Going to the Ren Faire for the first time | Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire Vlog

Intro hello and welcome to my channel haly Marie vintage today we are headed to the Washington renfair get around like s sish Monroe Area that's where we're headed today I'm going to take you along show you some footage of what I saw there and then just kind of talk about the event as a whole and my thoughts on it as someone who's never been to the renfair as an adult and somebody who has sensory issues as well as other disabilities that can make things like that kind of more challenging for me and also bring some Financial transparency of how much things cost and how expensive of event it was to be at so that's kind of the summary of what this video is going to be about it's a lot of thoughts a lot of opinions feel free to disagree with me just be nice about it and with that let's just go ahead and jump straight into the footage once we Vlog footage got there we waited in line for it to open and enjoyed the bag pipes and the beautiful scenery after getting into the fair we found this fine Dragon so cute so friendly my cat I mean Dragon would be very overwhelmed in this situation so very impressive go little dragon so sweet so cute I love cats and we gave him a tip for his fierceness our next stop while wandering around was archery we happened to wander by it was $10 to shoot Five Arrows I could not do it because I have a shoulder and wrist injury right now but I was very jealous of my friends who got to shoot some arrows and both of them are pretty good I think four out of the five made it onto the target we then wandered around for a bit before settling at the stand and while we were waiting for this show to start we did see the end of one of the tournament shows which quite frankly aren't quite My Vibe we caught like the end of a bunch of people trying to sword kill a cabbage and then they lit it on fire it was very confusing that is just in general not my type of show however I do know a lot of people who really love that show so if you haven't ever seen anything like it before definitely see how you feel about it for us we were just trying to make sure we caught this show which this is equestrian chaos it is a a horse and archery show which seemed really fun I love seeing kind of really awesome skills like this it was very impressive to see all the different things that they could do with their horses I don't know shooting a bow and arrow is hard riding a horse is also pretty challenging like if you're actually a very good horse rider so this show was very very impressive the youngest participant in this show is 17 years old which is wilds and they also did some really interesting balancing archery tricks that were also really impressive overall I thought this show was really great they did say that they had to take the horses slow this show because it was too mudy and they have to be careful of course and I am always glad to hear them taking consideration for the animals and making decisions accordingly so as a result we watched this show which I still thought the tricks were very impressive but we plan to come back for their 3:00 show where hopefully the horses could go a bit faster because the mud was much drier even though they were going slowly the tricks were impressive and the crowd was really fun and we also just got to sit in the shade for a while which was nice after that we went to wander around again for a while we sat down in the shade and then eventually we went and got our water filled at one of the many water filling stations that were around honestly a lot of the renfair was just kind of wandering around looking at vendors seeing how people were dressed and it was really enjoyable it was just kind of like Chill Vibes which I really appreciated and we just kind of yeah wandered with the goal to make it to 3:00 we did spend a lot of time sitting in the shade and recuperating in some of those big tents you know drinking sugary drinks to hopefully have some sort of electrolytes H this was just this was a Vibe it was really fun and there were some really awesome costumes and it was just honestly so much fun I realized I never show you guys what I was wearing so most of my thing I made myself I have a like top and bottom that I made for a set earlier this year that's just like a 1940s peasant dress set and then I have my Hocus Pocus corset on and a little mushroom headdress that I had picked up on Etsy a year ago or so um as long as well as some just like fun little jewelry and then the leather bootier I bought here and I'll talk about that at the end of the video we lasted her our goal of 3:00 to go back and watch a quest here in chaos and see what the full speed show is about definitely could see the horses going faster and getting to do their thing a little bit more overall the show is mostly the same again very still very impressive the only difference was this really astounding trick where again 17 years old the youngest girl rode the two horses standing with one leg on each and they did different Maneuvers it was astounding and really really cool I've never really seen anything like it definitely if they're back next year or if they're at year run fair I would rate equestrian chaos as a very high quality show after that show we then proceeded to make our exit we had been there since 10:00 and we left at at 4: and we had a really great time it was the perfect amount of time for all of us 6 hours was just long enough to enjoy a lot of things but not so long that we got cranky I had a great time and hope you enjoyed seeing this footage all right Getting to the Ren faire and Parking you've seen the footage I have my list of