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Market Square => Faire and Family => Topic started by: Dallan on September 08, 2008, 03:42:11 PM

Title: Why do your kids love faire?
Post by: Dallan on September 08, 2008, 03:42:11 PM
My first assumption is that they do love faire; ours do. We have two boys, 11 and 6. Both have been attending with us for sometime. The youngest has been literally going all his life. A couple of years ago we started to travel to other faires besides our home faire MDRF. It being right in the middle of our home faire season I decided to ask the boys why they love going to Renaissance Festivals so much. Here are the reasons they gave me. Most of them came from the oldest.

We get to dress up
Interesting food
Fun games
Get to stay in a hotel (away faires)

They struggled a little coming up with their answers. I think that in part they don't really know why they love it. I think it also because of the following reasons.

It's a day that the entire family spends together being entertained. I really think that this is a big one. Everyone is entertained as a group unlike taking them to a carnival where we watch them being entertained. I think the kids sense that Mom and Dad are having as much fun as they are.
The stimulus - so many sites, sounds, tastes and smells they are out of the ordinary keeps the adrenaline going.

What are your thoughts and reasons?
Title: Re: Why do your kids love faire?
Post by: Dallan on September 08, 2008, 03:53:57 PM
Pictures from this spring at VARF.

(http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j301/ddekowski/P1010345.jpg)

(http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j301/ddekowski/P1010336.jpg)
Title: Re: Why do your kids love faire?
Post by: sealion on September 08, 2008, 04:05:12 PM
My girls a bit older at 17 & 19 but they like the same things as your kids:
dressing up
eating junk food
watching the shows
staying in a hotel with a pool
and let's not forget- getting Dad to buy them sparkly things! lol
Title: Re: Why do your kids love faire?
Post by: knarlyknot on September 08, 2008, 09:02:04 PM
My kids are 5, 9, and 13 and also love faire for all the reasons stated but we also vend at a smaller faire, where we add the following reasons:

Pretty much free range  (very small faire!)
They are friends with the other vendor kids
they even have jobs for other vendors which makes great stories for school
Title: Re: Why do your kids love faire?
Post by: Lady L on September 09, 2008, 02:25:00 AM
My oldest son didn't care much for it. My younger son liked watching the demonstrations, especially pottery and glass blowing. They are grown now.

My grandaughters like dressing up, helping to sell my art at my shop, go shopping and watching some entertainment.
Title: Re: Why do your kids love faire?
Post by: white trillium on September 16, 2008, 10:05:02 PM
Our daughter (10) loves attending and the reasons are much the same as stated before (dressing up (though, truth be told, this is the first year that my spouse and I have attended in garb), the food, the shows, the music and she loves making new friends (of all ages)).

That being said, our two boys (14 and 16) have flat out refused to attend fair with us when we are in garb, or while dressed in 'danes for that matter...they would willingly join us up until about 2 years ago when the boys decided that we were too weird for them.

*sigh*

I hope that someday they will want to go with us again.

All of that aside, my mom is coming down the last weekend of MNRF and she and our daughter will join us for one of the weekend days (my mom is coming down so we can make a weekend of it...).  Years ago, when my family first moved to Minnesota, we went to the MNRF and while my dad really didn't have a great time, the rest of us had a blast, so my mom hasn't been back since 1981.  Pretty sure she'll have a good time.
Title: Re: Why do your kids love faire?
Post by: Lady Renee Buchanan on September 17, 2008, 06:34:14 AM
Our oldest son, Tony now 27, is a Star Wars/ Star Trek fan, not into faires at all, although he went with us a few times as a young teenager.

Our younger son, Matthew now 24, has loved faire since the first time he went as a child.  He is also the one who at 2 years old started watching Robin Hood (BBC with Michael Praed), and at 5 years old watched the BBC series on Henry VIII's wives and would discuss them as if he was talking about the neighbor next door.
Title: Re: Why do your kids love faire?
Post by: AnnMarie B on February 13, 2009, 09:23:44 AM
We have 5. They are 10,8,6,3,and 2.  They love everything about faire- dressing up,seeing shows, having mom and dad dress up and act like kids too. We seem to be raising some renlets for sure. I love to see so many families spending time together and learning a little about history at the same time. He we are last year at Texas Ren Fest.  We'll be going to Scarborough this year too, adn my husband will be playing with Wine and Alchemy- a new reason for us all to be excited  ;D

(http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p213/amb97/081129_105955.jpg)
Title: Re: Why do your kids love faire?
Post by: Tammy on February 13, 2009, 10:13:39 PM
Dallan & AnnMarie...What lovely families y'all have!
Dallan, I love how the whole family dresses alike!