FriendsOfMDRF.org - THE BLOG!

From 2001:

This was your personal invitation (but is now a recap) to The Rather Mad, Slightly Priapic, Mostly Orgasmic, Lush-Filled, Absinthe-Driven, Teetotalers Warmly Welcomed Get Together AKA The First Annual Magnificent Maryland Renaissance Oktoberfest E2 Throwdown!

Read More and Pulled from: http://everything2.com/title/Welcome+to+the+First+Annual+Magnificent+Maryland+Renaissance+Oktoberfest+E2+Throwdown%2521

What annoys me most about this is. . . . "First Annual". . . . bad grammar (yes, spelled grammar NOT grammer . . . had an argument once with a moron who's mom taught English. . . but graduated her alma matta with a a "C" in English. . .can we get a "duh"? - even spellchecks highlight the word grammer). Anyway. . .one can NEVER celebrate a First Annual. . . . it's not annual until the second one actually happens. . .so it's FIRST. . .then Second Annual. . . . yeah. . .pet peeve. . .move on.

Even with armor, it hurts. Even through the armor, it leaves bruises. But where else can you have such fun? Where you can deliberately try to knock your friend off a horse?
— Sir John Bashir, Earl of Bath
Ripper Moore as Sir Henry Clifford
Enlarge Courtesy Jacki Lyden

Modern jousters often adopt the names and colors of actual Renaissance knights. Ripper Moore, a 14-year veteran of the circuit, jousts as Sir Henry Clifford, Second Earl of Cumberland, and wears his coat of arms.
Ripper Moore as Sir Henry Clifford
Courtesy Jacki Lyden

Modern jousters often adopt the names and colors of actual Renaissance knights. Ripper Moore, a 14-year veteran of the circuit, jousts as Sir Henry Clifford, Second Earl of Cumberland, and wears his coat of arms.

What valorous sentiment lurks in the heart of the American jouster? What drives our modern-day knights to bash each other with heavy wooden lances? In 100 pounds of armor? On a 2,000-pound horse, moving something like 20 mph?

Jacki Lyden took a trip to the Maryland Renaissance Festival to find out. (You can see the honorable gentlemen in action in the audio slideshow below.)

Retired jouster Richard Alvarez spent 11 years in the saddle. Now he has directed a documentary, American Jouster, on the life of these modern-day practitioners of an antique martial art.

It's not a life that is circumscribed by Rennaisance fairs, he explains. Other jousting opportunities include independent tournaments, stunt shows and medieval restaurants.

In fact, if you'd like to joust full time, there's a way. There are four major companies that work a year-round circuit; you could travel around the country with them, really living life as in medieval times: You sleep in a tent, traveling from "kingdom" to "kingdom," and as Alvarez explains, "you joust for the king who pays you the most money." For young people without much of a mortgage or other overhead, Alvarez says, it can be pretty good money.

Of course jousting isn't just about the loot.

"A lot of [people] want to escape the everyday mundane grind," says Roy William Cox, a former Marine who jousts as Sir William Westmoreland. "You know, sitting in a cubicle, listening to the boss, wanting to take that boss out and hit him with a 10-foot pole — my guys get to do that."

Alvarez says the life of a jouster has a pull for some military people. There's a "quasi-military camaraderie to risking your life with these guys," he says, "that appeals to the military mind." And make no mistake, it is a risk.

"Try as you might, there's no way to fake gravity," Alvarez says. "When you fall, you hit the ground." The last person killed in a jousting tournament in modern times — during a 2007 re-enactment staged for a British TV show — died from the same injury that killed Henry II of France: a lance splinter through the eye slot and into the brain.

If you're willing to risk it, you'll need to start small. To become a knight, you must first be a squire — a knight-in-training — learning to ride a horse and control a lance. Some of the squires' duties include putting armor on the horses and knights backstage.

Women can be jousters, too, though they're not seen as often as men. Cox's wife, Kate, is one of the world's best, says Alvarez, who features her in his documentary.

