The camera captures a lot and often in its passes, it sees a non adult world. Sure, there are the children who are dragged to faire by their parents, the ones who might not want to be there as exhibited by their crying (the camera doesn't capture that....but memory does), but then there are the other faces, the ones enjoying the jump, one way or another, into make believe.
They are there, in memory cards or print, and I often wonder what it's like to see it from their viewpoint.
Now, in all honesty, it's probably a life I could not engage in anyhow, being a brat...................
.................. but I do wonder.
I myself would have rather started faire younger, my girlfriend dragged me to our home faire of sterling in 2004 and since then we've been going back every year and love it move each year. Plus if i started younger i would have a lot more garb and would have had the money to spend it but now that money goes toward bills.
Never look back and wonder what could have been...
I am not the same person now as then. I may have hated it at 10 or 12 and never have gone back. You are a product of your experiences and change over time. My experience then would be as different as my returning to riding tricycle now.
Nope, don't wish it a bit.
I was lucky enough to have been introduced to faire as a HS sophmore. I fell in love with it then and still love it now!
i was first introduced to it twenty years ago at age 11, i was hooked...i went maybe once a year(maybe twice GARF did run spring and fall then), and whenever we had school fieldtrips to it .
in my early 20s i did not get to go much due to having a weekend job in retail. But the past six years have been magical for me, as a renn regular. i think i appreciate it more so now as an adult going all the time than i would as a child.
I would love to go back and start Renning 10yrs ago. Really would love to go back 1990, though, and get my 'ren on'.
No, I am good with it as is. But thanks for asking. ;D
I do sometimes wonder what it would have been like or what choices I would have made differently had I the opportunity to go to faire earlier than 16 years ago when I was a Freshman in college. But then again, at that time being new to faire, it brought about my curiosity to eventually finding R/F.com and having it grow to what it is today. Experiencing faire earlier may have never led me to search out the information that led me here, which means this site may not have evolved to what it is today.
I probably would have gone when I was younger, but there was no such thing in existence then.
Secondly, I doubt that my parents would have gone to anything like that, so I would have been out of luck.
I was already 11 when the first faire was staged, and it was a couple thousand miles away...not much chance to get into it. My first exposure was in my mid-30s at TRF, then a couple years later at a young Scarborough, still in its first decade. I wish I had caught the fever then, but I didn't. I did, however, get infected, and it finally started spreading through my body a dozen years ago.
Just as some folks head to the beaches each year for their vacation, we head to the faire. It's a marvelous release from the tensions of our jobs, and the frustrations of everyday existence.
If there were a faire closer to us, we very likely would have gotten more into it, more quickly. The expense of travel and lodging just a few years ago were just more than we could afford. Our home faire is 375 miles distant. Now, even if a good faire was to open close enough for day-tripping (hmm... there's a song title there somewhere...), I'm sure we would still travel home to Scarby.
I don't. I went to TRF on a fluke but having an old soul, i fell in love at once. It took a bit longer for the Rennie Bug to bite me... an ice cold, rainy, Thanksgiving weekend in 07. TRF was empty except for staff and a few die hards... was one of the best days of my life. Fraser of Lovatt was born......
Nah - I got started relatively late, but at such a key transition point in my life that I was ready to experience it so richly. Don't think I'd go back and change a thing...
I did! My first trip to Faire was when I was 12. Went again when I was 16 and actually met my fiance then...of course, we didn't start dating until 7 years later.
I did take the neighbor kids when they were around 7 years old and by the time they were 14, it was enough for them. Then I started taking my cousin at the age of 7 and by the time she became a teenager, she lost interest.
I think of it as escape for me, maybe as years went on, they thought it to be torture? Hahahahaha! ;D
My 'son' goes with me now and then. He started going at age 7 and is now 26. He likes it even more because of the mead! :P I find it strange when he does drink. Oh lordie........lol!
My parents took us once when I was six or seven visiting Family in the Chicago area. I remember liking it, but we didn't have anything like it where we lived at the time. When I we moved to Florida my mom took me to BARf in the Largo days, I must have been 8th grade at the time. LOVED it, I have only missed two seasons since.
On the other side my son is being raised to be a rennie, he loves it, loves pirates,swords,messy food and all the attention he gets, he's 3, he gets upset if he hears mommy and daddy are going and not him (actually had to drop him off wearing regular clothing to his daycare on Festival Friday so he wouldn't know I was going with out him). My daughter who is now nine can take it or leave it. likes the dressing up but hates the heat and being outside.
I think if we had gone more when I was little I would have been like my son, we are two peas in a pod! I would have enjoyed every minute of it!
I think I was in third grade when I went to Scarby for the first time (over 20 years ago) and had no idea what it was. The only thing I remember from that trip is picking out pretty rocks in a blue velvet bag (which I still have!) My second first time was as a Sophomore in HS, and I LOVED it! I've been going ever since.