things I want to talk about and my list of costs so the first thing the ticket to get into the Run fair was $428 parking was free so this is like the only cost technically you have to take on you can bring your own food and water and not spend a single other scent besides that $428 to go to the Run Fair of course I spent more money than that there but we'll get into that in a second first our rival strategy so we happened to go on the last day of the fair which was also a soldout day because we knew we were going on a soldout day I asked some of my friends for tips on going to renair on a soldout day and most of them recommended you get there about a half hour before they open just to avoid the traffic buildup that happens later that's what we did and everything went really smoothly we got into the parking lot really easily and we had like 20 minutes or so to like finish putting on our costumes in our Garb and then we only waited in line like a few minutes before the fair opened definitely even though it was a soldout day I didn't feel like the line to get into the fair was excessive it moved really really fast they make sure that your swords or any weapons that you're bringing in are like zip tied or like made so you can't you know draw your weapons and then they do specify which I didn't see on their site but they did specify when we were there you're supposed to bring in things that are Factory sealed so I did chug my water bottle before we went in I would also say they weren't that thorough so if you really wanted to bring in your own things you could you could definitely also bring in your own snacks I brought in my usual go-to for something like a renair or an event like that is I like to have some like beef jerky sticks on me cuz they're a quick way to like figure out my protein and I bring Cliff Bars Cliff Bars is my like protein bar of choice to keep me tided over during hangry moments and definitely prepare for hangry moments whenever you go to events like these as The vibes far as the general Vibe of the Run Fair it was super fun I loved the people watching and seeing how everyone dressed I will say most people at the renfair were dressed up you definitely kind of stick out at a renfair if you weren't dressed up as at all like the people walking around in like a T-shirt and jeans definitely like stuck out even if it's just as simple as like putting on kind of a fun hat and a bandana it will help you blend in better which is just it is funny I think this is one of the first places I've been that like you you stick out more if you're dressed in jeans and a t-shirt than anything else the adle is very jeans t-shirt athletic wear so it was kind of fun to go to an event where that was not the norm overall there's also just a lot of people who are really into renfair and I think that's really cool so you do see a lot of people kind of LARPing which is live action role playing and they kind of take on these characters and it like become them and I think it's kind of fun LARPing is something like I personally have never been actually interested in but is something I think seems really fun in a great way as an adult to like maintain a sense of creativity and like your inner child so I do admire it I will say my only critique on LARPing is if we could gender people less that would be wonderful a lot of people who LARP get very into the my Lord lady lady like there's just there's a lot of gendering that I don't think needs to happen all that said I still I actually felt like the fair was pretty queer I saw a lot a lot of queer people out and about walking around and on other like diversity I will note like the fair is really white but it's also so hard to say how much of that is being in Washington Washington as a state is also very white I did see bipac people around and out and about but do be aware that like it is a mostly white people space I just feel like that's a helpful thing to know going in if you are not white as far as accessibility I was actually Accessibility and amenities fairly impressed so this comes with a few disclaimers everybody in my group can walk we just are all more prone to like overheating and like just kind of getting like that kind of overwhelmed like for me personally I have a ton of sensory issues so events like this can be really really hard for me I'm pretty heat sensitive and I can also just kind of have some chronic pain stuff going on and I found this pretty easy to navigate around however I also like can walk I feel like wheelchair accessibility must be really challenging at events like these everything was flat but flat in a field is different than flat and pavement so be aware this is an event that takes place in what is normally a field the rest of the year and it is a lot of walking or just like a lot of distance we ended up walking almost 4 miles so that is something to like note on the accessibility however that said I felt like they had a lot of water stations which is like a first great tool and accessibility finding water was not hard or challenging and refilling your water bottle was not too difficult I will note the water station in the food area would get backed up and would get a line but there were other water stations that were always open and usually less crowded than the one by the food stands also I felt like there was a lot of shade and seating there were four I think big main tents that had seating in the shade and then there were a couple other like hangout tents that I saw throughout like I definitely felt like there are plenty of places to go sit and rest and be in the shade which is really great because I'm used to events kind of like so Expo where despite the fact that most people who go