History, Fantasy, Fun at the 34th Annual Florida Renaissance Festival

0:04 Hey, you love them too, censure. I'm w for see y for you, Young Rodway.

1:18 This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four cy Radio. And I'm very excited about our next guest because he's part of one of my favorite things to do in life, and he is the artistic director of the Florida Raissance Festival, which I've been going every year since I've moved to Florida. But I've been going to a Renfest every year since nineteen eighty. So let's welcome to the show. Chris Leidenfrost. How are you hello, pipe Man? How are you sir? I'm doing great thirty fourth annual Florida Raissance Festival. That's like unbelievable that it's been going on that long. It is amazing. It is one of the longest running shows in the country.

2:00 There's a couple letter ahead of us, but our producer, Bobby Rodriguez, he's been putting the show together now going to our thirty fourth year. It's pretty amazing. That is pretty cool. So tell us you're in your costume shop there. Tell us a little bit about the behind the scenes of the Florida Rosans Festival. Well, you know, it's interesting we have we're pretty much even though we're only open for weekends in February and March, we are a year round production company. You know, as soon as we start to take the festival down, our admin, our creative team, our production team, we're back in the office talking about the next season. So right now we're in our mobile trailer. I've got my amazing wardrobe assistant, Zellie behind us in the shot. Actually she's busy working on costumes. We have a cast of around seventy people and that's just our cast.

2:54 That doesn't include all our independent acts. So you know, we have a homegrown cast here that we've been growing now for the last couple you know. Well, we have people who been here since the beginning for all thirty fourth these seasons. Shout out to Marie and McIntyre who's been our cheesemonger now and other characters for thirty four years. But also a new, larger cast. We have some incredibly young performers who are making their Renaissance Festival debut this year. But all of the wardrobe that goes on them is on the recks behind me right now. Nice, I dig it, and you know, I am the type of person that when I go to the Resance Festival, like some people, they take their time, they leave early, I think. And I was just telling somebody this weekend, the best times are when right before it opens and opening the gates and at the end. So how could you miss those two things? Go there for the whole day.

3:58 Yeah, I mean you're people. You know. The ticket price gets you in from when we open our gates at ten two when we close our gates at sunset, and I mean there's ongoing entertainment all day. Our vendors. We have over one hundred artisans and vendors selling all sorts of everything from gourmet cheeses to beautiful garments and everything in between. Swords and jewelry and pirate flags and pirate hats and you know, just about anything you could hope to find at a festival, we've got here. And again it's ongoing all day. So you know, if you get here early, you can pack in as much shopping and entertainment as you can.

4:42 And I definitely think people should get like season passes because I have never been able to do everything what I'm supposed to want to do in one day ever, And I've been doing it for years. There's so much to see and do. Well and exactly and it's also not only is there more entertainments. Even one of the lines when you arrive at our opening gate, the mayor goes, there's more entertainment than one could see in a full day at the festival. And it's true. Absolutely, We've got thirteen stages that run all day long, everything from small intimate stages to big stages with you know, five drummer typo drummers performing at the same time. So I but obviously yes, people do come once and then they're like, oh, I want to upgrade to a season pass, which is very easy to do at our box office.

5:38 And again I can't do the math, but you know, if you buy a season pass, it's good for all sixteen days of our show. And it has some extra perks too, like you get a special express lane at all of our pubs, so like this couple extra perks besides getting the great deal on the daily ticket as well for our season pass holders. So what got you involved? When you first got involved? So I've been doing Renaissance festivals since two thousand and four, So this is my twenty second year working for Renaissance festivals in general. But I started my journey with the Florida Renaissance Festival in twenty seventeen. I came here as an independent performer with two shows that I was producing, which were The Crimson Pirates, which is our musical band that I'm a member of, as well as The Greatest Pirate Story I Never Told, which is an improvised pirate musical that we're not doing anymore.

6:35 We moved on from. That show into some new stuff, but I started doing the show in twenty seventeen. I was performing here for a few years. Then one of my mentors who was pretty much one of the reasons I'm so involved doing festivals, Scott McNeal. We were very good friends and colleagues at the New York Renaissance Festival, where's where I started, and he was our former artistic director. He actually retired last year, so this is my first year stepping into this role full time as artistic director. And when he retired, I took over. But he basically four.

7:15 Years ago asked me if I'd like to be involved in the art department here, And you know, besides the Renaissance festival background, that I have. I've also been a set designer and a theater producer as well, so all of those things kind of overlap. And because we build our show from the ground up, some of the festivals that are as big and has been around as long as we have are on permanent sites. New York, Crystal, Maryland. They have their their acreage that they. Build beautiful, huge buildings on and you know, they're there all year round, even though again they're only open for two months about they don't have to build it and tear down every time. They have to, you know, put up the flags and the banners and everything. But we come into buy at Orders Park and it's a beautiful Christine, South Florida County park with beautiful lakes and trees and just a beautiful space that we're so fortunate.

