I t would take some time, but some of our older posts might be of some use here.

I wouldn't go with INDEPENDENT guilds - I think a strong central theatrical director should keep firm control on things rather than allow a dozen different independent groups with differing ideas of authenticity muddle the theme.

It's fine to organize the street entertainment by interest groups, but keep a centralized government and clearly defined theme.

Start by reading Gary Izzo's "The Art of Play", and recommend that anybody in charge do so as well. It's cheap and easy to obtain. He says all that I don't have the time or space to say here.

I'd go for a semi-gradual change - Define the theme clearly and declare that everything that appears should be something that could conceivably happen in the time and place being portrayed. Give them a season to get it together, talk to those who aren't getting the job done and let them know that they need to step in line before the next season or risk not being able to participate.

Offer examples of period alternatives that are just as fun. Folks may have to visit www.crackafuckingbook.com.

If nothing else, make Izzo and The Compendium of Common Knowledge required reading for all participants. The show will improve markedly.

"listen to authentic period music while eating a Pirate Pickle"

so, halfway there, huh?

One could try the route of attempting to attract participants who give a crap about history in the first place by putting out the word to various historical groups, thread, tribes, lists etc. that the show is looking for historicallly-minded folks. There are tons of them hiding in the woodworks avoiding renfaires and making due by changing periods to do reenactments or doing SCA or something else instead.

You could invite the management to this tribe, too. Once they see how much fun we have, perhaps they'll think of you when it comes to bringing in a resident snob consultant...

HI Joe,

As someone who was part of the team that took a small faire with an "imaginary court" and a lot of fantasy elements and in one season recreated it as a mid reign Elizabethan historical faire, I can tell you that it CAN be done that way, but whether or not you want to try that would depend on a lot of things:

Things we had in our favor:

1) We started with a small cast (fewer than 100 people total, we now have over 250) of local community volunteers who were mostly all newbies to the ren world so we didn't have too much for them to "unlearn".

2) We pitched the historical idea from the standpoint that it is actually far easier to do an historical faire than a "made up" one because you have lots of facts and details and known things and bits of history that your audience already knows something about to work with and hang your hat on rather than having to pull things out of the air.

3) People understood that it was indeed easier to make a costume and build a character if you had an historical basis to look at/start from rather making it all up.

4) The guild masters and cast were astoundingly willing to take direction, be assigned new characters, and dove into the research and history like it was the most fun they have ever had (I marvel at this daily).

5) The management committee, once they understood the benefits and structure that using real history as a basis for things could give to the faire, was in general very supportive of the change.

6) Each of the guildheads set up and ran a website/forum where their cast members interact on a daily basis sharing their own research, and could interact with their guild masters and faire management on a near daily basis able to ask questions, get direction and advice, read informative postings, download new guidelines as they were written, etc. I think it was this very high level of constant communication up and down the line that really made the change in one season possible.

Was the first season as a revamped historical faire a little rough? Sure, but our cast loved it, our audience loved and it continues to grow each season.

Unless you have a super willing cast and a supportive management, I don't know that I would recommend trying to do this in one season, especially if your cast are long time faire folk who have "less than historical" ideas strongly entrenched in their heads - it takes time to unlearn what you "know"...

I would say that in my opinion, the best way to switch a faire over to historical, if you choose to do it over time, is start with your sovereign and court ...once the new king/queen and court are historically based and playing that way typically all the other performance groups will see that they need to follow along and adapt to the new way of things or become less relevant at faire.

And of course if you can get all the group heads/guild masters to "lead from the front" that is half the battle right there. At our faire, the guildmasters have the primary responsibility for training the cast members so if you can get your guildmasters on the "snob bandwagon" then they will train their people that way.

The biggest difficulty we have had re: cast is folks who were not part of the transition who want to join the cast...there are always a few who just don't understand that there is a difference between being a cast member playing an historical person and being a playtron (a patron who comes to faire for fun and wears a costume and plays a character of their own devising while hanging out with their friends). Some playtrons can make the switch but others just never seem to get out of the "there are too many rules and not enough beer" mind set. Over time, these folks tend to weed themselves out of an historical cast but can be kind of a bump in the road during a transition...

I would strongly recommend checking out some books on volunteer recruitment and retention for non-profit groups (even if you pay your actors) as this will help you figure out what your actors "real paycheck" is; that is the reason that they personally do faire...the REAL reason that they rarely talk about...then find a way to explain things to them that lets them know that they will still get their "paycheck" and that it might be even better in the historical faire version of things. THAT can go a long way to getting cast members on board with the idea.

For example, I do faire because it is fun and I enjoy the research and the history but I also do faire because as a guildmaster I get to use my professional organizational skills, my "train the trainer" skills, my research skills and my knack for implementing and running a command structure that otherwise I don't get much of an opportunity to work with in non-faire aspects of life at the moment. I know a number of folks who do it because it is the one place where they feel their particular interests are not considered geeky or odd, some people do because it is a "safe place" to openly flirt, etc...

We all have these "other reasons" that we do faire and if you can find a way to let folks know that their experiential/psychological/emotional
check will still get paid after the changeover, it will be a lot easier to get them into the mind set that historical can be as fulfilling and as much fun as what they are doing now

Vel