to that event are elderly there is not a lot of places to just like sit and rest so it was really great to see something that really helps with accessibility I know my group needed those places multiple times to try to like stop the overheating process from happening so we really utilized that and I was actually fairly impressed with that kind of around like the amenities there are a lot of ATMs because cash is King definitely I used cash for most of this except for some of the big purchases I made later in the day but in General Credit Card Readings there are finicky and it can take a while and really slow you down and slow the vendors down so be sure to carry cash or have your cash card so you can use an ATM it's also important to have cash for performers which I'll talk about later they had porta potties which is what I expected in an area like this they had plenty of porta potties like kind of threw out so it was never too hard to find a bathroom and despite it being the last weekend I felt like the porta potties were actually pretty wellmaintained and cleaned which I thought was really impressive because usually the last day of an event the porta potties are terrible and like I definitely have I have like portapotty event dramaa from going to Warp Tour as a teenager these porter potties were much better maintained and not the stuff of nightmares so that's great what I will note for a first timer something you might not think about is you are using a porta potty so think about your outfit accordingly so what most people in my group did is we wee shorts under everything which I have to wear shorts under everything anyway because the chub rub is real I will be bleeding like up and down my thighs if I don't wear a pair of shorts but the other benefit of wearing that pair of shorts is you can hike your skirts and costume and get it all together and all around you and nowhere near anywhere on the portapotty before you even go in the portapotty and then you can come back out and readjust yourself and you know not be arrested for aent exposure so just think a little bit about how you're going to maneuver an outfit around a portapotty when you put an outfit together there was definitely like points in time that I was I stood outside the porta potties holding like multiple swords and pieces of costuming so also like if you go in turns you can also make costumes work that way but definitely one thing that I thought about when I got ready for it was making sure that I could get in and out of a porta potty relatively efficiently food and beverages that you Food and beverages pay for it is just kind of another topic I was kind of startled at how truly expensive the food there was the food there isn't any more expensive than I would say like your ballpark food or your state fair food or or your like elich Gardens food however what I would say is these are definitely portioned even smaller than those like when you go to State Fair and you buy a thing in nachos usually it's so many nachos or fries or whatever that like multiple of you can split it I bought some nachos here for $19.7 and it was this big and did not have like it wasn't even like filled to the brim of that big so I wasn't shocked by the prices so much I was by the portion for the price so that's just something to be aware of next year I'll definitely bring even more snacks than I did this year likely bringing some things like cheese potentially to just kind of make me like less reliable on the food however what I will say about the beverages is I over all felt like the beverages were significantly better price there were like beverage vendors around we found one that we really liked within the vendor tents that I first bought a coffee in the morning for $7 which if you know Seattle that is exactly what you would pay for a coffee there was no sticker shock there and then later I went back to that same booth when we were all sort of starting our like decline into being dehydrated and like not feeling great from the heat I went back there and I bought four lemonades for $28.60 I don't think these prices are particularly egregious I thought they were pretty reasonable and the drinks were really good so I thought honestly beverages were pretty well priced it was really the food that shocked me the food wasn't good for how expensive it was to be fair I chose to eat Naches at a run fair and that was on me in the future when I go back I'm going to go in with a meat pie strategy uh the meat pies looked significantly better even though they were still really expensive and I was kind of again surprised at how small the beat pies were for how much they cost so yeah biggest thing I was shocked there by was portion and again there were lots of places to sit and eat your food it wasn't one of those situations like I feel like at the state fair this happens too where often you have to stand somewhere and eat your food because they only have a few spare tables here and there that you kind of have to fight over so lots of places to sit and eat and enjoy your food so that was great so these run fairs have a ton of different shows that are kind of a The shows ton of different things I personally find myself more drawn to the skill shows so these are like the skilled horseback riding shows or I would even like consider like a mus musician like a skill show or stuff that kind of is more circus oriented like in general I don't really enjoy the comedy variety offered by places like this just because in general for you to be a comedian at a fair like this you have to speak to a really broad audience and Broad comedy is just not really my thing I am much more into very small Niche bits of Comedy so I personally enjoyed