I cannot believe it’s taken me this long into my life to visit a Renaissance Faire, but now that I’ve been to one, I feel as if I’m starting all over again – reborn!
OK, Hudson, you have to get in the car and drive about an hour and a half south to Tuxedo, New York in Orange County. Tickets are about $50/person and the season is from August through early October. It is all totally worth it – you will not be disappointed. I promise that you, like I, will be playing the lute while singing the praises of the Renaissance Faire.
The Faire grounds are in excellent shape and beautifully landscaped. They left a lot of the the lush upstate forest intact. The grounds and buildings are in a circular medieval village style and feature dozens of artisans, craftsman, psychics, and food vendors. You could buy a bodice and cape, then eat a plate full of ribs and funnel cake while watching a jousting match.
You can do all this fun Renaissance stuff, without worrying about the not-so-fun Renaissance stuff like bubonic plague, dysentery and cholera. You can live a Renaissance life well beyond the average Renaissance life expectancy age of thirty-five.
About half of the people at the Faire are in costume. If you do not dress up, you will not be out-of-place. The advantage of attending in the late summer/fall is that you’ll find more elaborate costumes than the middle of the summertime. Who is going to wear purple velvet in ninety degrees with humidity? Half of the fun of the faire is people-watching. The Renaissance Faire is the dream destination of every nerdy teenage Dungeons and Dragons Master and every theater kid. If you felt that you were out of place in high school, come to the Renaissance Faire. All are welcome. There are princes and princesses and wizards and elves alongside wenches and bishops. Forgot your elf ears at home? No problem – there are vendors with an assortment of clip-on Tolkienesque appendages. If you are a boxum lassie, the Renaissance Faire is your place. Strap yourself into a corset and push the girls together and high, almost like a shelf. Balance a stein of beer on your bosom or maybe stuff a turkey leg in your cleavage and walk around gnawing on it. I don’t think anyone would look twice.
Live your dream.
There was one guy – a huge, hulky man – at least three hundred pounds and six six. He wore a loin cloth and an animal pelt over his big burly chest and carried an enormous five-foot wooden Viking hammer while his wife/girlfriend/partner next to him pushed a kid in a stroller. I would have asked to take his picture, but I was too scared. You never know with these barbarians. You ask for a selfie, and before you know it, your village is ransacked and pillaged.
There’s axe-throwing and archery, with real axes and real bows and arrows. If you would like to be more a spectator, there are dozens of different shows happening at multiple times throughout the day. The Renaissance Faire, and its participants, do not take themselves too seriously. There’s a wink and a nod behind the unicorn and fairy tapestries. Some of the performers will reference their liberal arts degree in useful topics such as philosophy while they juggle (you KANT say their parents aren’t proud). There’s acrobats, jugglers, fire-eaters, comedic wash women, and one of my favorites – a trained cat show. The trained cat show had one cat on a stage in front of hundreds of people in the audience. There was at least fifteen minutes of build-up, then the cat’s entire act was ringing a bell. When that cat rang that bell – once – the audience erupted in thunderous applause! It was underwhelming, anti-climatic and hilarious.
You could buy a caramel iced macchiato at a coffee stand, but you’ll have to put that down if you want to get on one of the rides – which are all powered by humans, not machines. You have to twirl yourself in a spinning hammock chair, or pull on a rope to make your Viking vessel swing higher. You are the muscle behind your own ride. I was skeptical, but the kids seemed to love it and were having fun – not an ipad in sight.
Why am I telling you about the Renaissance Faire now? Now, that it’s over?
Well, gentle readers, there is a reason – November 1st. On November 1st, costumes go on-sale at Spirit Halloween (this year, where Big Lots used to be on Fairview Ave). Go there on November 1st and get yourself a medieval costume for next year.
See thee at the Renaissance Faire!