Written by: admin Monday, November 21st, 2011 .
Just recently, we discussed the old English charm of California’s Renaissance Faire and Dickens Christmas Faire. Renaissance Faires are completely unique in the world of entertainment design because every aspect of the event focuses on complete immersion of the audience rather than putting the audience in a comfy seat and putting on a show. In a way, the audience becomes the main attraction, because every visitor to the Faire is a spectacle for every other visitor.
American Renaissance Faires are quaint and charming, but let’s kick it up a notch and do a medieval reenactment in such an over-the-top scale that only das Germans could have come up with it. Think about the complete character immersion and the atmosphere in a Renaissance Faire. Now, imagine that everybody there is acting out a medieval war rather than a cheerful Christmas celebration.
That’s DrachenFest (“Dragonfest” in English), a renaissance faire that hosts a medieval battle on an epic scale, typically containing as many as 3,000 to 5,000 participants. Don’t think of this as a bunch of German Lord of the Rings fans going into the woods and hitting each other with fake swords. They pump this up to a level that would make King Arthur feel right at home.
Participants sleep in traditional tents, wear incredibly elaborate costumes, eat whole roast pigs, and drink barrels of mead. The people running Drachenfest encourage participants to bring any time-period-appropriate gear imaginable, such as horses, full plate armor, bows, and traditional garb. Hold onto your seat: the Drachenfest rules even contain guidelines for checking in siege weapons, as in catapults and trebuchets.
Of course, all of this pales in comparison to the main event, when participants clash on the battlefield and literally storm wooden fortresses. The battle is not scripted, so there could be a different outcome every year, with intrigue, assassinations, rogue factions, military coups, and anything else imaginable. This event represents the ultimate in entertainment immersion, because participation is mandatory. Even if you don’t want to fight, well then you had better start running, because somebody is going to want to kill you with a fake sword. You’ve got to hand it to the Germans. Ever since inventing Oktoberfest, they’re still trying to outdo themselves.
