Tales from the faire

[fbhjr]

The company I used to work at where the owner punched a customer? That was in Winchendon.
The company I used to work at where someone had their foot melted my molten iron? That was in Winchendon.
The company where at 22 years old I was put in charge of prisoners on a work release program after 25+ years in prison? That was in Winchendon.

So, when folks from Winchendon called me about their new ren faire, I was not the most enthusiastic.
But, I agreed to give them a discount rate due them being the first year they were doing it.
Yes, the faire we’re doing in May is getting two weekends for that same price instead of one. Not everyone gets the same discount…

The “creative director” for the event was the one who contacted us for the faire. You know anyone who can memorize Beowulf in the original old English has determination.
And, he did his best for the faire.

It was a disorganized mess.
As the town of Winchendon took it over due to being held in a public park, I can’t blame Beowulf for it.

Our first problem was the area we were supposed to perform in was given away to some extra vendors for their tents.
So, we were told we could do our fire show in the fight ring the armored fighters were going to use.
There’s nothing someone in full armor likes more than a group of folks spreading oil on the ground they’re going to be fighting on.
Their feelings on this were expressed to me when it fell to me to inform them.
Their leader, also named Frank, did his best to ignore me and my requests for confirmation of what we’d do.
But, I am many things. Ignorable is not one of them.

(As the day and weekend progressed our relationship with their group improved.)

As they were short on space, we didn’t bring our tent. So, we had to find a space for our stuff and to wait the hours between show. (4 ½ hours between show 1 and 2. Only 2 ¼ hours between 2 and 3.)
On the edge of the wood behind the knights we found a big log that most of us could sit on at a time and settled there.
After we had moved our stuff there, we found there was actually a stage behind us farther in the woods.
The audience also had trouble discovering that stage too.

Our first show of the day was our children’s acts on the main stage. Big amphitheater kind of place with terraced walls to sit on going up the side of a hill.
The problem was few people wanted to climb down that hill and our show involves close work with the audience. So, difficult.

What made it worse was the musical group that was to follow us started doing their sound checks on the stage behind us. With the amplifiers and speakers on.
So, amplified music playing over our dialog.
We asked them to stop. They did not.
Day two my wife explained it to them in very simple terms.
I think they perceived their danger as when they tried again the leader of their group rushed out to quickly stop them.

Our biggest issue of the weekend was at our first fire show.

We had spent hours forging an opening with the knights over using their field.
There was an hour they weren’t fighting. Our show was to be between 15 minutes after they stop and 15 minutes before they started again. We got agreements on where, when how and why. (Why was the town appointed director none of us had even met.)

I had gone and found the highest ranking firefighter on site, the deputy chief for the town.
I had explained what we were doing, when and offered him my fire performance plan, our MSDS sheets on our fuels and my willingness for inspections or reviews if needed.
His questions were few and he and his people said they’d attend the snow.

After the knights finished their show, I spoke with their leader and he gave me permission to set up our equipment on his field.
As we started doing this, this young man came out and started yelling at us about how we were doing it.
He was not using the terms we us for things and his intent was not at all clear.
His insulting nature was quite clear.
It did eventually become known that he was with another fire performer who was going to be doing a show at that time at that location.
Not on the schedule.
Not someone we had been told about.
Not someone who had checked with the folks in charge of the field.
But, someone who would scream at us about how wrong we were.
Once it was clear what was going on, we moved off the field and let them do their thing.

They were very similar to the person we saw in Salem where 100% of the audience left. They were technically skilled, but gave no introduction, no description of what they were doing or anything else. They’d come out, dance a bit with fire, then leave for 5 minutes while they refueled. People would think the show over and leave. Other folks would come by when they started again, but almost no one remained over those gaps.

All of my safety people came to me and expressed concerns over what they were seeing. Some were fairly large issues.
I did feel the need to go to the members of the local fire department I had invited to watch us and say “This isn’t our group. I haven’t worked with these folks before.”

When they were done we had 17 minutes of time left.
We finished in 16 ½.
It is the only time I can recall when during a show I kept calling for the time from the person taking our photos.

Later that day the head of the knights came up to me.
“You cut your show short for me, didn’t you?” he asked me.
“I told you we’d be out of your ring by 3:45. I made sure we were.”
“But, those other people ran long.”
“That does not change what I promised you.”
“I appreciate a man who keeps his word.”
We got a long a lot better after that.

I talked with the creative director afterwards. Turns out this other group was friends with his wife and she didn’t realize it would cause issues to share time and space.
I explained our different understanding of time/space coincidences.
Their second show was moved to another place.

