I have been going to the Medieval Fair for years. It is one of those annual events that doesn’t have a consistency. I have been when it was nearly a hundred degrees and when it was barely forty. One year a mist hung in the air and it was surreal. Another the sky was blue and there was no wind at all. It too was surreal. But I guess that’s the point. The beginning of spring takes us out of ‘predictable’ and into ‘anything goes’. This years fair did that in spades. It was approaching eighty when I got there and three hours later it was nearly fifty; beautiful sunny and then clouded and humid.
I spent more time this year with people. That is, I seemed in hindsight to have photographed more faces and personalities than usual. Maybe there were just more uniqueness this year. Certainly I don’t remember there being so much steampunk and cosplay before. It seemed to be less medieval and more fantasy than ever this year. Perhaps even more carnival than fair. If it ever includes an official parade of characters I think we will have to change its name to the Norman Spring Carnival.
Really cool photos. It certainly looks like they’re going for a bigger audience of wider variety, as opposed to the nerd/geek/weirdo audiences that used to populate these fairs — at least the ones I attended in the 1980s.
Back then, it was kinda cool as a high school field trip (which is how I went), to get some idea of what life might have been like in a certain range of time periods. From the images I see from these fairs in the 2010s, they look much less authentic and much less “medieval”, but also more crowded and commercial, which is probably what the organizers want.
I guess it’s a good thing, if the attendees like it too. 🙂