This faire was recommended to me by Gale, so I figured, why the hell not!  Its at the right time of year, its affordable, and better yet, they have cabins which allocates the stupendous hotel costs this season truckin' around my whole family. 

We arrived friday afternoon sometime just after five, and had a little confusion finding out who we went to but since Gale was like -right- there at the gate basically, she pointed us to the right personages.    First and foremost, they allowed us to park our trailer behind our tent, this was a huge bonus.  My stock is labor intensive to bring in and out, and is weather sensitive to the tenth degree, so the ability for quick stashing in the evenings or if ran rushed in was a blessing indeed.

Second, as my little one noted as we waited outside our cabin for a key, 'It looks like an elf house"...... and it did, it was adorable.  Though the bunks squeal when you move in the night, they are comfortable and the cabin was very clean and cute.  I actually want one in my back yard LOL.

Other than the handfull I already knew, Gale, Ruth and the Troop, I felt definitively alienated on the first night.  I said hello to everyone, sometimes I would get a hello back and often got looked at like "and who the hell are you?".   I considered this as we started settling in for the evening, I have to admit, it was an unusual sensation I'd never had at a faire before.  The Vendor coordinator was very friendly, but we had serious problems knowing who worked there, and who we went to for what.  No one showed us around (except Gale of course later), where we could find what...... even where to go to smoke we had to "figure out"..... it was a little uncomfortable.

I attribute a lot of this to the fact that I knew other vendors and I suppose a lot was assumed i'd be shown the ropes by "someone"....... (lol, poor Gale, my tourgide of life!).

This all, however, dissapeared the minute the morning came and I set up my tent.  Once the blistering day began, there was a different vibe going on...... I'm not sure why.  Maybe a lot of people were pre-occupied the night before on set-ups and travel.  God knows I was lol.

The faire, for all intents and purposes, has a lot of potential.  I am not very familliar with LARP, (though I am familliar with role playing as I do it), so some of the premise was a bit foreign........ and when that popped into my head, I realized perhaps that slight alienated feeling was in part due to that.  I wasn't exactly part of the LARP crowd.  I'm a die hard rennie lol.

Patronage was slow, but I attribute this to two factors, it was the first weekend and more attractions will be there this coming weekend....... and the ABYSMAL HEAT.  We're talking africa hot.   This seems to be my albatross, weird ass weather follows me to every faire, I swear.    I think you could have cooked an egg on my head, and people were passing out (one taken by ambulance!).

This weekend the temperature should be more bearable....... let me tell you in that swelter, no one wanted to walk around a lot let alone shop.  I felt bad for vendors, performors and the promoters....... who knew we were having this faire in a convection oven!!!

So, I'll save any diatrabe about the faire until after this weekend, I want to give it a totally fair shot.   No way I could guage it with us all sweltering in an unexpected sauna!

Corner room 600, 6th floor.... the party floor.

Wicked faire was spectacular.   Any drawbacks were simply from my own physical limitations, and self abuse of overwork.

My Experience:  WOW.  This was my first wicked faire, and although when i told people I was doing it would get warnings of "You know what kind of faire this is..... right" I nodded..   Welp, it was way more than I EVER anticipated.  Spec-friggin-tacular.  Now, as a fledgeling I think I spent the first few hours vending in a state of culture shock..... that faded quickly to a complete state of Yeeeeeeeeeehaw!  Oh lord, if only i wasnt working so hard in my tent I could have finnaly gotten in touch with my inner slut.  Thats not to say, that I did not reach down deep and become aquainted with it.....  haha!

You can sign me up for next year, except this time I will make sure my hotel room isnt on the floor where it sounded like it was "bowling with people" down the hall until 7am!  (nothing wrong with this, except my lament i was too tired to go fully investigate!)

I met some of the most incredible people, and again, le-SIGH..... if only i had 10 gallons of coffee hooked up to an I.V..... I could have hung out with them later.  Next year I will spend the week before on a marathon sleep session ala space ship deep time space cell capsule, to fully appreciate all the smorgasboard of kinky goodies that were abounding.

For those of you that attended, you couldn't miss me, I am the chick with the flamingest red hair this side of the island.    I had people sing to me in the hall "One of these things is not like the other" and nearly laughed my garters off!

Absolutely the best, its an absolute crime I will ahve to wait another year for it.

UPDATE:  For those wondering the official status, wicked faire will be occuring on its originally scheduled dates and times as well as the official originally location, Holiday Inn in Edison NJ.

 Now, I can fully vest myself in gearing up to work this faire.   I feel particularly terrible for the promotors and workers, with the hotel fiasco.   Regardless they've worked hard, to make the best ouf of a horrible situation.  My thanks to them!

Finished the first of two weekends of the Nightmare fair in Ansonia Ct.  Sadly not going as well as I anticipated/hoped.  The Fair itself is great, and Saturday it was mobbed at night, yet sales were abysmal.  Once home yesterday, I had some time to actually think about it, and why I might not be doing so well here.  Its not the fair itself, which is bringing in a lot of people, so I had to sit down and tally whats going on here.  I've come up with these reasons why its not going spifftacular LOL.

#1:  Its a halloween horror fair.   Considering most dont have merchants and this is a new idea persea to have vendors at the halloween fair itself, thats probably the #1 reason for the slowness in my tent.  People just arent prepared to shop, at least for artwork persea.

#2:  Its at night.  Now the SCRF was held at night, but also in the daytime, and a broad spectrum of it.  Artwork and darkness don't go hand in hand.  Though my tent is pretty well lit with a black n'decker generator rechargeable, i noticed a slide in sales as soon as the sun went down.

#3:  Lack of alchohol LOL.  Bad as this sounds, its amazing what an ale or glass of wine in people will do for sales.

#4:  Wrong Genre.  Renaissance Faire's and Psychic Faires tend to be more accepting of the art I show.

and #5:  its the same location as the SCRF, many patrons were in my shop just a few months ago and have already purchased from me.

So, I'm working now to see what i can do to make this last weekend lucrative.  I have a few paintings that are half - 75% done, which if i get some gumption (and for4go sleep) I can probably finish under pressure for this weekend. Luckily most of the work to them is done, and they are a bit more family friendly - kid oriented (which will help on saturday lil punkin days :)

Wish me luck! 

Eghads, whats wrong with me is probably that unending lack of sleep LOL.  Welcome to the fool issue of "Kirin's done lost her marbles again".

Last day of faire, happily, I send my husband down with the money to pay for next year's vendor space (larger too we were TOO small) with glee...... only to have him return and tell me a MUCH higher figure than anticipated.  more than twice as much....  I'm doing the math in my tired head, thinking....... whats going on here?

Considering exhaustion, I was on the verge of tears, and we packed up and went home.  Before I did I asked a few vendors how much it was for the tent space i wanted, since there's was the same as what i was asking for.   They tell me the same amount as i originally figured...... huh?

Wait...... i'm thinking, then why is mine more than twice as much......... I'm actually numb going home wondering, Did I do something maybe and they dont want me back?  Was I offensive in some way I dont remember?   I realize all these thoughts are stupid, but remember this is a woman here who didn't actually see Ruth's neon flaming blue rug under my feet and was flicking my cigarette on it last week.

I get some sleep, not much..... and decide to recalculate my math.   Holy crap people, shoot me...... really someone needs to put me down and out of my misery.

Hows about my figure TIMES THREE WEEKENDS!    So the other vendors were right, figuring i had the brains enough to times the base against THREE weekends........ apparently they didn't realize they were dealing with a brain clouded bafoon.

I wrote Liz and Richard, appologizing as I must have seemed like a complete and total nitwit. *head-desk*