The Koroneburg Festivel (Corona RenFaire) 2008
Does anyone remember the oh-so-romantic film called “Somewhere in Time”? If you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it. In this 1981, romantic/drama /fantasy film, Christopher Reeve plays a young writer named Richard, who uses a kind of self-hypnosis to travel back in time where he finds his true love Elise (Jayne Seymour) only to be (unfortunately) brought back to the present day (and away from the woman and time that he loves) when he finds a modern penny in his suit pocket.
Well…our experience at the Koroenburg Festival was a bit like that (and I don't mean romantic!).
It was a wonderful day for a stroll through the Faire. The weather was just right, our costumes (including Chaucer’s dragon costume) were perfect, and I was ready to dive deeply into one of my fantasy/Renaissance personas. Unfortunately, like Richard in Somewhere in Time, every time I got to the brink, something pulled me back.
After turning in our tickets and leaving the real world behind, we walked through the front gate into a world of fantasy and festivity. I silently counted to three and switched from Lianna to Valoria, the powerful but benevolent sorceress who had come to the faire with her lover and their pet dragon.
I was just getting fully into character when we ran into a Faire employee (some sort of official greeter methinks), standing on top of a building. He was dressed in an acceptable Renaissance peasant costume…well…it would have been acceptable if he hadn’t been wearing modern sunglasses! Boom! Swisssssh! I was yanked back into the real world and became Lianna in a costume again! DAMN!
The smart ass then proceeded to point out that Chaucer was nothing more that a dog in a dragon costume. Well, @#$%ing DUH! This isn’t 16th century Germany either! This is a place where we pretend. This is a PRETEND Renaissance Faire! This is a place where we can be someone or something that we can’t be out in the mundane “real” world. Our dog can be a bloody dragon if we want him to be, and you (a Faire employee!) just ruined the experience for us because you wanted to act like a stupid sixteen year old boy and prove to us that we couldn’t fool you with the dog in the dragon costume. What a dumb ass.
I won’t go into verbose detail here, but just let me say that this happened again and again. The merchant with sunglasses, the “Renaissance” music group that played “Tequila” and “We Will Rock You”, the drummer (with a modern cymbal stand) on stage between performances on his cell phone and the man in costume walking down the main street of the Fair carrying an empty Starbucks cup, yelling “Starbucks for the poor!”.
The coup-de-grace happened while I was waiting near the privies for Pam. As Chaucer the dragon and I were standing there, some shit for brains, not in costume, red neck, gnawing on what looked like a chicken bone (or perhaps a fried rat), looked at Chaucer and said, “I have a Pit Bull at home that could kick your dragon’s ass!” After he passed, I muttered loudly enough for one or two people to hear, “Gee, that’s too bad you stupid asshole.” Now, I could have yelled something at the bone munching moron like, “Thou, like thy odious currish mutt, are a craven unwash'd miscreant!” or, “Thou warped, swag-bellied, knave!”, or, “Thou bootless, pox-marked, pumpion!”, but what was the use. Luckily for the cretinous goober, I wasn’t Valoria the Sorceress, or I would have turned him into a pile of shit. Hmmm…wait a second, that may have been an improvement!
I must admit that as horrid a picture I may have painted of our Faire experience, we did have a fairly good time (sorry for the pun!). Most of the people at the fair were pleasant and I did have a good time roleplaying with a person or two. Our photos were taken numerous times and compliments were many. I was happy to see that there was a whole new section (called “New Koroneburg”). Unfortunately for the vendors in this new section, it was somewhat sparsely populated. There were some very interesting (in some cases and overpriced) items for sale and I particularly enjoyed the “Queen’s Swordsmen” a Shakespearian fencing/acting duo (though they couldn’t hold a foil to “Sound and Fury). I guess that my Faire standards are closer to those of the higher values of The Renaissance Pleasure Faire and, because of this, I found Corona Faire somewhat lacking.
Yes, we will return to Koroneburg again next year (and perhaps earlier when Pam’s nephew comes to town), but my expectations won’t be very high, I won’t compare it to the Southern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire (where Faire employees DO NOT wear sunglasses), I shall beware of red-necks bearing chicken legs and peasants wearing dark glasses and I shan’t carry any modern pennies!
I give the Koronburg RenFaire three Wyveries.
