s The Santa Fe Renaissance Fair is apparently only held one weekend a year. The Fair focuses its official costumery on Spanish Royalty and Conquistadores rather than English. The difference can be seen in the details of the lords and ladies finery and the armor of the knights, but really, you could hardly tell the difference.
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Compared to our reference of King Richard’s Faire, it seemed more a big specialized swap meet, maybe because there were no Ren permanent buildings. The site is borrowed. Almost everything was in set-up tents. There were dozens of vendor tents with all kinds of Ren related paraphernalia, pottery, metalwork, and specialty food. And, of course, Ren Fair Games.
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Costumery among patrons was as dense and as developed as KRF. What we particularly noticed as missing were roving musical performers out and about, and skits being performed. There were three stages, and the usual assortment of belly dancers, comics, magicians, and jugglers. Downhill in a vale was all the archery and jousting. Still there was much to do, lots of costumes to admire, and some worthy food could be found amng the funnel cake and turkey leg. Vicki made a few purchases, I restrained myself to food and drink. We took it all in in about three hours then went home for naps, still tired from hiking through Bandelier National Monument.
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My favorite, though, was the Tarot Goose. A man with a goose. The goose would honk and he would respond to the goose, choosing the card the goose "told him to take."" The lackey next to him selling carvings told us that the man with the goose was actually the sculptor and he had come up with the goose bit to draw traffic to the shop. Marvelous....
The question comes up, what does it take to make a credible Ren Fair Costume. The Goose Man's Lackey demonstrates that a floppy beret and a patterned cloak thrown over a t-shirt and jeans will do the job.
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