Last year I wrote about the little medieval market we visited during the 888 years celebrations of my hometown. Shortly afterwards I gave you some impressions from a much bigger renaissance fair near our place. Back then I was thinking how great it would be to dress up as well like so many other people were doing it at the big medieval market. Lets just say my wife and I were gathering some stuff since last year and put it into use last month.
Back in May just a week after we arrived from China it was time again for the renaissance fair near my hometown. The whole event was going on for three days but we chose to go only on one day (the middle day) as it is pretty tough going around with a little kid such as Nathan in addition to be rather pricey when thinking about the tickets and food there. We immediately regretted that we didn’t go during the first day because the weather changed for the worse. We had all the time sunshine till the day we wanted to go to the fair. The day started without any sunshine, instead it was all grey in grey but on the bright side it was dry. Guess I was too happy too early about having no rain as the first downpour out of many started right after we arrived at the fair.
Even though the weather wasn’t the best the festival area quickly filled up. All over the place they had tents to give shelter from the rain and huge bonfires to get some warmth in case the Met wasn’t enough. Due to the bad weather Nathan was forced to wear a jacket and thus couldn’t present his Chinese Emperor costume to the world. My wife was wearing a Chinese dress she bought in China plus all the accessories and I had created my own personalized clothing since last year. Okay I didn’t made anything myself as I bought most things and my mother actually tailored me few parts as well. I fashioned my costume, as a Lord of the Rings nerd, after the Rangers of Ithilien. Sure it is not authentic but it looks alright in my opinion. As this renaissance fair’s motto is also “Not Authentic but Phantastic” it fits just well. You could see people with real clothes from back in the day but also many Elves, Orcs, Trolls, Pirates and last but not least also a guy wearing a Unicorn dress…
I wanted to take so many pictures there this year again of the whole area plus of ourselves but the weather wasn’t on our side. I didn’t want to damage my cameras in the rain thus I ended up with just too few pictures which I took in the rare rainless minutes. Due to the bad weather we also stayed only for a few hours. Right when we wanted to watch the Bruchenball tournament (some kind of rugby game with a 30kg heavy ball…check out this link for some pictures) I spotted huge dark clouds approaching and we hurried back to the car. Just when we arrived some real big storm started to bring hell on earth as huge hailstones threaten to destroy my car. Anyways we arrived safely back home and were happy that I spotted those clouds as it would have been no fun to be in the renaissance fair with that storm.
For this year we have planned to go to another renaissance fair in September managed by the same organizer. That time it will be in Hamburg and we hope to go there for two days and stay overnight at my cousin’s house who lives just 5 min away by car. The organizer is doing nearly every weekend such festival in different cities all over Germany but we think that going to two of them is more than enough due to our limited free time and of course due to the high costs involved.
Have you dressed up for some event/ did cosplay?
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I love those fairs, and I like dressing up, too, but the ones in SoCal are always so hot that I don’t go anymore. A corset in 100 degrees? Forget it.
The falconry demonstrations were the best. Once, in Denver, they had a bald eagle. (She couldn’t live in the wild, due to lead poisoning.)
Oh with those temperatures I would never every dress up like that 🙂
Here they had also falconry demonstrations and there was a White-tailed eagle (the Eruopean sister/ brother of the bald eagle) and many many owls as I have in one of the pictures 🙂
That’s so cool! I would have loved to dress up in medieval costume..haha..although maybe Harry Potter may be able to blend in as well? Hehehe
I think nearly anything goes there as I saw people dress up as unicorns and other mythical animals :p
Haha..sounds like lots of fun..👍😃😃
You need a sword, then it would be perfect!
In fact I do have a sword but it is not showing in that angle :p
Most of your photos look like, it is from Games of Thrones set :). I can’t wait for big episode 9, today :). Are you watching it too?
I think it will be so much fun to dress up in the event like that. I have never been to one like that but I had a Halloween party once and I dress up as devil with horns and tail. 🙂 It was as a fun time as many of my friends dressed up as well.
Such a shame about the rain.
No I am not watching I only read the books. I tried the first to episodes but didn’t really liked it as several things were changed already but that is the normal thing with book adaptations.
