Swooping vs Helping
September 9, 2008 by The Crier
It’s an interesting observation how much animosity can arise in such a short time between individuals and organizations that worked together for years previously. A current example of this happy family breakdown is going on in Washington state, where a few months ago the Washington Renaissance Faire had it’s plug pulled only a few weeks ahead of it’s opening of a three weekend run at a new venue.
The why and details of the cancellation aren’t particularly relevant to the situation, since they were permit and civic politics related. Anyway, even while Ron Clevland raced to see if the 2008 event could be salvaged, another organization scrambled to scavenge the patient while it was still on the operating table. The Avery Renaissance Festival was born out of a few groups and individuals who sensed an opportunity to jump at the opportunity not to help or continue the original Faire which had built up the reputation in the region for the prior six or so years, but rather to start up something new to try to bleed off the existing client base in a relatively limited region.
What this really brings up is what’s good competition (not unlike two vendors selling the same or similar wares at a single event), and where does the line get crossed into poor taste.
In the example of Uncle Aziz, a West Coast vendor up until a season ago, who had been selling a particular line of peanut bows on consignment by the maker. He decided to copy the pattern in full and create knock-offs (though with a different color stain on the wood, which he insisted made them his own variant). That would seem to cross that line into bad taste.
It would have been the same if Washington Renaissance Faire would have died of it’s own accord (lack of management, revenue, patrons, whatever). But this was an example of a not unhealthy faire (ok, so no one particularly buys the 20k patrons per weekend number counts, but the attendance was by no means shabby) and having their thunder scooped.
Recently in California the Truckee Renaissance Faire announced that it was going to have to cancel it’s 2008 event due to a number of issues, and several production groups were on the phone with them inquiring how they might be able to lend resources to continue that event so it wouldn’t have to close it’s doors. That producer still opted to close their doors, but made it clear that they hoped to continue in 2009 and reopen. That said, there’s no producers around who would think to jump in there and pick it up until the original owner said they were done with it.
Granted there’s always the page from the playbook which says that if you can set up shop and offer a better product to a customer, then by all means do so, and let the others fall by the wayside. But in such a case, you can’t then also espouse the family/community support tenants. It’s capitalism, or it’s community, but not both. If you’re going to play by the sword, then you also open the door to not having any ground to stand on when someone else comes along to cut your legs out from under you by whichever means they might find most appropriate.
The Original: The Washington Renaissance Faire
The New Kid: The Avery Renaissance Festival
[...] coming on the heels of our article yesterday about Swooping on someone else’s misfortunes, it would seem that Karma has come back around again. The Avery Renaissance Festival which was to [...]
You have GOT to be kidding! Get the facts straight please. The site was OFFERED to Ron Cleveland of WRFF and he turned it down. He CHOSE NOT to have the faire and screwed a lot of vendors in the process rather than accept the venue there OR at the fairgrounds.(without investigation of the Avery site and details)
Gregg of Avery felt the vendors and the people who play would like another venue. The dates for next year are not even the same as WRFF so how is it Avery was taking advantage? Do you also believe there should only be one faire in CA as well? Is there not enough room for more than one faire in a state?
I think their point was where does it cross from swooping to competition or the other way around. Washington already has more than one faire, and that’s never been an issue. But the consternation around this particular paring of events up there brings the issue up as a discussion point. There was a similar issue in Fresno not too long ago, a new faire comes into play one week after and 20 miles from another faire. And one in Sacramento this year that’s one week before and five miles from another long term event. But other similar area events that it doesn’t cause any issues.
Where the line may or may not be (or is there no line at all and any competition is simply business as usual) is the question.
AH but my question still remains - should there only be one faire? If we can have numerous weekends to play, who does that hurt? This site was offered to WRFF and they turned it down. People were trying to help and instead the WRFF people bit that hand.
Actually, there’s a difference between having weekends to play, and dillution of public dollars for entertainment expenditures. The original offers for the new venue went out before final efforts to secure the original location had been exhausted. Given the original tight timelines (remember the original offer had been to make use of the new venue over the original dates) it would have been impossible to make that shift without huge public confusion on location/etc.
Plus the overall tact of the way it was handled. But do I think Washington could use more than one event, of course, but region/date distributed, and perhaps with thematic shifts to help differentiate (scots vs english vs pirate themes).
Interestingly enough there is MORE than enough to go around. There are no good faires in the Seattle area and a lot of people love them. There is no Renaissance Faire at all (just the fantasy faire) Being from California and having gone to Northern Faire when it was in Novato, I miss that type of faire. So instead, people have the SCA for an outlet. Not as much fun in my opinion but good nonetheless. More than one faire will not deplete the resources around here. I think within 2 hours of the bay area, CA has what, 10 faires?
You can’t really compare the two - 1) the 10 faires are all short run events, so that would be the same as one long run faire. 2) the population of the san francisco/bay area is 7.2 million alone, where the population of the entire state of washington is in the mid 6 million range.
Well, it looks like the much bandied-about fact concerning the Avery site “being offered to” Mr. Cleveland is no longer the wet noodle with which to beat him. Does anybody else have the feeling that Mason County just wants to keep any “Renaissance” fairs out entirely?
As far as the “there are no Renaissance faires in the Seattle area” argument goes, I can’t really disagree. That being said, I’m not sure how the Avery faire is/was going to change that, unless there are plans to remove the fantasy and Hollywood elements which have become “ren faire” staples all over the world at this point.