This past Labor Day weekend I ventured to a new faire. I along with several folk from Scarborough were guests of the long running Minnesota Ren Festival. About 30-40 minutes from the Twin cities, the show was an interesting mix of plentiful shops, amusingly oddball street characters and bawdy stage acts. In fact I would say this faire had a noticeably higher number of bawdy and racy acts than the typical faire. These were good acts but they would definitely raise an eyebrow or two. The weekend itself was quite the radical excursion.Friday had temperatures comparable to Texas, followed by nasty thunderstorms in the night that left 90% humidity the next day. By Monday the weather was quite ideal, cool and accomodating even the heaviest of garb. Despite the extreme weather I had a very enjoyable time.

The previous description and all these wonderful images are brought to you by Frank Hui. Because of his devotion, I have nothing to add. --Robyn Sotherby

For information regarding this faire, check out: Minnesota Festival's Official Site

As Always... click on the image for a larger view...

A trio with an enigmatic sound	What is Delia doing back there	Queen Anne's Lace accompanying	on Bonny Portmore
Reve du Faun, 1 of the local musical acts	A group that is charming with	a versatile repertoire	This faire has a lot of Morris dancing
A vigorous and manly number	The infamous Vilification Tennis	Team doubles lob insults at each other	Some teams seem scarier than others
This woman could shock a sailor	They had to gang up to deal with this "volunteer" from the audience	An enthusiastic player, isn't he?	But that was game and set
Allen-A-Dale entertaining the kids	An different kind of juggler is Tuey	He puts a nice twist on things	He likes to juggle and balance in strange combos

This Page Last Updated:   9/16/04