I think I have never dressed up for anything before even on some themed parties when I was back in the day in university
This looked like a great dress-up festival but pity to hear about the weather. It looks open air all the way through, so I can imagine how wet some of the people there got when the hailstorm came around. It must have damaged costumes too 😛 I haven’t actually dressed up too many times. When I was younger I liked dressing up like fairies, with the big wings on my back and wearing at tutu. I have since grown out of that phase. I would like to dress up as Link from the video game Zelda at some point 🙂
These kind of events are really fun as so many people dress in all kind of different styles. Link would be an interesting project, I guess it would take some time to create it
A couple of years ago I bought the white pants for my Link costume. This year I tried the pants on and the they won’t fit – too small for me now. So yes, it will take some time to create the costume 😀
Haha too small?i thought something like that would only happen to me:p
Sure there are probably lots of “ready” made costumes available online it is always better to create your own. Even if you don’t tailor it you still can buy th different fitting clothing parts over time
Yep. The white pants were too small and I had to give them away. Been eating good food… 😀
I too prefer to create my costume with different pieces. That way I can add my personal touch to it. Besides, those ready-made costumes are always too big on me. And I’m too curvy for child ready-made costumes.
I also bought piece by piece my costume / forced my mother to tailor a couple of things. Though it looks complete I am still searching for small stuff like leather punches to make it more unique 🙂
Looks like fun! I have never attended anything like it. Not even a costume party, haha. Raining sucks. I have adjusted my expectation of summer in Poland (also back in Finland), that summer means no snow, but there is no guarantee of sunny, nice warm weather all the time. So I haven’t been that disappointed this year due to my low expecations. 🙂
Oh they had snow in Finland last week :p
These kind of Renaissance fairs can be found all over the place, I bet there are many in Poland as well so you could check it out for yourself (ofc there is no need to actually dress up:) )
I have never done cosplay because I’m boring and lazy haha. But those pics look amazing! And what do you mean that people wore real clothes from back in the day? Like, clothes from 500 years ago??
There were some people with real antic clothes eg museum stuff 🙂
I am also usually too lazy for anything like that but ever since last year it somehow infected us that we also want to have some fitting clothing
We stumbled across a Rennaissance Fair or maye it was medieval when we went to a town outside of London, England to see King Henry VIII’s castle (Hampton Court).
Of course, here in North America, we have Native Indian festivals. There’s nothing really that old otherwise in Canadian history. The French first settled in Quebec in 1600’s. The Vikings landed in Newfoundland province several hundred years before that.
I bet that there are big Renaissance fairs in Canada as well. At least I know/ saw in tv about huge ones in the USA so there should. Be something going on in Canada as well.
This kind of festivals are really interesting as they offer also a huge variety of different food
Hahaha. I love how dedicated you are to going to Renaissance fairs and dressing up and trying to beat the rain.
Well in the end we gave up as the rain was something we couldn’t beat. At least we didn’t get wet as we always had enough tress to find shelter or those huge tents. 🙂
I was so looking forward to seeing Nathan dressed up and your wife (could see her gorgeous coat though)…but what a shame the weather was not good; sort of spoils the day a little doesn’t it.
It,was still nice though. However now we have high hopes for the one in the beginning of September. Hopefully there won’t be any rain and we can take tons of pictures 🙂
Great. Look forward to them.
I like renaissance fairs, but I don’t have the time nor do I want to put forward the effort to dress up, so I end up as a modern day invader when I go. I’m glad that the rain didn’t last the whole time! However, I am disappointed that there are no photos of the unicorn-dress man…
Well, the festivals/fairs certainly aren’t Renaissance in theme.
More recent stuff. http://www.calgarystampede.com/stampede This fair that’s been running last 100 yrs. which is very long in Canada. For the rowdy, raunchy and yeehaw cowboy stuff, we have a 10-day festival coming up. Up to 1 million people go it annually. For me, I like the free pancakes and sausages on BBQ grills that various groups host all over the city. It starts in over 2 wks… The bucking horse thing is actually abit cruel to the animal.
I read about the stampede in another blog some time ago. Well that event is certainly a huge thing which puts all the medieval markets i know to shame. I found this http://www.topeventscanada.com/canada-events-festivals-themes-renaissance.html
Seems that there are a few Renaissance fairs but can’t say ofc ho good they are
Hmm. Would have to check that out later. I think Canadians must be imitating Europe.
Well afterall many have their ancestors coming from Europe so it is not that surprising that there are some Medieval Fans out there. Same goes to the USA as they have those gigantic Renaissance Fairs. In the end it is often not about being authentic but giving the people some fun
Straight from China to a Renaissance fair? Must have been quite a change of surroundings:) Would have loved to see Nathan in his emperor outfit. When I was a kid, I loved pretending I was living in the Stone Age. I would make a bonfire and bake bread:)
It was a rather nice change when coming from China.
Back in my younger years we tend to dress up as cowboys and go to a nearby wooden fort build extra for that 😉