Ye Olde Faire Stories!

[Minflick]

Keep in mind that TV crews have UNIONS...

My late DH used to get super annoyed at the Survivor shows, and couldn't stop rumbling that the contestants may have been Suffering Beyond Measure, but the crew had pretty lux living conditions, because of their various unions. They weren't suffering in the least. The TV crew at the Faire may have had similar unions and conditions and etc.

[LadyofArc]

Keep in mind that TV crews have UNIONS...

My late DH used to get super annoyed at the Survivor shows, and couldn't stop rumbling that the contestants may have been Suffering Beyond Measure, but the crew had pretty lux living conditions, because of their various unions. They weren't suffering in the least. The TV crew at the Faire may have had similar unions and conditions and etc.

I have no doubt about it (which is why they got around the fire ban), but the rules are there for a reason, union or not.

And I also heard another story for this particular fair - this was an old one, the year before my SO joined the group (and the inaugural fair IIRC). Back then, the group were not in charge of the archery range (out of the 3 main events we do during the year, we maintain the range for 2 of them now) - this was the responsibility of another group.

Said group turned out to have some very lax standards in terms of safety. The crux of it was someone loading their bow in a very unsafe manner and one of our club members luckily intervening before someone was seriously hurt. End result - that group were more or less banned from the fair and we took over the range.

We take safety on the archery range VERY seriously at events. Everyone gets a turn at being marshal during a club shoot as practice as a result, so that we can rotate and cover the range at events.

[Chanlin]

I swear I'm not aiming there!

Was the guy's name Scott Sterling by chance?

Oh yeah, this guy chose to argue that we couldn't hit him from where the members of the public holding bows were (around 80m away from the firing line, our targets are around 10-20m from the firing line) and that they were too "low poundage" to do any damage.

Whether we can or can not hit you is not the point. Get outside of the marked off range limits doofus :P

[Minflick]

Fire safety rules are NOT to be fucked with, no argument from me. I live in California... We've had some lovely demonstrations of fire damage recently.

[LadyofArc]

Tales from The Fair of Alternative Gloriousness - The Good AND the Bad

Well, this weekend was interesting. The fair in question is far broader than your typical medieval fair, as it covers re-enactors from different time periods (up to and including WWII), steampunk enthusiasts, cosplayers, LARPers, handicraft folks and more. So, there were some very "out there" costumes and moments, but we all had fun. Since the standards for re-enactment were slightly lax, we could also get away with some things that we couldn't at other events (eg me running around with my head uncovered for the weekend*).

Surprisingly, the suck was minimal, but there were some good and bad things that happened.

The Good:

- One of the displays near us had a set of stocks that people could stick their head and hands in for photo ops, while the guy manning said stocks would then start making cracks relevant to the person in the stocks (eg if it was a child, he'd start offering them for sale). At one point, there was a young boy in the stocks. Cue one of our members creeping up towards him and offering to buy him, all while wielding the cleaver in one hand and putting on this ridiculous mannerism that made it clear he was joking.

- That same member spent the entire weekend in the kitchen since he's also a leatherworker and was using the time to make sheaths for our kitchen implements. Every now and then, whenever a child would wander up to our kitchen display, he'd start loudly pondering if the kid's hands would be perfect for our stew! (We do actually cook meals for ourselves while we're there, usually lunch)

- One of the more fantasy-based displays was around a robotics club. They built a replica R2-D2 that could actually roll around and turn his head from side to side (they also had two other R2 models there which couldn't). The lady controlling him would take him for "walkies" every now and then around the fair. (Turns out he's there every year) This year, he was also dressed in a little tuxedo, a cowboy hat and six-shooters, in line with the "Wild West" theme. At one point when she was taking him for walkies, one of the medieval groups were on their way to do a melee display and were dressed in their armour as a result. When they saw R2, they all started charging towards it, resulting in the lady playing along and making R2 beat a hasty retreat

- One such evening, one of the WWII re-enactors came up to our camp and introduced himself. At this point, one of our members was wandering around shirtless. Said member is also quite hairy (to the point where his body hair has become part of club lore). Cue the WWII re-enactor going "You're not hairy," and whipped off HIS shirt to reveal what can best be described as a "carpet of body hair."

