Brevard Renaisance Fair 2023 Y.A.A.R.

Welcome to our first ever Y.A.A.R., Your After Action Review! To start the year, and more specifically Scoundrel On The Run, we traveled east and attended the Brevard Renaissance Fair in Melbourne, Florida. Accompanied by Silver Mischief, our Mistress of Propoganda, we went forth to celebrate a birthday and the Opening Weekend. Once there we were met by The Minstrel Rav’n (the birthday bard), Greenbeard, Lady Rose the BadWolf, and a bonus surprise lurker listeners! Now I’ve been thinking about how best to handle this portion of business. I could attempt to write as some kind of professional; a travel writer or some such but we all know that’s not what I be. So we shall give you some media that we took and then…bullet points!

A few of the photos we took:

The fulls songs we actually remembered to film.

 Now then; onto the general thoughts.

• I know some folks have the benefit of having faires who have permanent homes; this is not one of them. This is in a park; but don’t let that fool you. The location does not I feel be harmed by this, in fact some of it helps. The little bridges over streams add to the ambience of the location. The labyrinth of the layout helps conceal the outside world just over the fence.
• Speaking of the labyrinth, the layout (save for the main gate and main stage) apparently will change from year to year. When the weekend began there was no map (there was by Sunday) and using last year’s map was not useful. It took a bit to get the lay of the land and even then we found sections we missed by the end of Saturday.
• Dogs, there were more dogs here than any other faire I have ever been to; I’m not talking service animals either. I don’t know if it’s because they were in a park, or some state law, but folks had them everywhere. The great thing about it though, besides some of the adorable outfits, they were all so well behaved! There was no constant barking, saw no one just leave a land mine. I do not trust this anywhere else but it was interesting to see.
• We have to talk about signage; and the lack there of. Never saw any billboards, which I get, but signage to get to the faire was non-existent. As someone who has never been, and an out of towner, I was lucky I had a GPS to get me there. Even at the park entrance there was a big one at the gate, but nothing on the road either way that said turn here. Also leaving the faire at night, a bit tricky. On Sunday we were following the GPS to get out and it took us to an exit that was locked up. We were able to figure it out but I can see some folks being upset about that.
• I love the fact that on Saturday’s they have an evening concert; sometimes with a band who is playing during the day and sometimes with one that is only there that night. It’s not at another location; it’s at the main stage and they have somewhere for you to go while everyone else exits the faire. Being able to see the Musical Blades do their faire style shows and then their electric; what a treat.
• Big props for their pubs. Plenty of selection of meads, decent selection of beer, and the bonus was all having Bumbu or Fireball. The bartenders were courteous, effective and gave good banter.
• I was actually surprised by the vendor variety and loved the careening camp. Having a portion of the faire resemble something historical is something I think a lot of faires forget about at times. I wish more had what Brevard had to the right of the Queen’s stage. Also, the vikings are truly taking over as I think I counted at least four different horn/viking shops there.

Entertainment Thoughts

• The pure talent level at the faire is astronomical. I believe it had the majority, if not all, the folks who would be on the list of best vocalists; at least male vocalists. They had harpists, hammered dulcimer, bawdy, comedy, pirate, pipes, folk. Whatever style your heart desired you could probably find out there.
• The stages were well spaced out for the most part with only Cast of Bronze bleeding over onto one stage.
• Outside of the main stage I do wish there was more seating at most of the stages.
• The biggest issue, maybe overall at this faire was shade. Stages had no shade, seating had no shade, outside of pub tents there wasn’t much shade to be found anywhere. It was great weather temperature wise but Saturday there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and that made it hard on everyone. When it hit the afternoon depending on the stage you may be looking like Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western if you weren’t wearing sunglasses. I know with it not being a permanent faire this can be tricky but it really was my biggest complaint.
• There was so much to do and see; and sadly I didn’t even get to see all I wanted to see. Only briefly caught Pinwheel, that I did see I immediately knew it would be mind kind of show. Never got a chance to see Cirque de Sewer sadly; and catching Music the Gathering was tough; but that was more on them doing pub crawls.

Final Thoughts

• Maybe I missed it, maybe it’s the changing nature of the layout, maybe it’s not knowing anyone; but this faire didn’t appear to have THE SPOT. You know, that one location you find all the regulars throughout the day. Your Three Stags, White Hart, Sea Devil Tavern places. Not a knock, just an interesting observation is all.
• I never felt there was a period of the day where I was treading water. I was a shark, swimming and eating and drinking and being entertained. There was never an instance of; well there’s nothing going on I want to see or do. So props to the scheduler, kept the day going nicely.
• To tie in with the above there are PLENTY of options of entertainment; and I’m not just talking bands and acts. Multiple pub crawls, with different groups leading each crawl. A beer tasting lead by our friends Rover’s Way. An RPG run by Dice Knights Adventures that takes place which was hugely popular from what I could see. They even had a small petting zoo! There was literally something for everyone it seemed.
• I spent two days at Brevard and I am still not satiated. I think that says a lot about a faire, at least for me. That I spent two full days, one the entire opening to closing, and there’s still more to see? That’s an excellent job in my opinion. If you find yourself down Melbourne, Florida way in January it’s definitely worth the price of admission.

More Photo Galleries:

Saturday

Sunday

Best of Remixes