Thank you inhabitants of Doon Douglas!(After the faire was over.)A big THANKS to all the villagers who brought Doon Douglas to life! Being able to escape reality for a few hours each weekend was a great gift for us. Our almost daily visits are being sorely missed as the faire happened at a time of much stress and sorrow in our mundane lives. Our praise and a hearty HUZZAH! to you all! We give a special thanks to the performers who provided us with hours of enjoyment and distraction. Barely Balanced, Drunken Uglies, Jousting, Pizpor, Bounding Main, Starboard Watch, EricaJames, Teatro, Jugglenauts, Footweary Tunesmiths. Extra kudos to all who were committed to keeping the ice slushies supply available to combat heat exhaustion! Greg is missing the Gyros he had almost every visit. Amber is missing the slushies and mozzarella sticks. Wendy misses Valour and Apollo. A special mention to the person who thought of placing the water misters here and there about the village for a refreshing cooldown in the relentless heat. We hope to see you all again next year! (Our initial feelings after our first visit to Doon Douglas.) HUZZAH! Our THANKS for bringing the faire to Chippewa! We have been going to the "MN fest" every year (but one) since 1984. It is a 3 hour drive for us and we can usually only do that only once a year. We're very, very happy that our NEW local faire is less than an hour away! We intend being there every weekend. We have bought season tickets. (3 in our family ) and have attended the first two days. We will be bringing two more family members next week and are trying to arrange a visit with some friends the week after. We fervently hope we will be attending for years to come. Now for some comments: 1. Super site! Great potential! Looking forward to the finished product! It's neat seeing the birth of a new faire. 2. Great theme and characters! Favorites so far: the Huntress and Poacher(?), Cuthbert (village idiot?) Lord Gower( Note: We're just NOT interested in fancy dress royalty like at MN and could never get into the story line there or the characters.) In actuality, we NEVER interacted with the royalty at MN in all those years. I did have a fun encounter with some pirates once! 3. I thought there would be armored jousting? Coming soon I hope? The jousting seating is super and the ring has great potential. As I'm sure you might guess, armored jousting will draw VERY large crowds. It is very popular elsewhere (Shakopee). Invest in it. People like to see horses and knights in action. The two horses on opening weekend were magnificent to watch, but we were half the crowd at the first show. I think it was hard to perform to 5 people! At least we got a lot of personal attention from Lord Gower and his squire. 4. There was poison ivy here and there, (some by Iron Wolf Forge) kids or people in sandals could get into it.(Hope there is someone on the crew who can identify it. Roundup treatment on just a few leaves will be taken into the root system and kill the entire plant. Digging it up is dangerous and broken pieces of root will re-grow.) 5. I thought it humorous (really!) that all 4 wheel drive vehicles were directed to the same rough section of the parking area! (Lock those wheels!) I got a chance to try ours out when we sunk in the sand on our way out. Fun! (really!) 'course other people may not have my sense of fun. :-P 6. We are personally spending more money than we ought to at the faire as we self- ishly want it to succeed!!!! I've already bought a sword, mug and T-shirt. Wish there were a lot more artisans there, especially those offering a selection of handcrafted, medieval type wares. Most interesting vendors were the sword shop, the blacksmith, and the cement statue guy. I have my eye on a great little Gimli the Dwarf statue. Gotta check how our checking account is doing! 7. The Angus Pub is a real hot spot. Great atmosphere and music. Hope to see the nearby trebuchet in operation some day. I predict the pub, barracks, trebuchet area will become a place of major entertainment and maker of memories. Met the Drunken Uglies. Guess we were hangin' around the pub so long, the one named Peter came over to chat. Great guys. Starboard Watch was GOOD! Glad these two decided to make a duo. Lookin' forward to a new CD from them. As I understand, neither of these groups is going to be at this faire the last weekend. Hope they have replacements that are just as good. 8. We drove in from the north and the blue and white Renaissance Faire direction signs were a happy surprise! The city of Chippewa is helping out? It gives the new faire a professional air and if they stay up all year, are super advertising. There was no signage we could see when coming in from the east, which we did after going to Walmart and coming back that way. 9. The first day was extremely hot and there was little shade. Some canvas strung between posts would be appreciated. 10. I'm going to make a webpage with photos and comments about our first weekend at the faire. I will send you the URL when done. I was thinking it would be neat to do a mini-podcast to complement our photos. A photo of each inhabitant of Doon Douglas along with a short audio of them describing their character and welcoming people to come to the faire. 11. If I was not already into this strange interest in attending faires, I might have never heard about this one as there was hardly a mention of it anywhere, and we were watching for it. The article in the Eau Claire Leader was about all I saw. Increase advertising? Yep! 12. When we were hanging around the gift shop at the front gate, two ladies walked in through the gift shop and asked me where they could get a program. When I told them they handed them out at the ticket booth, they asked where that was, I realized they had just waltzed in to the faire without paying. They did go back out to get their ticket and program, but others might have wandered (snuck) in this way. If it is a promotional strategy to allow people in to peak their interest in the hope they will return again as a paying customer, fine. Otherwise, it needs fixing. 13. I think they were playtrons, but a small group of characters in the Angus' Pub late on Sunday greatly stimulated the medieval ambience! Some people might recognize someone dressed as Aragorn with his sword Anduril, but if you didn't know any better, you'd just think it was great, faire theater. An elf lady and guys in mail and armor were part of this group. I think they were visiting SCA royalty. One wore a coronet and carried a banner with the blazon, Gules, a compass rose argent, something, some- thing, something...I'm no expert. I was a member for a few years but never had time for it. 14. Give me time, I'm sure I've forgotten something! :-) Hope you enjoy my comments! Greg a jack of many trades, a master of none. |
email me
|