Has anyone been to the Ren Faire?

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Abner, Mar 13, 2016.

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  1. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Here is a link:

    Renaissance Entertainment Productions

    I hastily agreed to go to this with some friends. I don't know if I am down with getting all dressed up in period costume. I think I would feel kind of silly walking around in a costume saying things like "god save the queen". :) They say the food is good though.
     
  2. expat_eric

    expat_eric New Member

    We went to the Bristol Ren Faire a few years ago as a family. We did not dress up and did not stick out. It was my observation that only about half of the people were dressed up and the other half were in regular street clothes.

    We had a great time honestly. The food was good and the shows were good. The only downside is that it is pretty expensive. We had five people and we spent a few hundred dollars easily.

    Go...it is worth the experience in my mind. I am not sure it is worth a second trip unless you are into the period cos play.
     
  3. b4cz28

    b4cz28 Active Member

    Ive gone a few times and had a good time. Food was pricy but very cool.
     
  4. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    I went to the Michigan Renaissance Fair a few years ago.
     
  5. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    The Top 17 Signs You're at a Bad Renaissance Festival

    17 The castle and village are made entirely of Legos.
    16 Turkey leg bears striking resemblance to Cocker Spaniel leg.
    15 Festival activities include "Ye Olde Wet T-Shirt Contest."
    14 Eight minute drum solo in the middle of "Greensleeves."
    13 "Belly up to the bar, me lad, for some grilled mahi-mahi and fresh
    California Roll!"
    12 Ye Old Glassblower makes nothing but crack pipes.
    11 The meade is served in a coconut shell with a Fizzy straw.
    10 Everyone seems to have attended the Kevin Costner School of British
    Accents.
    9 Mosh pit follows the wandering minstrels.
    8 You get charged 5 bucks to take a leak behind Ye Olde Hedge.
    7 Guillotine exhibit closed due to pending litigation.
    6 Friar Tuck's pager keeps going off.
    5 Weaponsmith only sells handguns.
    4 Disgusting Ogre is merely an unshaved Marlon Brando.
    3 "Tarry, wench, I prithee! Wouldst thou Macarena?"
    2 Merlin the Magician's only trick is "Got your nose!"

    and the Number 1 Sign You're at a Bad Renaissance Festival...

    1 Jousting Crips & Bloods.
     
  6. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

  7. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Thanks for your comments everybody

    I notice some comments are good, and some are bad. I don't like the sounds of "over priced" (Bruce). I tend to be very frugal, as my goal is to pay off my house and not have to make mortgage payments any more. Having said that, you got to have fun sometimes. The only thing is the people I am going with are hardcore. My one friend Craig has a knights costume that looks like it is straight out of movie set (lord knows how much it costs). While they find it very entertaining, I tend to get bored very easily. From what I see, you basically walk around and check out booths and shows. I can't see that taking up an entire day. I do look forward to having a hopefully big ass turkey leg, as turkey is my favorite food. Oh, I see there is drinking involved as well, but this is not appealing to me as I stopped drinking several years ago.
     
  8. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    A flagon of mead good sir?:no1::thanks:
     
  9. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    he he! I wish I could still partake, but let's just say I got to liking drinking way too much. Quitting drinking was the hardest thing I have ever done.
     
  10. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Glad you made it. Hard but rewarding, right? I was supremely lucky when I quit drinking - just like when I quit smoking, 36 years ago. Quitting smoking was OK, except that I couldn't think for about a month. Fortunately I had a job that didn't require thought...

    Drinking -- let's see, I'm pretty sure it was somewhere around 11-12 years ago I quit. Don't remember a date. No drama that time, either. Just decided it was time - pure luck, nothing else. With my lazy nature, it's easier to stop things than start them. :smile: I know I drank for 40-odd years, but some of my memories of it are really foggy, for some reason. :smile: Hardest "quit" ever? Took me six months, once, to "get clean" of potato chips!

    Medieval "faires" seem mostly money-grabs ...uh, excuse me -- commercial opportunities, to me. No more or less so than most "festivals," fairs or pioneer-days shindigs. Geared to selling stuff. I like reading about medieval history and I like coins from that period, but I wouldn't get out of my chair for a "faire." Been through quite a few castles -and the Tower of London - in England, though -- the real thing.

