Renaissance fair

Some engage in deliberate 'time travel' by encouraging participants to wear costumes representing several eras in a broad time period.

Within a modern Renaissance festival, there are stages or performance areas set up for scheduled shows, such as plays in Shakespearean or commedia dell'arte traditions, as well as anachronistic audience participation in comedy routines.

Between the stages, the streets ('lanes') are lined with stores ('shoppes') and stalls where independent vendors sell themed handcrafts, clothing, books, and artwork.

[13][14] In addition to staged performances, a major attraction of Renaissance fairs are professional and amateur crowds of actors who play historical figures, roaming the fairgrounds and interacting with visitors.

This adds enjoyment to guests' experience by 'getting into the act' as Renaissance Lords and Ladies, peasants, pirates, belly dancers, or fantasy characters.

'[citation needed] Most fairs have an end-of-the-day ritual parade, dance, or concert where all employees gather and bid farewell to the patrons.

Folk musician and traditionalist John Langstaff gained popularity in the 1950s as part of an early music revival trend.

In 1957, Langstaff hosted "A Christmas Masque of Traditional Revels" in New York City, and another the following year in Washington, D.C. A televised version was broadcast on the Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1966 which included Dustin Hoffman playing the part of the dragon slain by Saint George.

[15] In 1963, Los Angeles schoolteacher Phyllis Patterson held a small Renaissance fair as a class activity, using the backyard of her Laurel Canyon home in the Hollywood Hills as the fairgrounds.

In 1967, the Pattersons created a fall Renaissance fair with a harvest festival theme at what is now China Camp State Park in San Rafael, California.

Richard Shapiro, who founded what later became the Bristol Renaissance Faire outside Chicago in 1972, favored entertainment, saying "we were so authentic back then it was almost painful.

In 1968, Phyllis Patterson, founder of the California Renaissance Pleasure Faires, also created the Living History Centre, a California-based educational and cultural foundation.