For the last four weekends my wife has been out in Chaska working the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. While I’ve never had a desire to work there I always enjoy going out a few times every year to hang out.



I never actually had been to the Ren Fest until I started dating Jena and I have to say, it’s really fun. I love eating the authentic medieval foods like fajitas and frozen cheesecake on a stick, playing authentic medieval carnival games like the batarang toss and watching authentic medieval entertainment like yo mama snaps.

While the Ren Fest is fun, it can certainly be overwhelming if it’s your first time there. Here’s a few things to look out for if you plan on breaking your Ren Fest cherry without a proper guide –

TURKEY LEGS
This is the unofficial symbol of Renaissance Festivals everywhere. It’s the first thing anybody thinks of if they don’t know much about Ren Fests. The giant turkey leg. The kind you can club somebody with. A big slab of meat that you throw your head at and rip the meat off like some barbarian motherfucker. I was totally excited to eat a turkey leg on my first trip to the Ren Fest but then about 2 dozen people who worked there looked at me like I was crazy. I guess they wrap the legs in spam, store them in a moist pit underground and have methed out teenagers wave them under a heat lamp for five minutes before spitting on them and selling them to you. I don’t know if any of that is true but I haven’t had a turkey leg at the Ren Fest yet and I don’t plan on it.



PEOPLE IN COSTUME
There’s a lot of people in costume there. Not employees, but patrons. They won’t just dress up in Medieval garb, either. These people will dust off pretty much any costume they have available –

Last week I saw a guy in the parking lot wearing a giant banana costume and a jedi. It’s just like at the sci fi conventions. People want to wear these costumes in public, there’s only so many times a year they can do it and nobody at the Ren Fest will judge them.



CARNIES
These are the people that run the games at the Ren Fest. Most of them are human garbage. My first encounter with their lack of humanity was 3 years ago when I was walking around the Festival with my stepson. The woman at the dunk tank asked if I wanted to “make a lady really wet”. I pointed to the child in my care two feet away from me and said “hi. He’s 8. Please don’t be creepy.” She said “Come on, daddy. Gotta make him a man one of these days.” Last weekend I was walking by the carnival games when I heard one of the workers tell somebody in a wheelchair “Oh, lucky! You get to just sit and let people push you around all day!”



If the Ren Fest were Parks and Recreation the games workers there would be the librarians.



THE KING







The ultimate goal of the Renaissance Festival is to overthrow the king. Violence to take the throne was banned at the Ren Fest ever since King George beheaded King Richard in front of a crowd of 800 children from area elementary schools on a field trip in 1973. The current king Henry seized the throne in a bloodless coup in 2006. Should you get him to publicly admit defeat and hand you the crown you have all the rights and perks of the king during the Ren Fest. You get the crown, the cape, a half dozen guards with those funny looking spears and the right to sleep with any virgin employee of the Festival on the night before her wedding.



Hope this info helps! Enjoy!