    J.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 15, 2016
  11. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I forgot to mention - I've consciously saved EVERY PENNY that no longer went to drinking - and that's quite a respectable amount of money, today, as booze is very expensive here, compared to U.S. prices. When I quit smoking in '77 - (I guess that was 39 years ago, not 36 as I said) I was immediately healthier, but the money I saved just slipped away... and I didn't want that happening again.

    J.
     
  12. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    I'm joking because I quit drinking several years ago myself. I did it mostly because of my Buddhist training but I also think I just feel better. At first I felt out of place when I was with friends who were drinking but it became clear that it was a non-issue.
     
  13. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Yeah, I got to the point where I was spending a fortune of alcohol every day. I am glad I quit. I have to admit that once in a while I dream I am drinking a ice cold beer out of a frosty mug (that was my favorite thing to do after a hard days work). Then I wake up and realize it was only a dream. :)
     
  14. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    I quit drinking last year also. I can't say it was really hard, I just stopped and haven't really missed it.

    If I'm out with the wife for dinner, I might get an O'Doul's or other non-alcohol brew at first, just because I like the taste, then I switch to Diet Coke/Pepsi when the food comes.

    I say O'Doul's because that's available almost everywhere, I prefer Beck's non-alcoholic, Kaliber (made by Guinness) or Clausthauler Golden Amber (made in Germany) if I have the choice.
     
  15. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I had an business acquaintance once who was a Scot who had converted to Islam. He admitted that he missed Guinness, so I invited him over and poured him a Kaliber in a Guinness glass and had one myself. It was better than I expected.
     
  16. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    I went through a phase where I used to buy O'douls after I stopped drinking. But then I met a recovered alcoholic who advised me against it. Non alcoholic drinks have small amounts of alcohol and can cause a relapse in a former problem drinker. So I stopped having those as well. Now I just have diet cokes or water. :)
     
  17. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    The amount of alcohol in a near beer is less than one might find in a ripe orange, but if the safest amount is zero, then zero it should be.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 15, 2016
  18. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I find it odd that I've never had dreams about drinking. Particularly odd that, in the years since I quit, I haven't had at least one dream about bourbon - I loved the taste of it and it always "worked." :smile: What I still dream about, after 38 years free of it - is smoking. Only once a year or so and in the dream I'm furious with myself for starting again -- then I wake up and find it's a false alarm. Weird....

    What gets me about the no-alcohol beers is the cost of the good ones, here. I've pretty well given up on them for that reason. One of my favourite full-whack beers, when I drank alcohol, was Obolon, a Ukrainian brew. The "real" stuff is $2 a 500-ml. can, here. The no-alcohol blend tastes great, but is exactly the same price! Beck's is about the same price - in both versions. Discount alcohol-free brews that you can get for $5 a dozen are all dishwater-grade. No-alcohol beer is taxed like pop, yet much of it still costs like "real" beer. Another grocery-store swindle. So...wasn't hard to quit them, either...

    J.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 15, 2016
  19. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Another weird fake-drink sold here in Canada is alcohol-free "wine," available for around $6 a bottle. The lowest legal price on "regular" wine, mandated by the Provincial Government is now $7.95, I think. Unlike the near-beer (0.5%), these misnomer-wines have absolutely zero alcohol. The two or three I've bought (in 11 years or so) were uniformly horrible and tasted like 99% sugar. (From reading the labels, I think that 99% was about right.)

    OK for your liver, but your taste-buds will die off...

    J.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 15, 2016
  20. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Yuck, that sounds nasty! I had some good wines during my travels in Europe. The best wine seemed to come from small town non pretentious family breweries. No fancy labels. You basically just take a jug of some sort ( an empty container of milk works good) and they filled it up for a few bucks. No fuss, no muss. I noticed they made the wine in these large wood barrels, some the size of a house, and were usually stored is some medieval looking basement made of ancient stone. Also, the wine wasn't full of headache causing preservatives.

    I was never big on wine though. My brother and sister are wine snobs though. My brother (who I love dearly) is like the character Niles Crane (From the show Fraiser). He and his buddies sit around family parties in their penny loafers and khaki pants and then swirl wine around in the glass, sniff it and then discuss the aromas, the soil of where the wine was grown, what kind of grapes were used and anything else that has to do with wine for hours! Drives me nuts. It just all seems so pretentious, and well, snobby. I was always a casual jeans and t-shirt kind of guy who mostly drank beer. We are similar in looks, and people can tell we are brothers. But that is where the similarity ends. We are polar opposites, especially when it comes to politics. :)
     
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