Illinois Ren Faire

[wendyzski]

Well, I spent my weekend in the thriving metropolis of Champaign-Urbana, at rather a nice little faire. It still has some issues, but for a 2nd year show, it's certainly got a lot going for it.


We get in on time Friday night and check into the Historic Lincoln Inn. It doesn't look very Lincoln-ish, being an overdone combination of olde german and pretend-tudor. It was kind of fun in a kitschy kind of way, and it probably must have been something about 20 years ago. Now it's just kind of sad. For example...

• The rooms have lovely light-blocking floor-length curtains. However, the HVAC units are under the window, so if you want to use both at the same time, you have to sort of pile the curtains up on the window sill and fiddle them about to actually block the light.


• The beds are the same fake-tapestry print as the curtains, so that anything you put on the bed that is smaller than a shoe instantly disappears. We played a lot of "Find the room key".


• There are cool-looking pretend bed-curtains that hang on the sides of the bed. They happen to stick out exactly as far out as the edge of the bedside table. There are tie-back hooks on the wall, but no tie-backs, so the bedside lamp is useless unless you either knot up the curtain or somehow manage to shove it behind the bed.


• The hot tub is really nice, but the sauna not only doesn't work but is in fact nailed shut with a board.

We then grabbed a quick take-out dinner to get to the site meeting. However, it turns out that it had been pushed back till Saturday morning, so we took out our take-out and went back to teh hotel for a wonderfully early bedtime.

The weather was hot and sticky. We have been SOOO spoiled this season with nice weather, and I was having a lot of trouble with heat issues all weekend. I stayed hydrated well enough, but by evening I had the "my electrolytes are fucked" headache and nausea going on. The lady at the grocery store actually stared when I swigged 2/3 of the bottle of gatorade in one go while I was still in line. Sunday went much better both because it was a shorter day, and because I picked up more gatorade on the way in that morning.

The one nice thing about small faires is the sense of community. People were always willing to help you out, and the turnout to help deal with issues at the joust (which will get it's own entry) was very respectable. Also, I admit that Minstrosity is a decent-sized medium fish, and these small ponds are FUN! We had at least a 2/3 audience at every show, and sales were much better than I expected. It was also our first experience with a group of people who traveled out of town to a show just to see us. One show on Sunday had only 2 patrons we didn't already know, so we just introduced them to everyone! But I think the Champaign-Urbana branch of the Minstrosity fan club seems to have quite a healthy start.

Smaller faires also have different standards and different vibes than larger ones. This show had more stuff for kids than is usual for a show of it's size - there were TWO kids' quests, one for 11 and under and one for 12 and older - the younger ones had to find things and the older ones had more of a puzzle-clue type setup. But there were quite a few not-even-vaguely-period things. The live remote from the local country music station was sort of out of place (and they looked all confused when I tried to quiz them on what country their music was from). And hey - what says "Renaissance" more than a go-kart with balloons on it!?! But most of the vendors had decent attempts at costumes and did a pretty good job of disguising their popup booths.

All in all, it was exactly as it was described to us - "A nice little show that is obviously still getting started but that seems to be doing all the right things".

Saturday night was supposed to be a "banquet" for the participants, but it went up at the wrong time, the food wasn't very good, and everyone was too tired to stick around. Won't be bothering with that next time around. However, Sunday dinner at the IHOP was cool. We were a little worried about the staff's reactions, but I guess in a college town, a dozen rennies being loud in the corner is rather tame by comparison. We never did make it out to the Custard Cup on Kirby, a place which I have fond memories of.

Slept in a bit this morning, though I was awakened at 3AM by "The Ghost of Sausages Past", watched Cartoon Network for a while while waiting for the Pepto to kick in. Up at 9, out by 9:30, a nice leisurely breakfast, and back in Chicago by 2.

Comments

[starstraf.livejournal.com]

thanks for the review - I hope to make it over sometime