A brief introduction

The fair was established in the late 1970s and is located in the rolling foothills of a sleepy bedroom community situated between two major highway corridors in the northern Great Lakes region.  The fair operates from the middle of summer through the beginning of autumn, and according to recent posts by fair officials on various online and print venues, boasts over 250,000 attendees annually.  A casual bystander might get the impression that the fair is a small town operation--but they would be wrong.  With ticket prices hovering at just under $20 per person, it has become a multimillion-dollar operation.

Like many people, I began attending the fair from an early age and became instantly enamoured of it--the whole concept of becoming another person by donning a costume--playing "dress-up", essentially--was still something I enjoyed and carried over from childhood.  Once I was in my early 20s and able to afford to go to the fair on my own, I realized that it was a dream of mine to become one of the actors.

But even as a young adult, I was still very naive to the ways of the world.  I had absolutely no clue that behind the brightly painted and festooned facade of the Midwestern Renaissance Fair, there existed a highly stratified society that fostered big egos as well as big costumes.  Not knowing how entrenched this subculture was, I naively set out to become one of them--but failing to realize, until it was too late--that I could never be part of the clique.

Question: Why bother writing this blog?

Good question.  The reason I decided to create this anonymous blog was, at the very minimum, expose the negative ways in which the renaissance fair operates particularly their utter lack of interpersonal communication skills.  Even though I no longer work for the fair, I believe it is important to share my experiences despite not revealing specific details on the parties involved.

If I am telling the truth, why hide my identity? Well, with so many frivolous lawsuits going around these days, even a positive or neutral mention of a person or organization could potentially open one up to a legal battle--something I am not willing to risk given the amount of damage the renaissance fair and its employees have already done to me on both a personal and professional level.

But how is your story relevant if you can't even tell your readers who is involved? Because regardless of whether or not I "name names" there is always the possibility that an astute reader who goes over my dates and the issues presented could discern my identity.  It is relevant because people need to be warned not to work for this organization.  I have no interest in detering people from actually attending as paying guests, nor interfering with their business operations whatsoever.

Although I met many wonderful and genuinely caring people while working as an employee at this renaissance fair, by and large I was, from the beginning, met with reactions ranging from open hostility to cold indifference--something that until recently completely perplexed me.  After learning the truth, and the identity of the person who was ultimately responsible for this behavior toward me, I determined it was in my best interest to terminate my employment with the fair.

With that said, for the duration of this blog, I will be refering to the renaissance fair as the "Midwestern Renaissance Fair"--a completely made-up name which has no existence in reality at all, to the best of my knowledge after an extensive Google.com search.  All names are altered however the persons' titles will remain as they are in reality.  No outwardly libelous statements will be made about anyone based on gender, sex, class, religion, or creed.  No one will be called derogatory names, or refered to by such names.  "Just the facts, ma'am," as the old line goes.