Ojai Pirate Faire
Since my primary guild, the Archers of Ravenwood doesn't work the Ojai pirate faire anymore, I gate list with Rogues Cove. It's a great group and I have a lot of fun with them. This faire was no exception.
There was one major change this faire. I think the promoter learned a lot from Vista Pirate faire. There was no royalty (i.e. no Queen Patty as Elizabeth I) and it worked very well. So for this pirate faire, the guild of St. Elizabeth's rethemed. It was not an Elizabethan faire. It was a pirate faire. We had a Governor (the same actor we had in that role at Vista faire), and we had Patty's husband Bill as the Pirate King and Patty as his consort. It worked. I was glad to see Bill get a lead role for a change. Procession/Progress on Saturday started 20 minutes late and 10 minutes late on Sunday, so nothing changed there.
Rogues got stuck down in the area behind the food vendors (and one of the stages) along with the Kern County Pirates (good people). It meant we didn't have much patron contact, but I was ok with that. We also heard, but didn't see a lot of acts. There were two belly dancing troups that I can do without hearing again. One used canned music that was waay to heavy on the bass. You could hear that half way across faire. Not interesting music either, some of it too modern. The other group was better, but I took offense at their use of "Miserlu", a lovely Greek song. Did they even look up the history of the song before adding "Whoo!" to it? Grr. But we also got to hear Oddwood's last set both nights, so it averaged out.
I never did see battle. On Saturday I was doing "Meet and Greet" and on Sunday we were asked to do our cannon demo just before battle to draw a crowd. So during battle Sunday I was collapsing in a heap. Unfortunately, where we were camped and where we had to do demo was clear across faire site and those cannons and their equipment are heavy!
Rogues were light on members (as were a lot of guilds, hello economy!), so we all took turns leaving camp for walk abouts. I did manage to find a few Christmas presents. Mostly I spent the weekend relaxing and talking to people. I briefly saw Sterling from BoB. Talked to Nicole and Lupis. Spent time with friends from the Northstar Penguins, and even had time for a nice talk with Stephanie. Spike is in kindergarden now!!!
Saturday night was pretty par for Ojai pirate. I was over at the Penguins talking when the fire show started, so I had a ring side seat. Saw some good meteor work. I'm still thinking about the heavy set woman who did the fire hula hoop bit. For safety sake she was nearly nude. She was skilled, but her weight detracted from the performance.
The site is still amazingly beautiful. I'm glad I went.
There was one major change this faire. I think the promoter learned a lot from Vista Pirate faire. There was no royalty (i.e. no Queen Patty as Elizabeth I) and it worked very well. So for this pirate faire, the guild of St. Elizabeth's rethemed. It was not an Elizabethan faire. It was a pirate faire. We had a Governor (the same actor we had in that role at Vista faire), and we had Patty's husband Bill as the Pirate King and Patty as his consort. It worked. I was glad to see Bill get a lead role for a change. Procession/Progress on Saturday started 20 minutes late and 10 minutes late on Sunday, so nothing changed there.
Rogues got stuck down in the area behind the food vendors (and one of the stages) along with the Kern County Pirates (good people). It meant we didn't have much patron contact, but I was ok with that. We also heard, but didn't see a lot of acts. There were two belly dancing troups that I can do without hearing again. One used canned music that was waay to heavy on the bass. You could hear that half way across faire. Not interesting music either, some of it too modern. The other group was better, but I took offense at their use of "Miserlu", a lovely Greek song. Did they even look up the history of the song before adding "Whoo!" to it? Grr. But we also got to hear Oddwood's last set both nights, so it averaged out.
I never did see battle. On Saturday I was doing "Meet and Greet" and on Sunday we were asked to do our cannon demo just before battle to draw a crowd. So during battle Sunday I was collapsing in a heap. Unfortunately, where we were camped and where we had to do demo was clear across faire site and those cannons and their equipment are heavy!
Rogues were light on members (as were a lot of guilds, hello economy!), so we all took turns leaving camp for walk abouts. I did manage to find a few Christmas presents. Mostly I spent the weekend relaxing and talking to people. I briefly saw Sterling from BoB. Talked to Nicole and Lupis. Spent time with friends from the Northstar Penguins, and even had time for a nice talk with Stephanie. Spike is in kindergarden now!!!
Saturday night was pretty par for Ojai pirate. I was over at the Penguins talking when the fire show started, so I had a ring side seat. Saw some good meteor work. I'm still thinking about the heavy set woman who did the fire hula hoop bit. For safety sake she was nearly nude. She was skilled, but her weight detracted from the performance.
The site is still amazingly beautiful. I'm glad I went.