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.