The Adequate Blog

For a Renaissance Faire performer, “Season” starts locally when the weather is warm and dry enough to get hundreds of people out into a field for the day.  The Arizona RenFaire has already come and gone, Palm Springs has had theirs, and the Southern California Faire is getting ready to start it’s long season.

Up here in the Pacific Northwest, it takes a little while longer to get rolling. My first faire (pending verification) will be in April with Faire in the Grove , at a new location in Forest Grove, Oregon.  Once Faire season starts, though, it moves along at quite a clip - even one and two weekend events start stacking up once the weather gets nice.

So, it’s in a Rennie’s best interest to make certain his gear is in good working condition before the fireworks really begin. Here’s what I do:

•  Verify as many gigs for the season as possible as early as possible.  This can be tricker than it sounds because some of these short run faires don’t nail down their schedule and roster until perhaps a month in advance.  I use a couple of calendars to track the madness - one big “year on a page” unit and a smaller one which has a lot of pencilled in gigs.
• Check over your costume! No one wants a costume malfunction in the middle of the run, so check your outfit’s seams, closures, pockets (remember pockets!) and all the accessories you hang off your working clothes. And clean your boots. They need it.
• Check your gear! This is extremely important for magicians - make sure the stuff you plan to do is in good working condition - scissors sharp, tables stable, rings still … ring-shaped (if you’ve seen my show you’ll understand that one of my rings has a slight kink in it from ricocheting off countless stages for 7 years).
• Stock up on consumables! Do  you “demo” at Faire? Get your yarn, string, rope, or leather together and if you can, get enough to last the season. The same goes for nonperishable (or long lasting) cooking supplies, paper and ink for calligraphy, and so on and so forth.
  “Overstocking” is much better than “understocking”. For me, it’s rope. Magician’s rope, to be specific*. And paper napkins, and extra Crystals of Mystery.
• Rehearse! Do the bits you can do - I go over my tricks and routines, look over the outline of my show, and make sure I have contingency plans in case the performance space or the environment prevents me from doing certain bits.  If you “demo” - Make sure you can still do that craft before you’re out on site in front of patrons! Rehearse your songs - at the very least listen to them a few times!
• Make sure your infrastructure’s in place.  Does your SO know when you’re going to be at Faire? Family? Do you have pets and, if so, is someone looking after them? Is someone going to get your mail if your out of town for a long run? How about your car? Your home?  Do you have reservations for flights / hotels / rental car? Make ‘em early. You’ll probably save money doing so.

… Magicians know that what you do before the show is just as important as what you do during the show. I think this carries over to all forms of performing. Including Faires.

.. Oh yeah! According to the Blog Control Panel, this here is my 100th post! So that’s kind of a cool milestone. Huzzah!

* This is the one place I’ll break my own rules about Cheap Magic - for what I do, there’s a particular type of coreless magician’s rope that works beautifully for what I do and I can get it cheaply.

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