This past weekend we worked at the Silver Kingdom’s Renaissance Faire

 First, this is a LARP-based faire so people were shouting and running back and forth in costumes carrying boffer weapons. But we had some renfaire staples there; Merry Mischief Diabolis In Musica , Rufus the Beggar and Ed the Wizard .  The weather was hot on Saturday (but nothing compared to NJ last week) and it was misty on Sunday and that’s *my* ideal weather.  Diabolis had great news-that they will be working every other weekend for King Richard's Faire

 We were especially lucky this weekend for our website because one member’s girlfriend is a professional photographer and she got some nice shots. For now you have to settle for mine..LOL

Gallery for Silver Kingdoms.

 We had some people express interest in joining but we are leery of martial artists and LARPers because they are trained TO hit (that’s true of Historical people as well) so we’ll see how that shakes out.

 I was happy to see Crystal and she came and kept us company. Her Mom cracked me up with all her shopping, then a drive-by to leave off bags and start again. :)

 I made arrangements with Storied Threads to rework a bodice and make a new one. My husband left a deposit to have a custom gambeson made and various Phoenix people bought items!

 We were at the back of the faire (by request) and it turned out to be one of the best places to be. We got to see the culmination of all the action and the storyline (the LARP) We look forward to seeing the big battle and it was just and fun and raucous as we expected with dozens of monsters, healers and warriors battling!

This weekend we worked the NJ Family Medieval and Fantasy Festival  in the now-legendary heat wave in the Northeast.  Fortunately it isn’t the first time we’ve worked an unexpectedly hot show so our assistant manager bought 2 cases of Gatorade and Fenix took care of water and ice.  I am Very Glad that we brought our tent as we knew it was going to be a scorcher and there was very little shade onsite that was not provided by the stage tent or the trees at the edges of the grounds. 

We were reluctant to be too close to that since one member found a tick and the deer were so fearless we had to wait for them to cross our path in order to get in and out of the faire site.

We premiered the new bec de corbin and sickle bits but did no new stage acts. Mostly because members looked piteously at me and I couldn’t bring myself to make them wear bodices or extra costuming in the heat. The historical show is still a lot of work but at least we *all* get to suffer for that ;-)

The organizer has also asked us to be available for a new faire next fall so I have it on the schedule. Details are still secret…

More a more in-depth description: My Journal
More photos see the gallery or the Phoenix Gallery
To see where we are next: Performance Listings

Spring Faire Frenzy

So here we are starting the "event-once-a-week" craziness that marks the satrt of our seasonal spring. It's very sad that three of our favorite festivals have shifted dates and are now competing on the same weekend!

• NJ Family Medieval and Fantasy Festival
• Mystic Realms Fantasy Faire
• Silver Kingdoms Renaissance Faire

First we will be performing at the NJ Family Medieval and Fantasy Festival We have been doing faires for Chris Lance for over six years. He was the first faire organizer to seek us out to work for him and he very nicely tells us
"I count on you guys, I know you do a great show."
We put on one show where the cast was over 32 people and we had combined LARPers, us and unchoreographed steel folks on one tourney field in elaborate costumes and storyline. How? We paired liked performers and had an elaborate body map for the big melee.
It was a fun time learning experience that taught us all the pitfalls of arranging a faire. Later shows are much smaller and we are happy to let someone else wrangle "cast" these days.

That first faire we did for Chris we met Mystic Realms and Anton Kukal -a group of LARPers.

They were just great to us-once they realized we weren't Steel Snobs. We would LOVE to go back and do the fantasy faire but they are up this year *directly* against the other two faires. This faire is Fantasy Faire: a festival of medieval arts and folklife and being held at Wheaton Arts. We are still part of this in an odd way-Perrin and Fenix are the pictured fighters for the Renaissance Magazine ad for the faire. Fingers crossed we can be there in person next year!

A faire that is 20 minutes from our house is fast becoming red-hot. This is due to a number of factors; they are close to Worcester, Ma (Central), they do a good job getting out and doing hustle, they have a labor force that is full of energy-driven LARPers, this area is *rife* with talent and not the least of which is that they are really nice folks. Our first year we left our tent overnight and it was *demolished* in a storm. The cast went out in the early hours and retrieved everything from across the fields. And I mean everything and not just for us, for all the vendors, performers and other participants. We are still very grateful for that level of kindness. There is another local faire that had a long-standing following that seems to be slowly dying and they had some really good acts as well-so with this one burgeoning, it's going to attract that element. This faire is the Silver Kingdoms Renaissance Faire. And they have a presence here on Renspace

It's going to be busy but you can see when and where we'll be if you'd like to talk to us in person :)

My husband was reminiscing about some of the first faires we did and we came to the conclusion that you never know how things will turn out in the end-often far better than you think they will! The best example we have of this is the Mobile Renaissance Faire.

To give some background, we left another troupe in August of 2002 and were still friends with the guy who ran it. As it turns out that worked very well for him because 1) the first group had committed to a show in AL and then left him holding the bag 2) We had been pretty awesome at getting things done and we liked/felt sorry for him. Bottom line: he ended up subcontracting our group so that he would not be sued for breach of contract.

My husband is the travel guy, he marked our maps, made arrangements and made sure that the organizer knew he'd still get a show. I'm the 'mastermind' (stop laughing, it really is my personality type) that is, I try to visualize how show will go, what talent we have. Have been known to pull backup plans out of nearly nowhere (just don't ask about the smell) In this case, the poor guy who was troupe leader was having a hard time of it and in addition, people kept asking us
"What's the plan?"
To which I'd answer
"I don't know I'M NOT IN CHARGE OF THIS JOB."
*bitterness at cleaning up someone else's mess*

Well, my husband said
"Do you want me to handle this and make sure you don't get stuck again?"
Leader Guy was all about it. I won't say what the conversation was but Phoenix ended up with the contract, the money and we managed to pull it off and not get everyone fired.
So off we went to the Mobile Zoo in Wilmer, AL.

It was the middle of nowhere…wait, no it was pass the middle of nowhere and then pull off the pavement and go another five miles. When my husband said
"Turn left at the dead armadillo" I thought he was joking.
But honestly, we were glad it stayed there the whole weekend because it was the only distinctive marker in a wide swath of cotton fields, red clay roads and scrub pines.

And it turned out to be a cool site-lots of big cats, unusual animals, camping and the organizer (it was his second faire ever) was so great to us that we now have a pretty firm friendship. But man, it got dark fast and hard. When I say
'can't see our hand in front of our faces' that was NOT an exaggeration. And when we stayed in a hotel (banana spiders, people, I was NOT camping) it was in Lucedale, MI. (Which is another story all its own for another time) which was closer than Mobile.

So let's review; unknown faire, not the greatest pay, bizarre location, large insects, possibility of failure on a grand scale = pretty good time, triumph in adversity, good friends. So the way we look at it, if that's the fuel that keeps Phoenix burning, then it's good we appreciate what we have now and remember to look for silver linings.

4th Annual Conference: Historical Swordsmanship
Members of Phoenix Swords recently put together some demos and statistics for a symposium at the Renaissance Center at the University of Massachusetts. I was scheduled to do some Bec de Corbin/Halberd but had and unexpected health issue and spent the day home instead.   But they brought me back photos so I could see my WMA buddies (including Mark taking my place in halberd) show their stuff. Paul Kenworthy did drills with the participants. Doctor Schook brought his amazing collection of poll arms (not reproductions.) The Curator allowed people into the library to see a 400-year-old illuminated songbook and other research materials/items.  The two pictured here are Perrin and Fenix doing work with a German manual explaining combat technique with a sickle.