New York Renaissance Fair: Part Deux

First, let me inform you of the winners of the Saratoga Springs International Film Festival. Every film entered at the festival was worthy of praise, but the following are the winners.

The Audience Choice Award goes to The Monster (United Kingdom), directed by Bob Pipe. Audience members who viewed the films were given a ballot, and the winner was based on their ratings of these films.

Best of the Fest (Juried); Cowboys (Spain) directed by Bernabe Rico. This was based upon a selected panel of jurors who viewed each finalist film.

Honorable Mention went to The Moving Theatre (United Kingdom) directed by Ben Mallaby.

If you want to read more about the Saratoga Springs International Film Festival, please read my previous blog.

New York Renaissance Faire

You may remember that I had visited the New York Renaissance Faire previously this year, and wrote about it in my blog post; I also had promised I would revisit it later.  This past weekend I went back to the faire.

Since this is my second visit this year, I will be showing more pics, and less description. If you want to read more about the faire, please go to one of my previous blog posts.

Of course, even if I went there over a 100 times, I could not resist seeing the Vixens En Garde. Way back at the New York Capitol District Renaissance Festival I first saw them; after that I try to make sure to catch them every time I can.    

Vixens entertaining the crowd

Each year, the Vixens have a coming home event at this faire, including the founding and veteran members of the group. It was a pleasure to see all 11 of them in one spot. Go to their Meet the Vixens webpage to learn more about each one of them.

When I was trained as a professional wrestler, it was instilled into me (something that is lacking in today’s modern grapplers), that the fans are the ones who make or break your career (in my case as a heel, this meant their hatred toward me). I always appreciate artists and performers who understand this fact, and spend time with their fans. The Vixens certainly went beyond in this category, for anyone had an opportunity to get one with them, including me.

An honor to get my picture taken with the Vixens.

The Vixens, with some younger fans they call V.I.T.’s (Vixens in Training)

Each of these lovely ladies is well trained talented actors, and artists (throw in that they are also good at stunt work, and then you can understand what a great performance they give).  I encourage every one of you to try to catch their act; and if you have a venue suitable for them, contact them to hire them for that event.

I wanted to get some new pictures of the joust, but did not have time, see explanation below. If you want to know more read my full account from my past post, as I mentioned then, this faire knows how to put on a spectacular joust, and the knights involved are truly experts and well trained.

Here is some pictures s of the faire.

Don’t forget to get a map,

and if you forget where you are, there are always signs.

You can enjoy a Maypole/Peasant Dance

Washing Well Wenches mingling with the crowd

There were Encampments of living history reenactors

The Queen’s Glade where you can run into some of the royalty,

and their performers.

And there are places to get refreshments.

Toys for the kids

Watch performers such as jugglers

Listen to performers, here is Kathleen Finnegan on her harp.

Performers, and attendees with be wearing costumes

Did not wear a costume? Rent or buy one there

Dance around a maypole

Ride a camel

Rent a paddle boat…

…But watch out for the sea monster.

Now, there was one hiccup upon visiting the faire, which did limit my time there.  This has nothing to do with the faire or those who run it; in fact, it is a testament of how popular it is, and its close vicinity to New York City. When I arrived on the road to the faire, about two miles from the entrance, it took me over 2 ½ hours of waiting in traffic to get to parking lot (now include my two hour driving time just to get there), now you know why I was limited on time and which part of the fair I could watch.

Furthermore, this is a good time to complain about some people. When you see a two-lane road, and it says right lane to the faire (or any other place), do not speed up the passing lane and then force yourself into that lane.  You can wait like in line like everyone else, you are not special; for those of you, who do this, I would compare you to disease ridden garbage, but that would be an insult to garbage.

Overall, I enjoyed the faire, as I always do; especially, seeing the Vixens En Garde again, probably for the last time this year. So you do not encounter the problem as I had with traffic, my advice is to go to the faire early, and stay late.

Next Week: A post about two events.

W.A. Rusho is a professional wrestler, historian, and author of the novel “Legend of the Mystic Knights”. The previous publisher of this novel is no longer in business, and so he is actively seeking a literary agent or publisher. If you wish to contact him, email him, or visit his website.