During our final fire show a couple of hours later, I saw the annoying man leading the creative director towards our ring. I’m told by someone near them he was complaining about our treatment of him and his group.
As he did the crowd, which was the vast majority of patrons still at the event, began to cheer and clap loudly for us as Tom finished a big trick.
The director shook his head no and walked away.
The annoying man glared at us and left, not to be seen again. Apparently he was a no show on day two. No tears were shed.

As it was a town park, the parks department was very visible. They road their ATVs through the park often. They did empty trash and such.
They did bring in a truck to empty the porta-johns. Granted during the main plot ending of the faire at the stage next to it while there was a long line to use them.
Quite a noisy and aromatic experience having them drained during that final act.
But, they needed servicing. No one doubted that.

On day two they changed the parking.
I guess on day 1 many vendors and performers left their car in the parking lot there at the event instead of the remote lot 2 kilometers away.
So, to prevent that they tried blocking the lot so folks couldn’t come in.

Sadly that lot was where the shuttle picked up and dropped off people from the three remote lots.
So, they had to drive through the faire while set up was going as they couldn’t figure out where to drop people off if they couldn’t get into the parking lot.

They tried to stop me and I just drove past them to the field and my wife and I unloaded the car.
Sadly then there was a short, but very intense, rain storm so all our things got soaked.
Then, I drove to the off site parking, got a lecture on the rebuilding of the tower at the senior center and got the bus back to the site.

Things went generally better on day two. The musicians were silenced for fear of my wife’s wrath. The other fire group was there, without the annoying man, but not at the same time and place as us.
Less of a crowd, but still plenty of audience. One woman and her grown son came to our first show at 11:15 and were still there in our audience at our 6PM final show.

I did go seek out the other fire group. I watched their show. I counted at one point 15 people watching them.
On day 2 they were supposed to go on right after our final show.
So, I spoke with them about our set up and offered to let them set things up in the same space as us to make a smoother transition.
My wife joined at as one point to try and get the name of Mr. Annoying. Only a first name was determined. They claimed not to know his last name, what group he was with or why he didn’t show up day 2.
My wife offered them a funnel for pouring their fuel back into their container as they didn’t have one.

Then, getting paid.

Our written contract said we’d be paid at the close of the second day of faire.
I did the shuttle and got my car from across town first. Then, as others loaded our car, I went to look for faire management.

I found the creative director, who had clearly been enjoying the fermented beverages offered a the event, by the singing stage.
We were thanked for all we did. Promises were made of video of our show.
He discussed the history of planning the event.
He recited some of Beowulf for me in Old English.
He sang me a song in old Norse.
This was done as he leaned on me. Had I been shorter, he could have bitten my nose he was so close to me. (Folks who know me understand my personal space is measured in meters.)
Eventually I did manage to turn him to discussions of paychecks.
“You need Deb!” he said.
“Where is Deb?”
“She went that way!” he said, pointing towards the front of the faire.
“What does Deb look like?”
“She’s wearing black.”
“Can you give me anything else to go on?”
“She’s a woman wearing black going north.”
He pointed to a group of town workers on one of their ATVs not too far off.
“You see that woman in the white and black coat?” he asked.
“Is that Deb?”
“No! That’s Tiffany! She made the schedule. That’s why you all hate her!”
“Does she have the paychecks?”
“No! Deb does! But, Tiffany knows where Deb is!”
“I’ll go ask her.”
“She may bite you!”
I looked down at him.
“She’s like that,” he said.

I walked over.
Tiffany was talking with the town workers about how one had spent $40 on a hat. This was something of great amusement for them and much laughter ensued. When it was revealed that the man’s wife had spent $60 on her hat, even more commenced.
I waited until the laughter faded.
“Hello. I am one of the performers and am looking for my paycheck. I was told someone named Deb would have them. Are any of you Deb?” (I knew the answer was no…)
“I’m Tiffany,” the woman in white and black said. “Deb doesn’t have the paychecks. I do!”
“Excellent! Then I’m in the right place.”
“I printed them all Friday and they’re in my office at the town hall.”
“I see.”
“I plan to mail them out first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Ah.”
“This way you don’t have to worry about losing it as you pack up your stuff!”
“It does avoid that outcome.”
“Which group are you with?”
“Phoenix Swords.”
“Oh! You guys were great!”
“Thank you.”
She got up and shook my hand and told me how much she enjoyed our show and what a great job we did.
She did not bite me. But, we’ll see if we get paid…