And Kate Cox's niece Nicole Zentgraf was on duty as a squire at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. She's 9 years old and already learning to ride.

taken from: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113429069

Link: http://www.gazette.net/stories/10022009/businew174504_32526.shtml

Thousands of gallons of honey-based mead, forerunner of today's beer, are transported each year to the metal coffers of people who look like cast members from "The Private Life of Henry VIII."

The anachronistic image stems from the partnership between Linganore Winecellars in Mount Airy and the Maryland Renaissance Festival in Crownsville. It is one of the several partnerships the festival shares with businesses in Maryland, although its relationships with Linganore and another local winery feature the most reciprocity.

"People who never knew mead existed try it at the festival and come here," said Anthony Aellen, president and winemaker at Linganore.

The winery was established by Aellen's father in 1971. The Aellens have been making mead in basements since emigrating from Europe in 1912.

Linganore has provided mead and other wines to the festival for 20 years, including when the festival was still in Columbia. The drink, which was mostly popular in Europe and continues to be so today, usually takes about a year to prepare and, aside from the equipment involved, is made using the same methods as 6,000 years ago, Aellen said.

"The neat thing about it is that is exposes people to a product that is the oldest fermented product known to man," Aellen said. "People taste it and go, ‘Wow, it tastes like honey,' and you go, ‘Well, yeah, that's what it's made from.'"

Linganore Winecellars is the largest vineyard in Maryland, according to the Maryland Winery Association. Linganore planted its first vines in 1972 and has been selling wine since 1977. Aellen said previously that Linganore expects to sell more than 50,000 cases in 2009.

Mead dates to a time when everything was sweetened with honey, as sugar was a luxury until the mid-1800s, when it became the primary sweetener, Aellen said. The drink is also associated with darker legends of the honeymoon, which tell of grooms kidnapping their wives and hiding them for a month, toasting the "marriage" with mead upon eventual return to the family, he said.

"It's neat to re-create an old-time product and watch the reaction on someone's face," Aellen said. "It's also nice to have with ham or salmon — there's so many different things you can do with mead."

He said the partnership with the Renaissance festival complements both businesses, giving the festival a period beverage and Linganore happy customers eager to try it.

"Jules and Justin [Smith] are a charm to work with," Aellen said of the family that owns and operates the festival.

The other winery involved in the festival, Basignani Winery of Sparks, has sold three different wines to the festival for about six years, including chardonnay, Riesling and the blended Marisa.

"It gets our wine exposure. It's fabulous for us," owner Lynne Basignani said of the festival partnership. Basignani approached the festival about selling its wine and has provided about 50 cases to the event each year.

The winery is 23 years old and grows 80 percent of its own grapes.

Basignani said wine works for any type of festival atmosphere, and thinks the local touch lends something special to the Renaissance festival.

"We've had people come to our winery after trying at the festival. We're always happy to have our wine poured anywhere," she said.

Similar business synergy with the festival can also be found among Maryland's location for Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament restaurant, which began in Kissimmee, Fla. Medieval Times hosts meals served in period style and accompanied by medieval tournaments and re-enactments.

Medieval Times' Baltimore Castle at Arundel Mills in Hanover cross-promotes with the festival, offering family-of-four giveaways before each show and handing out festival brochures at both its gift shop and ticket office. In exchange, the Renaissance festival distributes Medieval Times brochures at information desks and invites Medieval Times actors to demonstrate at the festival to generate interest. This year, though, Medieval Times had to cut back on the demonstrations and had just two of its players greet festival-goers because of the recession.

"We've been doing it every year since we opened here in 2004," said RaeAnn Cinquanto, marketing manager for the Baltimore Castle. "People have left the festival and come here in the past."

Cinquanto said Medieval Times has partnerships with surrounding Renaissance festivals in its other locations, but its closeness to Maryland's festival works especially well. People also used to think Medieval Times was part of the Renaissance festival, she said.

