No sword practice, street festivals and tent cleaning

[fbhjr]

For years, each fall we go to the "Start on the street" festival in Worcester:
https://www.startonthestreet.org/start-street-fall-edition

Sadly, we’ve been told that this year will be the last. I’m sure it is a lot of work and don’t begrudge them for letting go, but I will miss it.

As usual, we park a ways away at a public park and walk over.



Technically it opens at 11, but it’s a street. So, even though we got there at 10:30, we could still walk around and some of the folks opened early.





The comic book store we’ve been going to for more than 40 years now is right in the middle of the festival and, as often is true, had Batman outside.


There are a couple of sword groups that do the show. The SCA is one of them and is always there. The other is a group where the leader of it is not someone we get along with very well.
We’ve thought about putting out name in for the show, but they don’t pay anything and we’re pretty mercenary that way.




Lots of cool crafts folks are there, and we always find something we like. Usually more than just one thing…


And, we had lunch there. I had some south american barbecue and my wife a fancy grilled cheese sandwich.



We used to live only a few blocks from here and used to hang out at this park a lot. But, the pond had more water in it back then…


It was still a good time and I’m sad it was the last one.





After a couple of hours there, we went over to our friend Robin’s house for this week’s practice. (As opposed to her mother’s house where we normally practice.)
We were going to clean the tent as two weeks ago in PA it was looking pretty dirty. Robin let us spread it out on her lawn and clean it.


She has a cat patio behind her house where they can come out and look, but can’t get out and things can’t get in to them. They seemed quite interested in the tent cleaning.


It went well, but was a good bit of work. Although we had planned to practice out sword fights after cleaning it, by the time we were done, no one was up for it.








Afterwards, it did look cleaner.


It’s a while until we have a show with the tent. I hope it looks good when we next unpack it…

Comments

[palusbuteo]

I hope the tent will stay in good order for the next time, too

[taz_39]

Ugh, scrubbing buildup off of tents. I haven't had to do a tent per se but have done bad shower curtains, and our lanai screen outside with a retractable brush and buckets of soapy water. It sucks! And then the results are always just "ok" despite best efforts sigh. Awesome that you all tackled it!!

That festival looks really nice :) A shame that was the last one. Maybe it can be revived down the road.

[fbhjr]

This isn’t the first group that has run the festival. They’ve only been running it the past few years and I think they found out it is harder than they thought.
But, you’re right, another group could pick it up.
And, I do wonder if the fairly big announcement of “THIS IS THE LAST YEAR EVER!” was there in the hopes of getting someone to step forward and say “hey! I could do that!”
Maybe someone will.
I know it won’t be me, my wife or our group. We’ve run events before and aren’t going to stick our hands in that meat grinder again….