grnvixen

From the anniversay book to help start things rolling:

1984: 6 weekends, Sept 1 – Oct 7, Attendance 144,000. King & Queen: David Archer & Mary Margaret Lee as King Henry VIII & Queen Anne Boleyn. New front gate!

1985: 6 weekends, Aug 31 – Oct 6, Attendance 110,000 (record Oct 6: 20,737) . First rainout on Sept 28 & 29. Extra weekend of Oct 12 & 13 added. Marcopolo/marketplace/globe now the Pied Merlin Pub. King & Queen: ditto. Da Vinci Crane. Lion’s Castle replace Lion’s theater. John Killip’s Carrousel. Fresh bread at the bake house. New Riders of the Golden Age!

A quick note about the book: I am using it as jump-start for some of my memories. It has a lot of errors which these LJ posts are really helping to sort out. I am very happy to have the book however. Carol K., the woman who put it together, did so with hot and cold support from the office. I am surprised she didn't chuck in the towel early on but she persisted and, flawed as it is, I think we are very lucky to have this collection. And it will be all the better for the LJ augmentations :).

On to my memories 1984: was settling in year for me at the shop. I had found out there was a market for costumes but it was proving a little harder than I thought it would be to keep up with. DH and I were now 'officially' engaged, which still managed to distract me from the sewing :). I distinctly remember the new gate as I took a series of photos to send to some friends who enjoyed faire but were in Sweden for a couple of years. The whole area was so open an bare in the beginning, now fountain, no cobblestones, small trees and just a few shops starting to come in.

1985: Busy busy year, DH and I got married in June and spent our honeymoon in England. It is also the wettest year I remember at faire. It rained every weekend! Fortunately we had decided we needed more floor space for the shop and had started an addition onto the back. It was going to eventually be 2-story but we only had the upper floor done, no roof. We covered that upper floor with layers of plastic to help keep the new addition dry and usually had two hibachi's going back there, one on the floor and another (that I had found at a garage sale) on a raised stand. We huddled around these, warming our feet on the lower one and our hands on the upper. The side curtains were down most of the time as this was when that nice breeze we usually enjoyed proved a real liability! We kept water heating on one or the other of the hibachis at all times and were constantly passing out cups of various weak, but hot, liquids to the performers. Not only was it raining more than normal but the temperatures were cooler, seeming to always drop 10+ degrees as soon as everyone was soaked through. There seemed to be a lot of young, unprepared, kids that year as several times we had to get them to take their wet costumes off and put large trash bags underneath to try and help keep them a little drier and warmer.

We also had to become masters at efficient packing. It was to muddy for cars to drive on so everything had to be brought in, and out, on foot as we had no place to leave/secure things overnight or during the week. This was the year I made water/mud repellant clothing bags for lugging the inventory around in :). DH and a friend who was helping at the shop would sling the bags over a long pole they then balanced between them on their shoulders. Someimes it looked like they were lugging bodies out so these quickly were nicknamed 'body bags'. I think Sandstone had been built as I remember we were using the gate on what is now the lane with the games & petting zoo, but were parking in the area west of the Downs. Still dicey sometimes as to whether we would get the car out or not.

I really remember that weekend we closed early. One day it had poured, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees! The other, lightening was striking on grounds! In fact one was near the shop, at what is now Sherwood Forest but was the chapel at this time. Rumor had it that the office got in trouble for closing that weekend but I don't really see how they had any choice. We did open both days but by noon/1 pm were closed. Despite all the bad weather, and even the two days we closed early, there were still people wanting to come out to faire. They were not selling rennie ponchos in the souvenir shops yet so some patrons who were caught unprepared had to improvise; they made ponchos out of the large, tan colored trash bags. At times faire looked like the invasion of the grahamcracker people :).

This was probably the worst year, business-wise for the shop. I did enough to pay the bills but nothing extra. Still, despite the nasty weather, this is one of my favorite years. I enjoyed the hot weekends working on the new addition. There was still very few folks on site in the summer so it was very peaceful and relaxing. During the run there were folks complaining about the weather but the show went on and we pulled together to support and help each other through it all. In some ways, rennies at our best :)