ADVERTISING, POSTERS & GRAPHICS

Modern Marketing and Advertising have accumulated tools in their trade for promoting events like your Faire. These skills are vital for getting the word out about your event, but the glossy, high production values necessary for promoting something like a vineyard wine tasting, or an art show in the park, may not be completely suited to communicating the atmosphere of your period event. The goal of any advertising, whether in posters, graphics, or fliers, is to communicate what is unique about the world you are trying to create. Too often flashy boiler plate layouts depicting smiling wine tasters and rolling hills of grapes, are replaced with pictures of costume maidens and energetic jousters. What I am saying is, traditional 21st century marketing visual may miss an opportunity to sell your event through more rustic visuals. Potential customers still need to see what they might experience at your Faire, but be sure that the graphic approach also supports the era and overall ambience you are working to achieve. I assure you that attention to this detail will help set your event apart from the others, and make you less willing to settle for a promotion that looks just like every other fair or festival being promoted.

BUILDING A HOOCH (Back Room)

The “Hooch” is the private space behind a booth. This is where anachronistic items are stored, extra merchandise is kept, and sleeping bags wait for overnight camping. These back rooms have an almost mythic quality, as they are tiny, private bubbles in the middle of the glorious chaos that is a Faire. Legends of quiet encounters, the conceiving of babies, and the partaking of various substances are truer then fiction, and many fond Faire memories include “what happened in the Hooch” during and after business hours. Still, a Hooch has a business function that necessitates that its contents are not viewable by the public and valuable items are safe when you are out front working with your customers. Hooch’s are famously easy to get in and out of, so it is advised that you create a simple plywood box that you can padlock for your more valuable items. The extended family that is a Faire are not here to rob you, but you might as well avoid temptation by not leaving valuables out where they might inadvertently disappear.

A Hooch can consist of simple burlap walls, or be as complex as an entire lock-able building. Some Hoochs are under the counter, some can be a penthouse on the roof of your booth. At the Oregon Country Fair, a contemporary of the Renaissance Faire, but with a more tie-died spin, has booths that one could argue are all about the Hooch, with secondary attention paid to the merchandise being sold below. The OCF is a spectacle that you could argue hasn’t truly been experience if you haven’t watched it go by from an elevated private deck perched on top of someone’s booth with a glass of some beverage in your hand. The Hooch is just another perk awarded to those participating in a Faire, made better when you are the owner and not just a visitor.

Chapter Seven

BUILDING YOUR BOOTH

CART or BUILDING?

When deciding to build a venue for selling your wares, you need to decide what environment will best present your work. The decision to sell from a booth or a cart may be purely budget driven, as booth spaces are customarily “higher rent” then a cart, but ultimately it comes down to what best serves your product. A jeweler might be able to happily present their work from a tiny Gypsy style wagon, or they may prefer the ability to “set the scene” by creating a larger “living room” environment that draws customers in to explore their glassed displays.

In this Chapter we explore the various ways you can display your products, and some of the  best practices to help integrate your booth or cart into the larger Story of the Faire. How elaborate your booth, or how committed your are both financially and energy wise to the ultimate “look” of your environment is up to you. Keep in mind that the more your booth or cart supports the larger theme, and the more it stands out from your neighbors, the better your chances of drawing customers, encouraging return visits, and the higher your potential of making a sale.

 

Crafts & Food That 
Supports the Period

A lot of effort goes into insuring that crafts people create products that help support the period a Faire is set in, it should be stressed that the food that is sold has an equally important role in supporting the larger Faire experience. As we discussed earlier, certain craft purchases can become a tradition and an integral part of a yearly visit to the Faire. The same is true of the food. Having that annual turkey leg, or the meat pasty that they can only get a the Faire is often reason enough to go each season. Food vendors have the unique opportunity to offer tastes and smells that are not easy to come by during the rest of the year. Although not every customer will have an adventurous pallet, you owe it to them to be able to experience the Faire with their tongue as well as their eyes. Sometimes more common foods can be made period with a slight twist. Why serve cherry pie when you can offer “The Queen’s Cherry Tarts”?

