A WALK THRU WITH PICTURES OF MER

Washington Renaissance Fantasy Faire '09 was a challenging site -- not only was it the first year on the new site with untried layout challenges and a smaller overall space, but there were requirements that made placing merchant booths difficult. For example: food and any fire related activities had to be on concrete or graveled areas, fire lanes had to be wider than expected, there were several permanent building and fenced areas -- enough said about the challenges. It worked.

As a record of what the merchants' setups looked like, I took a stroll the second weekend down the middle of the lanes and shot pictures. I worked very hard just to look and shoot as if I was a visitor looking around (making it easier to shoot but hard to transcend training).

Here are 120 pictures of merchant setups.

Gate, Tavern, and entrance area.
Food merchants.
Along the "pumpkin patch" perimeter.
Decision time, I'm not going down the hill and want to do this in one sweep.
So Royal Magick stage and around to the right and up that lane counter-clockwise to the end.
Around the corner and down that lane counter-clockwise, ending at Royal Magick stage.
All the way around the perimeter of the merchants' booth (clockwise).
Completing the circle of booths behind McGilly's (counter-clockwise).
Around corner and down lane to Royal Magick's stage.
Finished tour with 120 pictures.

One of the joys of a Renaissance Faire is noise and confusion with a lot of activities crammed into the site,
it is easy to become lost, discover different activities, and not know where to go.
WRFF '09 was successful in offerering different paths thru the faire and visitors wandered.
The following order of walking through the site is not what a visitor would do,
I knew the site and used only one circuit -- walking quickly.

"Gate, Tavern, and entrance area.

First thru the gate and a survey of the "entrance" glancing at the money changer and tavern, then a look to the right along the "dairy barns", then back to the tavern and costume rental.

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Food merchants.

A walk down a rocky road between the "dairy barn" and the pumpkin patch brought me to the "beginning of the faire".

The blacksmith demo and all the food merchants used fire, they were on the concrete or gravel area stretched down the right hand side of this lane.
It seemed practical to grab a bite, show the food booths, and then a jump back to start the booths along the left hand side of the lane.

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Along the "pumpkin patch" perimeter.

Jumping back ot the beginning of the "rocky road to salvation", I went along the "pumpkin patch" (left hand side of the perimeter) starting at the blacksmith's selling booth down the rocky lane, turned left and continued all the way to the water booth at the top of the hill where there was an obvious partition of the site -- guilds and joust were down the hill.

Decision time, I'm not going down the hill and want to do this in one sweep.

I stopped at this point and made a decision that no visitor would make. It is employed here only because I knew the site and wanted to lay out the pictures in one circuit.

There was a lane on left side of the Royal Magick stage, a lane on right side of Mcgilly's food booth, and a common lane between Royal Magick and McGilly's (3 lanes total).
If I went counter-clockwise up the lane to the right of Royal Magick's stage and continued around the booths, I would make a circle ending up across from the water booth.
Then I could go from the water booth clock-wise around the perimeter ending up back at McGilly's food booth.
Then up the right side lane from McGilly's counter-clockwise to end up back at Royal Magick's stage.
No one unfamilia with the site would do that BUT it covers all the merchants in one circuit.

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So Royal Magick stage and around to the right and up that lane counter-clockwise to the end.