"It's guerrilla marketing," she said. "The Maryland Renaissance Festival has been around for a long time and has a big audience."

pulled from: http://www.gazette.net/stories/10022009/businew174504_32526.shtml

Back in the day

Once he was one of the men charged with courting King Henry VIII's teenage bride, Catherine Howard, and was summarily beheaded. Today, Sir Thomas Culpepper spends his September and October weekends playing the fool for passers-by in Anne Arundel County.

"We entertainers never get respect," he comments to a nearby mime, as both are mocked and scolded by a lord before an audience attired in medieval gowns and jerkins — plus blue jeans and a Baltimore Ravens T-shirt.

Such is the other life of one Michael Burgtorf of Ellicott City for nine weekends each year.

Burgtorf is among the colorful cast that annually brings the Maryland Renaissance Festival to life among the open fields of Crownsville, hereby dubbed Revel Grove. His autumn weekend world is one of roaring jousting matches, dripping turkey legs, sword fights over chess matches, Shakespearean allusions and shop wenches eager to snatch unsuspecting maidens who venture too close and strap them into corsets.

"There's a certain nature to it, a time that is lost. It's living in that time, if only for the weekend," Burgtorf said.

With 10 stages, 110 shows each airing about four times daily, 250 performers and 131 vendors, the festival generates about $19 million in economic impact each year, said Jules Smith, general manager of the festival. The festival employs 420 people, including six managers, along with numerous seasonal workers. Most of the performers are local, Smith said.

Smith is part of the family responsible for re-creating this time of knights and rogues. Others are his father, Julius, and brothers Marc, Justin and Adam. For 32 years, they have opened the medieval village to the public on weekends from the last week of August through October, originally operating out of the Merriweather Post Pavilion location in Columbia. Now, the festival covers almost 170 acres, with 75 acres of parking, and draws almost 300,000 people each year.

"I love the fact that it's a multi-weekend event, since people do plan to come to it," said Margot Amelia, state director of tourism for Maryland. "It's amazing how many people mention the Maryland Renaissance Festival in our travels out of state."

The ‘appeal' of going back in time

"We're mindful of pricing, although the food and beer are costly for us," Smith said, adding the admission price is among the lowest in the informal Renaissance circuit. "Our motivation isn't solely money. We just like to watch people have fun."

Adult tickets cost $18, compared with $19.95 at festivals belonging to the Mid-America Festival in Michigan, Kansas, Florida and Minnesota. Children get in for $8 in Maryland and $8.50 at the others.

David B. Sicilia, associate history professor and an expert on economic history at the University of Maryland, College Park, said the festival represents cultural tourism, or people's interest in seeing people who look different.

"One can understand the appeal in going back to the past in a time when modern life seems bewildering and overly complex. People can return to a time when roles and identities were well defined," Sicilia said.

But he also emphasized that most people are unaware of the complexities that existed in the Renaissance period as well.

"It's a romanticized version of the past," he said.

A chat with James Rouse

The Smith family began its festival career in the late 1960s, when Julius Smith, now the Maryland festival's president, worked with Henry McKnight on the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, inspired by California's Pleasure Faire. Although Smith originally got involved to help McKnight obtain liquor permits, he decided he wanted to start his own festival after McKnight sold the Minnesota festival in 1977. A fateful chat with James Rouse of The Rouse Co., then in the process of developing the planned community of Columbia, resulted in Rouse suggesting that Smith set up a Maryland festival in the new area.

During its time in Columbia, the festival called upon the services of the Markland Medieval Military Militia, a re-enactment group that started at the University of Maryland, College Park. Jules Smith recalls when eight ambulances had to be called following the group's rendition of the 1066 Battle of Hastings.

Eight years later, the festival had grown from 4,000 attendees to 85,000 and required larger quarters, which Smith discovered in Crownsville. Revel Grove was constructed, setting the scene for players and attendees to relive the days of Henry VIII, with each year telling a different chapter of the history.