BRINGING PUBLIC SPACES into YOUR BOOTH

One of the hazards of conventional arts fair is the creation of an invisible barrier between the seller and the buyer. This is a wall that causes many to walk right by your booth, maybe only glancing at the objects or services you are offering. This may have little to do with the quality of your work and everything to do with the belief that your space is private or unapproachable. Although a jewelry seller may not want guests wondering around behind their counter, there is not reason not to create spaces that encourage visitor to explore and hang out a bit. The more activity in and around your booth the more curiosity and visitors it will attract. If you are lucky enough to have a tree adjacent to your booth space, spend a little extra money to place a few hay bales around its base that the public might use to rest their feet. Although not specifically related to your booth it helps perforate that invisible barrier and suggest that the Faire is happening inside your booth as well as in the streets and byways. Your products and booth should spill out into the world, no tuck back from it, and coming up with ways to attract the attention of your audience and welcome them in will only help your popularity and eventual sales.

Transporting Your Audience

In the end it is your efforts that will support the overall story the entire Faire is trying to tell. You are just one part of the big picture that will transport your audience into the time period. You may be shy about your talents as an actor, but a kind “Good day malady” or a “Good morrow kind sir” can be the extent of your old English accent, but may be just enough to make your audience feel welcomed into the larger play that is the Faire. Take advantage of cheering when a parade is passing, or boo if a group of Spaniards appears near your booth. Ask customers if they have had the good fortune to see the Queen this day, or if they have tried a meat pasty or sticky bun, it will only help make the story more convincing. Still, if these efforts are just too much work, or just too embarrassing to perform, at least dedicate yourself to not purposefully popping the illusion by whipping out a cell phone or surfing the web on a tablet when in front of the public. Your actions go a long way to supporting or undermining the overall experience and pleasure of your guests and customers.

BUILDING an INN-YARD (a Stage for Guilds)

If your Faire has Guilds, there is an opportunity to build themed home bases for Guild members to congregate, store their belongings, and rest between scheduled activities. Many Guilds choose to create an Inn-Yard, or open gathering place that is themed to the Guild’s status in society. Inn-Yards were the yards in front of Inns that acted as a place to gather, and became the fore-runner of our modern theater. In the case of Guild Inn-Yards, these are fenced areas that allow members to socialize in-costume and in-character to add to the depth of the overall Faire experience by becoming another form of entertainment for passing guests. Many Guilds treat their Inn-Yard as a theater space, scheduling large meals, musical performances, and other events that are as much an opportunity to entertain themselves as the guests that walk by their Guild environment.

A word of caution. Guild Inn-Yards can become exclusive and have been known to treat onlookers as “not part of our little party”. This is a mistake, and a missed opportunity. Although physically separate from the passing crowd, it is still a part of the larger “stage” that is the Faire. Whenever possible, offering a place for non-Guild visitors to come enjoy the sheltered ambiance of the space, perhaps stay for a little conversation, and even a game, will greatly enhance the experience for both guests and Guild members. Inn-Yards are a very special part of any rich Faire experience, especially if they are open to sharing their unique environment with everyone.

Each Guild may use their Inn-Yard differently. A military Guild might stage drills for their troops. A musician’s Guild may encourage unscheduled jam sessions of period music, and an upper-class Guild might be a venue for entertaining royalty, which on occasion can include Faire guests. Inn-Yards are also the perfect stage for recreating the making of a period craft, the cooking of food of the time, or a place to stage interactive lectures and lessons for guests of all ages. Though the Faire is large enough to offer many experiences, your Guild could give a guest the very best experience of their day, so build that into the culture of your Inn-Yard and everyone can enjoy your hard work.

CLUSTER RATHER THAN SPREAD OUT

It is also tempting to spread your themeing out over as much of your Faire as possible. It is a basic design rule that smaller clusters of odd numbered items have more appeal then individual objects evenly distributed over a large area. If you are building a stage, booth, or ale stand, cluster your objects in and around it, rather then sprinkling them as solitary props all over the Faire. This will create focal points for your theme, and is less apt to have your Faire items appear lonely and unrelated to their environments.


MEETING the EXPECTATIONS of YOUR GUEST

Whether your audience plans to drink beer and eat a turkey leg, or come completely dressed in period clothing, all of your guests have come here to PLAY. Your job as the promoter or a participant is to bring the event up to the level of the expectations of that audience. Now, there is every possibility that your customers wouldn’t know a Celt from a Roman, or believe that King Arthur and Queen Elizabeth were contemporaries, and that shouldn’t matter. Your job is to know these things and bring that knowledge to them, though the way you dress, speak, behave, and build your booth. Your guests may have never heard of the Spanish Armada, but having it talked about among participants like it was local news will put your audience right in the middle of history. We aren’t forcing history on our audience; we are subtly bathing them in it. Where we fail is when we go to all the trouble to wear the correct clothing, speak the correct dialect, and do it in sight of the guest’s parked cars.