BUILDING STAGES

Apart from the investment of building your opening gate, Stages will be one of the more expensive structures you will need to build. Although there are a wide variety of types of stages you can build, your Main Stage will need to be monumental enough to allow for a fair bit of pageantry. This is where the Queen (or with some Faire’s King) will be at some point during the day, and it will need to be large enough to accommodate country dance performances and large scale period theater. A Main Stage is the perfect place to get your performers off the ground and into a balcony or elevated platform. Your Main Stage can be a character unto itself, and set the overall tone of those events scheduled on it. Other stages throughout your layout can be as small as a few hay bales and work their way up from there. A good way to think of building a new Stage is to consider it as a once-a-year addition. Each Faire you can invest in building one new Stage, or enhancing or upgrading an existing one. Stages are where the bulk of your more formal entertainment will appear, and your audience will spend a lot of their time scrutinizing them. As a rule it is always better to start with less, until you can afford more. A poor painted plywood backdrop might be less effective then nothing at all. It is prudent to avoid a cheap stage and wait until you have the funds for a proper one.

It is also important to allow for some sort of “backstage”area as part of your Stage construction. Having even a small area to rest between scenes, as well as store props and belongings, will make it easier on your performers and help them “own” the stage they will be using during the run of your Faire. Even a little pampering goes a long way to insuring your talent is happy and doing a great job. Having a stage manager or security person is also important so that props and personal belongings do not disappear.