King Richard's Faire

As I mentioned in the last post, I spent Sunday at King Richard's Faire, the Renaissance Fair in Carver, Massachusetts. The weather was perfect - 65 degrees, no humidity, no clouds in the sky.  The red and green knight won the joust, the magic sword +1, and the hand of the cute earthy Princess. They're good shows. The horses look healthy. It's better than a local wrestling show and probably better than most community theater.

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The cosplayers were mostly excellent, including our friends Steve and Ethan.  Most of them were in-period, but there were a few from video game properties and one group of steam punks. There were a couple of furries.  There was also a knight who dressed his girlfriend up in footy dragon pajamas and led her around by a leash. I'm not gonna judge what they do behind closed doors, but it was a little uncomfortable to see in public! 

Props: One of the great things about this particular group of carnies is that everyone is pleasant and you never feel like the town guard is breathing down your neck. Of course all the carnies are in costume, and some of them were in character. Everyone was happy and charming to deal with - not a jerk all day.  

My son, Nathaniel, won a super-hard skill game not once but twice! It's the one where you slide the pewter mug down the bar and try to get it into the circle.  Watching for probably a hundred throws from different people, nobody else got it once!  He got a certificate and a funny jester's cap and a great memory!

Slops: One of the outrageous things is that food is expensive. I mean, as expensive as you think it could possibly be, it's double that! And that's how they get you! For instance our family of 4 had a light lunch and it cost 72 USD.  But what are you gonna do, not eat?

Julie picked up a cool drum and Mom got a dragon figurine.  Nathaniel wants to do some research and pick our a sword and I got to keep the three extra meal tickets we couldn't spend on anything.  Score!~

There were a lot of neat swords for sale. For the first time I considered buying one. A sword like a real fighter might carry would cost 450 USD or so, give or take, but a lot of nice replica and lower-quality reproductions would cost anywhere from 100 to 300 USD.  Very cool!

The handsome devil in the grey hoodie is me, and the other fellow is one of the carnies dressed as a druid.  There were a ton of people, both working and visiting, that had awesome costumes and armor, but this one fellow's costume made me the happiest, Probably because I'm playing a Druid these days in my tabletop game.

COST FOR THE DAY: about 240 320 USD for four, including souveniers and gas. So very entertaining that we've decided to do it again next year, and Julie will dress for it! Cool!