The spring renaissance fair is coming up on us pretty quick.
If you’re not familiar with our involvement out there, we do quite a few things. The big one is have a big amazing castle out there with members selling their personally made projects. The other big part is that we fling rubber chickens across the joust field. ‘But wait, there’s more!’ We also interact with kids and help them build catapults!
If you would like to help out, let me know! We’ll definitely need a few hands for setup and tear down, but there’s also a lot of opportunities during the event to interact with fair goers and bust out that sewing needle to make your own garb! We also do a well being check during the start of fair to make sure other vendors have enough help and equipment (like stakes and carabiners to keep their tents and displays in place).
There’s also a chance for new vendors to get their feet wet during the event. We will have 5 spots for vendors to setup a 6ft table under our tent and test out how their ideas sell! Preference will be given to first vendors that have not sold at the faire before.
I highly recommend that you allow an hour to find a parking spot if you do not plan on being at the event the whole day.
I’m adding an event to the calendar for 8pm Monday to take care of what’s left for the renn faire.
We still need to paint the missing chunk on the castle, but the tent has been washed and repaired.
We still need to work on stuff for kids to do while visiting the tent.
I was thinking it would be fun to hand kid’s cannons for this years project… anyone up for helping me prototype and crank out 100 kits from rubber bands and small flower pots? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuH-hWrjZmw
Sounds like the plan is to meet up at the makerspace at 10am Friday to load up and hopefully start setting up at Sedgwick county park by noon. Dave Hanson has graciously lent me his trailer, so once I’m at the makerspace, we’ll be ready to start loading.
For those vending: you must have your vehicle off site by 9am on Saturday and Sunday. I’ll probably be there close to 8am both days with ice, water, and maybe Gatorade. The forecast looks like Kansas weather, so be ready for clear skies mixed with random four letter weather.
I know its really late to text anyone about it but I figured it would be a safe bet to ask if we have 6 foot tables provided already or if I would need to grab one from MakeICT…or if my 8 foot table is okay. I’ll bring it just in case but I just don’t wanna be greedy with space, so if I can use it, I’ll gladly let someone use the other 2 feet of space. I’ve been in a fog this week and blanked on the question
This weekend was awesome, and I wanted to say thank you to every volunteer who set up, vended, helped with the activities, called people into the tent, and tore down. Thank you to @rustin.atkeisson for planning this whole thing and for staying home at everyone’s insistence because you were unwell. I hope you feel better soon, and rest knowing it went very well this weekend and your presence was sorely missed.
For myself, it was an opportunity to vend at a Ren Fest for the first time at no cost to myself, which was very helpful for my small business. It was also super fun seeing first time vendors succeed and sell their own work. It gave me pause as I considered possibly teaching a class about vending to give new vendors the ability to go into it feeling equipped and reasonably prepared since it can feel intimidating. In short, yall inspire me to show my love of teaching in new ways, even if I’m not an expert. Having to reassure people this weekend that they don’t need to be a professional to be able to teach a skill at MakeICT made me realize that this fact also applies to me, so be on the lookout for that class during the summer.
Thank you again to everyone who participated this weekend and I look forward to the next one!!
Here are some photos from the fair, mostly me, but that might be cause my phone was hard to access on my back. Might have joined forces with Arkillion.
Possibly for teardown, but that remains to be seen.
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