Tales from the faire

[fbhjr]

This weekend was our second year at the Philadelphia Renaissance Faire. It’s held at a fort that was first built in the 1770’s right next to the river, right at the end of runway 9/27 of the Philadelphia International Airport.

Being at the end of the runway of a hub airport means that close to every 5 minutes all day there are either planes taking off or landing, depending on which way the wind is going.
You do get used to it, but it is disruptive. Our sword fights can go on with a lot of noise overhead, but the musicians, singers, storytellers and such had a lot of trouble.

The fort is also only just above the level of the river, and the river is still tidal that that point. So there is about a foot of difference to the water level inside the fort between low and high tide.
Last year that wasn’t too much of a problem. At high tide the ditches on the ground had water in them, at low tide they didn’t.
This year, what had been the high tide last year was now the low tide. So, when the tide was in, large areas of the grounds were at water level.
They shut down about 1/3 of the faire because of this and rearranged the remaining locations. We were not as far back as last year as where we had been was now just swamp.
Monday was forecast to have 2 inches (5cm) of rain, so we took down our tent on Sunday evening and performed without it Monday. When the rain came Monday, were we had been was knee deep in water and I’m glad our tent wasn’t there.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I took some classes on African Martial Arts down in Philadelphia with a group that specializes in that. Here: https://fbhjr.dreamwidth.org/1469857.html or http://www.fbhjr.livejournal.com/1480284.html

Since then I’ve been trying to get them to come to one of their shows and give demos of what they do as I really think it is fantastic and more folks should know about it.
This weekend they did join us for two shows on Sunday.
It was everything I’d hoped for. They did great. The audience really liked it. Folks came up and asked pertinent questions.
They seemed very happy with the reaction too, so I’m hoping they’ll be willing to do more with us in the future. My real hope is that they can get booked as their own group and we can perform the same events together.

The shows went well. Even with the flooded fort, hot and humid weather and planes overhead all day long, a good number of people showed up. Saturday they were right at the level that the fort can legally hold. Less the other days, but even Monday with the rain there were a good number of folks there.

The older son in the family of glass has started doing some of the show with his dad. He’s a bit more inwardly focused than his brother so has been slower to get into it. But, now that he’s got one of the things down and had a good audience reaction, he seems to be open to doing more. He is almost always there with his parents. He often just plays video games all day, but does help set up, break down and take photos. Maybe he’ll do more on stage too. We’ll see.

There is only one sit down restaurant near there. Most of the area is airport, and we don’t want to go to the terminal to eat.
So, both Saturday and Sunday nights we went to the place near by.
Saturday was crowded, but we got quick service and it all went well.
Sunday we had a waitress that was just not up to the task. The night before 6 people had dinner in less than an hour. Sunday night 2 ½ hours for the same 6 people. She wouldn’t write down the order and clearly could not remember 6 different things at once. 15 minutes after we ordered she came back and asked everyone what we wanted again as she had forgotten.
After an hour we were out of drinks and she hadn’t come back.
Then she brought half the food and walked off to deal with another table for 10 minutes while three people waited for theirs.
It got to the point at the end where another waitress had to bring us the bill as ours had disappeared again.
It was not a happy time. But, not a lot of options there.

And, the hotel was an issue.
That one is on me.

Because it is right near the airport, hotel prices are very high. The cheap rooms are in the $200 a night range. I needed 2 rooms for 3 nights, so it adds up pretty quickly.
I found one where the rooms were $75. That’s pretty cheap for that area. OK, it is in the industrial park next to the airport, but it was by a reasonable chain of hotels.
The photos and reviews on hotels.com weren’t too bad.

It was very, very run down.
One of the first rooms had no toilet seat.
The floors were not overly solid and it felt like I might burst through if I stepped too hard.
There were only 3 pillows for 4 beds, and even less towels.

I went out and bought our own towels rather than see what they’d bring. And, the room without a toilet seat we had changed.

The rooms also clearly had been smoked in and smelled of such fairly strongly.

When I went to the main desk to get the room swapped there was a couple yelling at the manger about how the hotel was nothing at all like what it showed online and was false advertising.
I don’t know how that ended as I got a new room key and left. But, what is shown on line does not look much like what is there. And, the reviews I saw weren’t overly accurate.
The ones on google, which I didn’t see until we were there, were much more honest.
But, we made due and didn’t spend a lot of time there anyhow.

Overall it was a pretty good show, despite the problems.
Especially due to our guest stars. That was the best part of the weekend.

Comments

[chris_warrior]

this!