- One of our members wears mens garb whenever we do events (she is VERY much a tomboy). Her SO decided to get in touch with his feminine side and had one of our other members make HIM women's garb. He wore that for the entire weekend to the point where one of our other members opted to plait his beard with lucet cord as well. Someone asked at one point if he was allowed to, at which point the story of Ulrich Von Liechtenstein got shared (specifically the story of him wearing women's garb on a regular basis). He referred to himself as that for the entire weekend after that

The Bad:

- One lady came up to our display, announced that she was a history teacher and then started firing off questions towards EVERYONE on what they were doing. The tone was quite patronising to begin with, but it then hit firmly sucky territory when she told US that she'd asked one of the other stalls (who were selling dreamcatchers) about the history of the dreamcatchers and then proceeded to lecture THEM when they couldn't give an answer about it.

- This year we had civil war re-enactors (didn't think they existed in Australia ) who had their camp set up on the way to the bathrooms. One of their members decided that making inappropriate comments to one of our female members was an excellent way of making a first impression on us. That got promptly passed onto the go-between for the medieval village and those guys will likely not be back.

- Someone else decided that letting off flare guns at night was an excellent idea. Two of them burned out before hitting the ground, but the third one resulted in about 8 of us running off with the fire extinguisher to investigate as it came very close to hitting the stables that were set up on-site.

- Not nearly as sucky, but during the skill-at-arms display for the medieval horseriders, there was one case where one of the riders was thrown from her horse. Horse is fine, she however broke one of the bones in her wrist . She posted the x-rays and hoo boy.

- They had cannons and guns going off at the fair as part of the civil war and WWI/WWII displays (some of these also came from the replica army vehicles). Unfortunately due to some scheduling issues, the cannons weren't going off at the times that we'd been given. This resulted in two people having trouble settling their children (they'd been given the schedule specifically so they could put their kids down for naps at the right times) and one of our members having her PTSD being set off.

- There were some scheduling snafus, mostly caused by a case of the "left hand doesn't know what the right is doing." Twice, this resulted in one of the organisers getting on the PA and loudly (and rudely sort of) announcing for the persons involved to do what they needed to do. The fact that he was so casual about it though, made it a bit funny in one instance

- While it's not uncommon for us to get asked if our replica weapons are for sale in our weapons display (we usually point them to the stalls that do), we had one such idiot who not only asked if the weapons were for sale, but also if they came in women's sizes! (to clarify, the display in question has everything from Viking swords to great swords).

Despite all of this, the crowning highlight of the fair was that over the course of one night, one of the WWII re-enactors managed to organise no less than four different groups together (ours, one of the other medieval groups, the LARP group and his) to do a display where after their army vehicles rocked up, our members would jump out of the back and shoot LARP arrows at the other medieval group and the LARPers who were trying to "invade" one of the other army vehicles. (My SO got to do this and was loving every minute of it)

*=women in the 14th century covered their head upon marriage. Most of us wear a St Brigid's cap (sort of like a cross between a surgeon's cap and the coif that Offred wears on The Handmaid's Tale) as it's fairly cool during the day. To have your head uncovered means you're either not old enough to be married, or you're a harlot. The running joke around the camp is that those of us who go uncovered are "playing a whore" for the day.

[RealUnimportant]

- While it's not uncommon for us to get asked if our replica weapons are for sale in our weapons display (we usually point them to the stalls that do), we had one such idiot who not only asked if the weapons were for sale, but also if they came in women's sizes! (to clarify, the display in question has everything from Viking swords to great swords).

Oh if only you could have had Gwendoline Christie pop up in full Brienne of Tarth gear: "And what size would that be?"

[LadyofArc]

Oh if only you could have had Gwendoline Christie pop up in full Brienne of Tarth gear: "And what size would that be?"

Funnily enough, the LARPers were actually right near us and a few of them came over to us. It would've been fantastic if one of them opted to do just that. (Some of our members also LARP too and one of them took it upon himself to get involved in the melee they decided to do on the final day).