ACCESSORIZING YOUR EXPERIENC

Future Faire participants usually started as guests, and many lifetime visitors to the Faire come so they can “dress up” and Play Faire. The usual order of events for a first time visitor is that they purchase some fun, often inexpensive accessory to help them “join in the fun” of Faire. For girls this is often a wearable flower wreath, and for young boys a wooden sword and shield. The next year they may come back with a desire to dress up just a little bit more, maybe add a long skirt or bell sleeved shirt. Shopping the craft booths, they may pick up something else to add to their growing ensemble, and so the process begins.
What Faires do well is promote fantasy, and encourage those that participate in that fantasy. Crafts people that help this process of accessorizing will find unexpected sales, and potentially create a bauble, necklace, or other item that may become a Faire “must have” for all the participants. Often I can tell a fellow Faire participant in the isle of a local grocery store, not for their 21st century clothing, but by a necklace or pin that I know they could have only purchased at the Faire.

Wearing the Other Vendor’s Crafts

The Faire isn’t just a make believe village, it IS a village of people who depend on each other for the success of the larger event. While the Main streets of most American towns include businesses that are desperate to grab customers away from their neighbor’s establishments, our little family is built on mutual support. One way to support this is by choosing to wear and use the crafts made and sold by other vendors. Sometimes your sale may have come from a Faire visitor seeing your product around the neck of another craftsperson, and you can do the same by proudly displaying the work of others in your booth and on your person. Of course there are limits... potters may be reluctant to display the work of another ceramicist, but that doesn’t mean they can’t wear a beautiful cloak, drink from a pewter goblet, or accessorize with a lovely necklace made by another Faire vendor.