevard on Feb 7th

I enjoyed your photos. I think you captured some good shots in there despite the weekend's conditions