From 1996 to 2004, the Smiths also ran the Ontario Renaissance Festival throughout the summer and also hosted a domed summer beach party for Minneapolis in February 1988.

"I personally don't entertain a lot at home," Jules Smith joked, explaining how he can put all his energy into the festival.

As much sales as entertainment

But the festival is just as much about sales as entertainment, and the Smiths set high standards for their craft and specialty vendors, both local and out-of-state.

Applicants used to be reviewed by a festival committee to see whether their wares or services fit into the atmosphere and feature a handmade quality. Four years ago, Jules Smith took over this role by himself. Of the festival's 131 vendors — 110 craftsmen, eight specialty vendors, eight game vendors and five food vendors — about 18 each year are guest vendors testing their products at the festival for the first time. Smith said turnover for permanent vendor shops is low, usually for health reasons, and he may see as many as 90 applications for a couple of open spots. Aside from being juried in, permanent vendors must also invest in their own shops.

Debra Hathaway and Eric Heath of Easton, together known as the Heathaways, have sold their marionette puppets and feathered accessories near the festival entrance for almost 20 years. The couple started out selling pretzels at the festival, and they also show at festivals in Arizona and Texas. Hathaway started her festival career working as an ale wench at the California Pleasure Faire. Although the Heathaways also offer their wares online, they say most of their sales come from the festivals.

"We don't enjoy art shows, since they're so dry. Here, it's like a living stage. You're expected to interact with people in every way," Hathaway said. "It's a wonderful way to make a living as an artist."

Steve Tipton of Odenton, a regular festival-goer who visits with his wife and two children, said people — the ones who are really into it — spend the most at the festival.

"We're supporting the place, buying the expensive costumes and pieces. We're the target market," said Tipton, who was dressed in a medieval tunic and a long-nosed clay mask. "We always dress up. When we don't, it feels weird."

Tipton was introduced to the festival scene by friend Brian Pruett of Jessup, another regular who can often be found sporting an authentic Scottish kilt and hanging out at the Dragon's Lair pub. Pruett, who often brings new people to the festival, said he most appreciates the 11 outdoor bars surrounding the place, emphasizing their friendly ambience.

"I make a point to talk to everyone there," he said.

Some guests, such as Bob Wayt Smith, who sells fantasy artworks as Bob Wayt, have made the transition to participant. The Waldorf resident started at the festival as a guest vendor and has hawked his paintings for 10 years since.

"It's a perfect fit for my style," Bob Smith said of the festival. "You can do fantastic here, as long as the sun's out."

Jules Smith echoes the vendor's warning about the weather, saying that it remains the festival's biggest challenge. He lamented that it was snowed out one year.

Larger space debated for festival

Aside from weather, the festival's major focus is keeping up enthusiasm among everyone involved.

"Everything else is secondary to that," he said. "You have to get the artists and the players to move in the same general direction and keep them all energized each morning."

He said that while the Maryland Renaissance Festival hosts a relatively small collection of vendors — most festivals have about 300 — it still boasts one of the largest attendances on the circuit.

The Minnesota Renaissance Festival, part of the Mid-America Festival group, runs for seven weekends and usually sees 280,000 guests.

"There's so many things you can do for one day of entertainment," said Minnesota festival spokeswoman Deb Chamber.

For some years, there have been mutterings about the Maryland festival leaving its wooded Crownsville home, but Smith said management is still examining opportunities. He said larger space could allow the festival to bring in related business ventures and expand to multi-seasonal operation, but there are no concrete plans to move.

"We very much like our present facility," he said. "I saw people dressed up at a gas station along the way. They weren't even getting a second glance. It's just kind of accepted here."

"When you see a family leave at the end of the day and son with a Robin Hood sword and daughter with a princess hat and Dad's shirt is un-tucked — that kind of atmosphere is relaxing. That's the reward," Smith said. "This first is a business and it does well for the participants. That's our motivation in doing better jobs."

pulled from: http://www.gazette.net/stories/10022009/businew174454_32522.shtml