going to the skill-based shows they were really impressive oh another part another that I'm not that excited by but I know other people are is I don't find like the jousting and sword fighting show very exciting it just kind of feels silly to me and I know that there are they are skilled performers and all of that it just I I can't quite buy into the narrative enough to make that show worth it for me but yeah I really enjoyed the skills shows I saw biggest thing that I would know about the shows so at least at the Washington Fair at the arena there's a half that is everybody and there's a half that is 21 and up if you are over 21 go to the 21 and upside even if you are not drinking there was always more seating available there at least this year it was the shadier side as well so you are out of the sun more and you know you don't have to deal with the screeching children which I think children absolutely should be at renars I think that is exactly the type of place children should be but I really appreciated having a place to sit that was 21 and over and as someone who was 21 and over I did get two Mees there which was $30.1 which again I don't feel like it was an egregious price for a drink again I live in Seattle so $15 for a drink is not ridiculous it is a little expensive when you're talking about like something like me versus like a cocktail but I I didn't think it was anything wild we weren't going to even go see what the 21 and over section was cuz we thought it was maybe like an exclusive like ticket holder thing but I have friends luckily who are less anxious than me so we checked it out and know that at least with the Washington one you can go sit in a 21 and old over section so that was great R and then I mentioned the cash making sure you have cash not only should you make sure you have cash you should make sure you have some smaller bills to tip your performers I don't know what their pay structures are like but I am positive that they are not getting paid anywhere near what they should so bring some money to tip your performers I also know some of the tips for the performers at the Washington one go to the horses that they use for the jousting are rescues so it goes to maintaining those horses which is really important um and then we did also tip for example there was a little cat dressed like a dragon and we did give that cat performer a tip I guess that cat humans a tip and then another thing that we tipped for was there was a leather booth that had like an interactive like stamp your own leather thing and that is something that you should also probably tip for so yeah make sure you have just some small bills for tipping and I guess I technically spent money on that I tipped I think two I think I tipped twice and that came at $10 cuz I tipped $5 each time another thing I noticed before I get like into Trinket trading the vendors totally um vendors had something like a lot of them had stuff out for trinket trading trinket trading seems to be a whole subculture at the Run fair that I'm very intrigued by but I did not participate in I think I want to read up more on it and figure out how to trinket trade and potentially do some trinket trading next year when I go it seems fun however I am very socially awkward so I don't know if it would actually be a nightmare for me cuz events like these are always really overwhelming for me socially anyway so I don't know if trinket training is even really a great idea and speaking of like being socially overwhelmed I ran into different subscribers at different points in the fair all those interactions are always really really fun I love when you guys say hi to me however I'm incredibly awkward so just know that going in I feel like most of the interactions I did pretty great with but usually when I get to the end and it's time for us both to continue on with our lives I panic and I say something weird and that is on me if you walk away from an interaction with me thinking that was awkward no that it was probably 100% me it was not you I love it when you guys say hi to me I'm just a socially weird person which is why I need to see if I really think trinket trading is right for me but last thing Vendors and haul I'll talk about is the vendors so my channel very much does focus on labor practices and talking about garment workers and I did see a lot of garments there that I thought were concerning in their origin I was seeing stuff priced between 20 and $30 that I don't think you could use ethical labor and make those items so that is something that I don't know to be aware of like I definitely had the impression before I went to the red fair that all of the vendors were going to be these Artisans and while I do feel like like it was 50% Artisans and 50% kind of I would describe almost like a boutique where they buy things wholesale and then sell them to you and I saw like just a lot of like poor quality cheap Goods in those types of booths and specifically in the clothing booths I was seeing things that were fast fashion and were absolutely made using unethical labor practices so that's just something that surprised me even though like retrospectively it shouldn't have surprised me but yeah just be be aware I I like think intentionally about what you're buying when you go because yeah I did feel like there was a good amount of like kind of cheapish stuff that like isn't going to last or or like is just not near the quality of like an artisan good however there were a lot of really really talented Artisans at the renfair lots of really really really fantastic leather work lots of really interesting chain mail and jewelry and things like that and I also felt like I saw some really interesting like