by Anne Gabriel
A few weeks ago I visited the latest iteration of the Los Angeles Renaissance Pleasure Faire (the first ren faire in the nation)—and am now in mourning realizing that the faire of my youth has been completely obliterated.
Those of you that only know or have experienced the faire in its current iteration at the Santa Fe Dam in Irwindale (the faire’s location since 2005)—have basically experienced LA’s version of an outdoor bar where you get to play dress up and try and squeeze through thousands of people crammed into a narrow, claustrophobia-inducing, endless snaking hallway so that you can stand in line for 30 minutes to buy a $15 beer.
But it wasn’t always like that.
Prior to this most recent excursion, the last time I was at the faire was in 2004 where my friend and I were on a double date with two boring guys. The fair was held in a large wooded portion of Glen Helen Regional park a bit further out from Los Angeles than its current location.
We had rented peasant-whore dresses from the costume shop, breasts (almost) hanging out (as was an unwritten requirement for attendance—both then and now), had men at the various booths explicitly and aggressively flirt with us, and stood in line for less than 5 minutes to buy mead at any of the hundreds of shacks—each seemingly placed 10 feet away from another.
In amongst all this was your standard foil fencing booths and archery but hey they also had juggling classes and a booth where three women were seated on benches and you would pay money to try and catapult a large wet sponge at one of them. If the sponge were to make contact, you would receive a kiss.
I saw no sponge booth at this fair’s iteration, no mead shacks, and no lecherous guildsmen trying to peer down my shirt—and I was more than a little disappointed.
The faire of my youth was unapologetically raunchy, un-pc, and refreshing in the sense that apart from playing dress-up, you could play at adopting “social norms” from the era, or what we thought were social norms from the era, and have a bit of light-hearted fun. All that behavior would be “problematic” now.
Pre its 2005 move, visiting the ren faire felt like a foray into LA’s version of an adult Sherwood Forest—complete with tree canopy, breathing space, and day drunk men aggressively flirting with anything in a dress. At that time, the faire ran everyday, or more than just on weekends – so you had the sense that the people working or volunteering at the fair (and at the various guilds) lived there or camped out there and were sleeping with everyone else who was doing the same for that period of time—and that extended non-stop time-capsule immersion created a very different vibe—one where you got to step into their pre-established world rather than attempt to recreate that world with them as an equal participant every weekend.
The truth is, I’m not an equal participant—I want to experience ren faire through the lens of the obsessives, but I don’t get to anymore. Now, it’s just a crowded bar filled with fairy wings with lines that are too long to wait in for an overpriced drink. I’d rather just go downtown where you’re apt to see someone in wings on any given Tuesday and where I still might be able to find some mead.
Image: Staff