Ebony's Pearls

For this year,anyway.

It was busy. The weather was decent. Windy, but tolerable. The performers weren't happy with the wind, or the cold that came in on Sunday. Some of the vendors were unprepared for the 70 mph gusts we got and lost their tents or their wares (or both) to the wind. We warn them every year that MedFaire has a history of strong winds and gusts,and they persist in bringing out flimsy tents and cheap plastic or thin aluminum stakes. So,those vendors who didn't listen to us about the winds suffered damage.

The rest did well enough.

We could have used a light rain to cut the dust, but I think we were all agreed that we'd deal with the dust and blowing grass shards so long as we had no mud.

I spent close to 24 hours in either the Faire Office or Info Booth, so I saw and heard a lot of the "bones" of the event.

This year, I didn't walk the Faire as usual and help with vendor issues. Instead, I sat on a stool and dispensed information. Mostly about the location of the privies. The top five questions were: 1. Where are the bathrooms? 2. Where are the privies? 3. Where are the closest privies? 4. Do you know how I can get to the privies? and 5. Do you have any public restrooms?

I didn't use any of the site privies this year. When the port-a-potty company set them up this year, they didn't stake them down. The winds were strong enough that the privies on then ends blew over. We did eventually get them staked, but having seen them blow down, I just couldn't convince myself they were safe to use.

We added 40 more privies this year, too, so there were plenty available. One of our volunteers lived directly across the street and her apartment was closer than the site privies, so we just went there instead. Her roommate was bemused.