A nearby Renfaire organizer has entered a garbed group in a nearby Christmas parade to advertise her event. This seems to be a great way to get the word out about small faires that need more exposure to the mundane world, especially for spring events.
I've also heard of organizers contacting local schools so their groups can visit history and drama classes and spread the word of their faire.
Hope this helps...
Up in Ontario - where renfaires are much smaller affairs - the Oxford Renaissance Festival often participates in Christmas parades, Victoria day parades, and comicons to try to boost awareness. Be aware that there CAN be a cost to being part of a parade - for a float, we often pay $500 - for a walking group less. Some parades allow us to have walking fighters, some say we can show live steel, some don't really care.
On average - I do 4 parades - all within 30 minutes of the festival.
You may need more wintery garb - parades can be very cold!
I would say that we do gain exposure from this and it gets people interested.
Ah, comicons. There are some of those around these parts (Oklahoma). I need to pitch that idea to the local faire. Gramercy for that good idea.
MNRF has a presence in many of the bigger summer parades around the Twin Cities, including the Pride Parade, but I don't think they ever did the "Hollidazzle" in Minneapolis, but then it was an after-dark parade and required all the units to have some sort of lighting, and it ran for a couple weeks so getting people to do that many nights in a row would be hard.