So, if you want to get the latest news, go to the bottom of the page.
8-18-2003
The first weekend went very well. Everyone who was at the festival put on spectacular performances. No one died of heat stroke. There was no arrests, lawsuits or anything else potentially threatening to the festival, cast or patrons. The donations could have been better. A lot better. Even with the rain, then the heat bearing down upon us each in turn and without mercy, everyone still remained cheerful and did a good job. You would figure that with everyone still in good spirits, even with the weather being what it was, at least that would fetch some donations.
For those of you considering attending, please take notice: this is a non-profit charitable function. This means that you will be asked to DONATE SOMETHING. One guy gave a quarter. I think that was all he had. If one man can give his last quarter, then five dollars is not too much to ask from those of you who have more in your pocket. These people are trying their best to entertain you, and they all are working very hard to do so. They have prepared for this event for months, and spent a lot of their own money to raise funds for the March of Dimes. They are all volunteers. They are not getting paid to do this. Five dollars is all we're asking from you for their efforts. If you could give more, that would be great. For those of you who actually did donate, we all thank you with enormous gratitude. Oh, and before I forget...a special thanks to the guy that pulled a fat roll of cash out of his pocket and then gave three pennies before stuffing all the cash back into his pocket.You're a real humanitarian.
8-19-2003
We've had some publicity for the event. Yesterday it was Chef Walter, today the Oak Ridger had the festival as the 'top story'. Check out the Oak Ridger web site for the pic. Also, Live at 5 will feature a segment on Thursday. If anyone has any more pics of the festival, send them to me, and I will try to post them. If the mailbox is full from all the pics, wait a couple of hours, then try again. It sure has been a learning experience.
8-25-2003
The second weekend went even better than the first. Everyone turned out flawless performances, the cast had a feeling of camaraderie and the weather was much better. All of this led to more donations. Here are the totals so far for gains and collateral damages for the festival:
Day 1-
Donations +$7 ($5 of which came from the Known World Players)
One bent tent pole (repaired, no loss)
Four broken pennant poles
Day 2-
Donations +$7
One cracked coat of arms shield
Day 3-
Donations +$213 (much better)
Two broken scroll boards
One broken coat of arms shield
Day 4-
Donations +$103 (still better than the first weekend)
Two more broken coat of arms shields
Two more broken scroll boards
Eight bent or broken tent poles (-1 pavilion)
One coat of arms shield cracked
Six broken pennant poles
One cast member close to passing out from heat stroke
I want to thank everyone who has volunteered to help out with this festival. I have had requests to host this at a different time of year next year. I have had July and October suggested to me. Email me if you have a preference to either of those two months. I have also had requests for a two weekend event. Feel free to give me your opinion on that as well.
On a completely unrelated note...Several people have asked if I could use them as volunteers to help with the festival. I have had offers from people who could dress as Napoleon, Abe Lincoln, a mummy, a werewolf, a drag queen and the guy from Tron. This is a renaissance festival. We don't want to really go outside that by changing themes during the festival. Tron, Abe and Napoleon, you're all at least a hundred years out of time. The mummy and werewolf, I'll get back to you if I ever have a Halloween costume party. As for the drag queen person, this is the Bible belt. If the patrons see a cross dresser running amuck at this festival, the donations will be as scarce as the patrons. This will really anger many of the performers at the festival. If you attend the festival in period garb, please at least make sure it is appropriate for your gender. We don't care what you do behind closed doors, but if it causes this festival to lose donations, then we have a problem.
9-1-2003
Day 5-
Donations +$243 (the best day of the festival, with $70 from one woman who held a birthday party for her daughter at the festival)
One more broken shield
One cast member passed out from the heat (October is looking better all the time)
Day 6-
Donations +$108
Two borken pennant poles
Another cast member fell out from the heat (definitely October next year)
8 French loaves, 3 pumpernickel, 86 bagels, 68 mini loaves, 1 asagio cheese (ouch!) and 2 raisin loaves used as ammunition in the bread war.
All right...who threw the asagio cheese bread? I was going to eat that.
9-9-2003
Well, the dust has settled, and a lot was learned from this first year. Nothing catastrophic happened, and everything went very well. The cast performed beautifully. So many flawless performances. Even with the heat bearing down on us one minute, then the rain the next, all our volunteers still had a great time and were enthusiastic throughout the festival. I think a great time was had by all. Even those suffering from the heat went down with smiles on their faces. All right you perverts!...Get your minds out of the gutter. So far, the poll seems to be that we should try for October. July seems to be almost as hot as August, so all the cast wants October. However...there are so many things going on in October that we wouldn't get very much in the way of publicity because we would have to share the spotlight with so many other events. Not to mention the fact that hotel rooms for the out-of-town performers would be hard to find. Perhaps if we can find the hotel rooms far enough in advance for the performance groups, then we can simply dominate and destroy the other events. Oops...that wasn't very politically correct. What I meant to say was "Perhaps we can negotiate a compromise to receive a larger portion of the media attention than other events, because our's is for a non-profit charity, which is a good cause." Did that sound better?
Attention* Everyone that attended the festival as cast or simply helped out...Please email me with your name, and tell me everyone else that you can remember that also helped out. I'm in the process of writing out a 'thank you' page for the cast, and want to make sure I don't leave anyone out. There will eventually be a cast party when I scrape up enough money to throw one. Unless anyone has any ideas on how I could throw a cast party with very little cost. Then the cast party will be held sooner. I still need pictures too. Someone gave me a few dozen, but my scanner is on the blink, so I need someone who has a working scanner to send me some pics to put on the web site. Or, better yet...put the pics on a blog page or photo page of your own, then send me the link.
So, there is your homework people;
1) Email me the first and last names of everyone you remember seeing helping out with the festival.
2) Be sure to include yourself in the above listed email.
3) Send photos of the festival. Or, even better, send a link to a photo page with photos of the festival. (This site can only hold so much.)
4) Put on those velcro gloves and 'help' the sheep over the fence. Oh wait. That is on my homework list. Ok...Here's your number 4:
4) Email me suggestions on how to throw a cheap cast party.
5) Call or email me with your votes on October or July.