I started going to TRF my Freshman year of high school and I've loved it ever since. I've been to 4 different festivals now. Each time I'm at a faire, I see children with parents who are all dressed up and I wish my parents had been as accepting as theirs are. My parent's didn't really like renfest too much, and my dad considered it weird and bad. I always felt embarrassed when my friends would come pick me up for the festival. That's all I wish I could change, I wish my parents were more into it and they had gotten me into it sooner. But, I feel fortunate to have discovered the amazing thing that is renfest as a freshman and I've been several times ever since for about 6 years now :D
I can honestly say my very first year to attend TRF, I was 9 years old...I am glad I have an open minded mother.
I'm lucky to have an open minded family! We all love going, in costume!!
I started as a teen; 15 years old, TRF in 1978. Thank (whatever deity you acknowlege) that my parents never went, they would have never let me go back. Would I change anything? Not a single thing. I wouldn't be who and where I am today if I did.
Quote from: Fraser of Lovatt on June 02, 2010, 08:00:46 AM
I don't. I went to TRF on a fluke but having an old soul, i fell in love at once. It took a bit longer for the Rennie Bug to bite me... an ice cold, rainy, Thanksgiving weekend in 07. TRF was empty except for staff and a few die hards... was one of the best days of my life. Fraser of Lovatt was born......
Thank you for sharing this. I was working there that weekend and hearing what you just had to say made
camping in that weather and doing the show all worth it!
I will turn 44 next month. My first visit to faire was in '82 or '83 with my parents and I was around 16. We went to TRF and I fell in love with faire then. I went to a few faires here and there as a young adult while living in southern California. Moved back to Houston in 91' (I think it was) and started going to TRF again but didn't really start garbing and so on until a maybe four/five years ago.
I always admired the outfits and so on, but never felt confident enough to wear them myself. Now I garb and don't care if I'm HA or not. I go and garb because I love faire and don't fret over the garb nazis.
So while I may have started faire young, I do wish I had had the self confidence to garb at an earlier age. Just think of the collection I would have in my closet by now! :P *sigh......*
Oh and Fraser, I remember that cold, rainy Thanksgiving weekend you are talking about. I and a group of ladies were pretty much planted in the POW lol. We prolly crossed paths at some point that day!
I wish I had gone to faire as a kid, I think I and my brothers would have liked it. But I think my mom would have never even heard of us going back then when we were younger. My dad has gone with us once and keeps saying he'll go again but work (he's self employed so you work when you gotta) picks up and he can't go. I've made my dad garb so he doesn't have to go naked. ;D
I think I've been going to faire since our local faire started. I think it's been around for 18 years? So I was exposed as a young kid. Supposedly my mum said I asked to go and my parents took me. I don't remember much (I'm 23 now so I was pretty young the first few years) but I remember loving it. My parents were not into it beyond the point of taking their kid to make them happy. My older brother doesn't like it at all, and naturally once I got into my teen years I started making my home made costumes and trying to find friends who would go with me, since you can only hang out with mundane parents for so many years as faire, while trying to make a character. XD
I'm definitely glad I got into it when I was younger, I play a fantasy role at faire, so the young kids who come up to me subconsciously rely on me to help suspend their belief for the season, and because I remember being a kid at faire, I can handle it much better then going in with no experience with the surroundings and audience.
Quote from: Bonny Pearl on June 10, 2010, 07:31:31 PM
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Oh and Fraser, I remember that cold, rainy Thanksgiving weekend you are talking about. I and a group of ladies were pretty much planted in the POW lol. We prolly crossed paths at some point that day!
That's funny because that's where i ended up almost every time it started to pour! My good friend, Broadside McGuinness, told me to come by for the pub sing... soaked to the bone and just as lit up, i found myself joining in with the Pirates of Bedlam. Yeah, the rennie bug bit me HARD that day.
I think they had dinosaur faires when I was a kid! LOL! I wish I had found faire early in life- but enjoying it for all I can now!
i didn't get to garf until i was in my twenty five and i remember a few times in my early teens i had seen it advertised and wanted to go. i would have loved it then that would not have changed
Yes. ;) :D
I'm 36 now and have always been a history geek. First time attending I was 28 or 29 I think. Went with some friends to I had met through work who were long time rennes. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't until more recently that I actually putting together some outfits, etc.
I was born in Europe and spent most of my formative years back and forth between the US and there and then another 12 years in the Army, so I got kind of late start :). . There are festivals of a sort in Europe, but not very many. Most are living history exhibits.
well - if I had lived in California I could just barely have started as a teen; early 20's would have been the earliest I could have here on the east coast; and I did start attending on a regular basis in my late 20's
I think people in the Kansas City area take faire for granted.. I have never met a person who has never been or who doesn't know what it is. All throughout school, everyone knew when the faire was held and would come in with their face paint and hair braided the day after they went.