costuming pieces and things like that where are all handmade so there is handmade artisan quality stuff there you just definitely have to be a more critically thinking consumer than maybe I thought I just assumed that renars were very very exclusively Artisan based and they're definitely not with that I'll show you what I did pick up I went to the renfair very deliberate in what I plan to buy I planned to allow myself to buy one leather good and one piece of jewelry so I did buy a piece of jewelry there it's this really gorgeous Fern pendant I'm sure I'll put a close-up somewhere it's really Gorgeous I'll link the Creator's Instagram one thing that I also noticed about the vendors at the renfair is they don't really seem to be online both places that I purchased from I asked if they had an online shop and I was told no but they have an Instagram that they occasionally keep worked up to date on so I just thought that was really interesting so like definitely while you have to be critically thinking about what you buy at the renfair there are vendors that you're not going to find anywhere else which is pretty neat so yeah I got this little Fern pendant with a little moonstone in it it was really pretty I was pretty torn between whether I wanted to buy something like this which this cost me $110.3 or something kind of more chain mail I was looking for chain mail while at the renfair and I don't know if it was cuz I was on like the last week like literal last day of the festival and I know these vendors often like make their stuff for the year going into these renars and so obviously by the end they're kind of sold out like this vendor she said she was down to her last pieces like that when we came through and she had a ton more earlier on in the fair so I guess that's potentially a tip if you're looking for really unique pieces being earlier in the fair schedule might not be a bad idea because I did feel like I couldn't find quite the chain meal Pace I was looking for I I had kind of a specific idea in mind and I just didn't see any chain mail that fit that so I ended up going with this really lovely necklace but the other thing I bought which I was really excited about I have been looking for a piece like this online for like a year it's nothing that exciting it's anoer a leather booer it's really really high quality really wellmade great craftsmanship and most importantly with leather you could tell that these pieces were like actually like designed for somebody with breath I have wanted a piece like this for a really long time but what you can't tell online is the quality of the craftsmanship on the leather or even the quality of the leather itself there is plenty of leather out there that while it is genuine leather it is bad quality leather and that is something thing I noticed at the Run fair is it felt like about 50% of the leather booths were really high quality stuff and about 50% were kind of more that like junky leather you kind of get when you're when you're in like big tourist def destinations that have like those big like vendor markets there's like a type of leather at those that is like pretty cheap and doesn't last a long time and I would say about 50% of the booths there were that quality of leather but there were quite a few booths with a lot of really high quality leather so that's what I purchased from and from what I could tell the booth that I specifically purchased from had quite a bit of like women involved in the leathercraft which is why I think they hands down had the best Bas in the entire fair this guy cost me $152.3 which I'm not mad about I think for a genuine leather like really well-made piece that is absolutely an appropriate price I've definitely been looking at stuff on like Etsy or or just other places that are even more expensive and that I couldn't feel and tell like how the cut is and how the quality of the craftsmanship was so I was really excited to pick up this piece and the women who helped me get into this piece were really really wonderful and it was fun talking to them and I also feel like you can tell that they take a lot of pride in their work as Artisans because they very much talk me through the care of leather which I have I don't a lot of Leather So I was very familiar but it's also like really important at a place like a renfair where someone might make an impulse purchase like this that they are educating the people buying from them so I thought that was also like a really cool thing and a good indication of like a good Artisan piece but I think that wraps us up let me double check my notes I had so much fun at the renair the only thing that I would change is my food Choice otherwise yeah it was a fantastic time and despite the Heat and the elements and all the things that I think makes putting on event like that really really challenging I think it was really great so definitely think it's worth going to as an adult it's not just a thing for kids I think it's a really really great place again to like let out your inner child and I just loved seeing people like dress up and and just living like their best fantasy life I thought it was really really cool and it I I will go again for all the other things that I really enjoyed but I think the number one reason I'll go again is just to see all the creativity that we saw there it was just such a creative and fun place but with that I will wrap this up if you enjoy definitely subscribe and stick around I have the Minnesota State Fair coming later we have more Vlog content ahead and of course comment down below tell me about your feelings on run fairs I'd love to hear it give this video a thumbs up and I will see you next Friday at 8: a.m. Pacific time bye