Pittsburg Faire Review

Well, it was something to be sure. Overall it was a very pleasent weekend. The numbers of “patrons” (which has to be used as a loose term somewhat since it’s a free faire with no gate pricing) were up over last year, and the reports from the vendors seemed to indicate that their sales were up (ranging from nominal to significant). So from those aspects it would have to be reported as a success.

The weather was nice for the time of year, often it’s in the mid to upper 90s, and this time it was a good ten degrees cooler than that along with a steady breeze (sometimes becoming a strong wind, but no damage). It was the first time that Renaissance Productions managed the event and we discovered that it was going to be a bit of a challenge. We’d gone into the event with the understanding that it was the City’s faire, and that we were there to deal with the vendors, guilds, layout, scheduling, and the northwinds aspects of security. However the city was never responsive to emails or phone calls, and actually sitting face to face in meetings prior to the event turned out to be as difficult (or worse) than the former producer had indicated.

We recalled that there’d been issues in the past (police refusing to deal with some situations), but had hoped that new police on the ground would help. Well, not so much. There was an incident with shoplifting children and their mother who worked the site for the day - and when they were finally cought, they were sent on their way. The PD sitting in the bar most of the day (drinking but at least not to excess or inebriated), and kicking back with the other city folks.

The worst element about it was that the groups and vendors look to the production team to give them a safe environment, and the confidence that when things do happen that they can rely that steps will be taken to keep them from happening again. When the PD and city ties our hands so we can’t do almost anything - then there’s a problem of our own reputations going on the line.

How it will all pan out going forward will remain to be seen, but for now, we just finish up the end of event reports and pass them along. I think new ideas and directions are what the faire needs, but I’m not sure that the city is one to want to take the steps nessicary to make it a real success.

St. Andrews has continued to make very good strides towards becoming not the shadow of it’s former glory, but every bit on par for anything it was in the past. From a shaky management reorginization after Ted’s departure a few years ago, to a very healthy court and it’s 4 or so sub-groups within it, they’re someone I think we’re feeling more and more comfortable at using in about any capacity. They do still need to get a better sense of utilization of space and optimizing how they set up those various groups when pitching their encampment, but that’ll come with time.

The battle was…. ok. It has a lot of decent elements, however there’s not been someone to bring all the groups together the way I might have hoped. RB is a good staging of their own battles, and a grand talking head, but doesn’t work as well at getting diverse groups to really fit together to their best combinations. And they’re still hung up a bit much around who’s on what side. They need to learn a bit more that it really doesn’t matter for that 30 minutes or so. The audience is watching the fight, they’re really not keeping track of which clans or individuals are fighting against which side.

Under two weeks now till Golden Gate faire, and I fear that my hope to attend Gig Harbor faire this upcoming weekend will also have to be squashed in favor of playing catchup.