The Experience of Working at the New York Renaissance Faire

Summer is coming, and with it, Renaissance Faires across the country will be opening their gates to visitors. For the patrons of these faires, it's a time for shopping, interacting with interesting characters, watching jousts and hearing medieval music. But there's another side to the magic, one that can only be fully experienced by working at a faire. And it's an experience you won't get from anything else, I can guarantee that.

I remember my first visit to the New York Renaissance Faire, when I was around seven years old. It was so enchanting; there was so much to see and do, so many things to buy and so many people dressed up! When I rediscovered the faire later in my life, I loved it just as much as I had that first year. I had even more of an appreciation for the friendliness of the people, and for the atmosphere in general. I decided that I wanted to work there.

Friends and I went to a job fair, held for the merchants to hire workers, and all three of us managed to find jobs. So began the start of many new friendships, and the arrival of a wealth of new experiences.

Working at a Faire is, without a doubt, a lot of fun. But it's not necessarily quite as simple as it looks. Before the season started, my friends and I were required to go to a 'language workshop', to ensure that we had a grasp of the speech of the times, a bit of the history of the specific era that our Faire was mimicking, and the basics of working etiquette. Beyond the workshop, there was the matter of acquiring garb. I lucked out, that first Faire-job was at a clothing booth, and so it was mostly a matter of picking out the pieces of my outfit... and arranging to pay the cost of it off with my paychecks each weekend. Garb doesn't come cheap, usually, but I was lucky enough to have a discount, at least.