8:09 To be able to partner with them and County the park system here. But everything you see from our stages to our boots that our vendors bring in, every wall that goes up to hide the backstage, every banner, every flag, that all gets brought in and set up in about three and a half weeks and then it all gets torn down in two weeks at the end. And we're done. And people don't realize, as somebody that's been doing events since eleven years old, how much work that entails to put that together. And that's somebody that goes to that park when there's not a resance festival, like when you guys are there, I don't even recognize the park, to be honest. It's such a transformation, it really is.

8:54 And you know, I say, we transform our park into a you know, a thriving sixteenth century village. It's kind of the mantra. And it's all I tell everyone. Because I kind of head up our again our artistic department with our site crew, and I also head up our entertainment division, so my umbrella encompasses all of that. So I sort of bring the esthetic of the festival and the producer's vision and our creative team's vision. I'm kind of the one overseeing and implementing it all and trying to execute it the best that I can. But the reason I'm saying that is because I tell everyone involved, from you know, our cast, to our site crew to you know, I also get involved a little bit with our bar staff and our vendor staff and our game staff to kind of just get them a little bit of a primer, like, remember, you're not you when you when.

9:49 You walk through our gates. When the gates open, you know, you're in a character who is welcoming our guests into our village. So I always tell people it's like everything collective that we're doing is one giant magic trick, one illusion that we have transformed this part park into this village of Kimmandale. And you know, and if any one of those parts of the illusion fails, you know, the crack and the armor, you know, but we've got an incredible team. We've can blessed with a really incredible team across the board, so that magic trick is is alive and thriving and well. Nice, and it certainly is.

10:32 And now you guys have themed weekends every weekend, which is so cool to me, you know. And I was there on Cupid's Weekend and I'm like, I'm thinking, well, I don't think I've ever been on Cupid's Weekend, so I'm going to try. That this year. And I love how people like it. Amazes me more than any other type of event out there. How people get so in character for the different weekend and I'm not talking about the people working there, I'm talking about the people attending.

11:12 Yeah. Absolutely, So you know we've you know, we wouldn't have been around for thirty four years if we didn't have wonderful recurring patrons and guests who've been coming since the beginning. You know, we had a Our industry in. General, was very fortunate, fortunate that after COVID, you know, that year that. Everything started coming back. People are looking for things to do, but hope things more outdoors because. You know, you didn't want that cross contamination. Kind of think it was such an unknown time and God were moved past it. But I think that was. A way that brought in a lot of folks who said, you know what, we've never been to the Renaissance Festival before. Let's let's check it out. And you know, people check it out and they get books because it's.

11:56 A great time. Absolutely and sad. So how do you determine the themes for the different weekends, you know, because I'm sure you have a bunch to choose from and you got to decide what's going to be best this year. So we have some stock themes that we always try to work in, like we always have a Pirate's weekend. We always have a Viking weekend, a time travelers weekend, or a kind of steampunk weekend. We kind of cross those two. We've been really building, especially since I've come in now under this new purview of artistic director. We've been building up because over the last few years we've really invested our owners, really invested in the overall aesthetic of the festival.

12:45 So we're really now trying to have we have a big, beautiful Viking themed area and a big beautiful Pirate themed area. We have sort of, you know. During the Renaissance, it's more European centered in the history, so we have a whole area where we have an amazing encampment that represents the Ottoman Empire and sort of everything that would have been each to Europe, kind of the European amalgam of everything that Marco Polo would have brought back with him. So we have an area kind of themed around that. So we have these themed areas that we used to build the weekends into as well. But then we've also then built the lore of our kingdom of so we have our village of Kimmindale, and even though we exist within the timeline of the true Renaissance, because we have our steampunk people, because we have vikings and pirates and so many things that overlap different eras of history. We've definitely gone, and we're still the Renaissance Festival.

13:44 But we've gone. We've incorporated and folded in a lot more fantasy and fixed historical fictional elements, and we put together this continent of Calandria that the festival takes place within, and all of those kingdoms, all of those areas now exists together within that new reality that exists along side of real European Renaissance history. I'll tell you something else too. You added something this year that Now I'm not a drinker, but I noticed immediately. I'm like, oh wow, they have that this year. And that's the meat important from England.

14:27 That's pretty amazing. Yes, so we have a new meat partner, did Hugger Meat. We're very excited to have them. And again, just you think we have real English mead in our festival. It's very exciting. And not only can you get that, I think in all of our pubs. I think maybe just the smaller pub at the front, but maybe even they do. They're going to be mad at me for not doing that. But all of our pubs serve the original meat, and then some are larger pubs. There's also a sour cherry mead as well, and there might even be another flavor. That is as right now. But not only can you get it at our pub, but if you really enjoy it at the front of the festival before you leave, you've actually stopped.

15:07 In with our beat vendors and take a bottle home with you. Wow. Oh cool? Yes, so oh Hello, it's our production stage manager, Paul Horner. Hello, Production stage management. Nope, nope, nope, We're all good. We're on the See. As I said, the festival is alive and working all the time. I love that we're at. Twenty four or not twenty four hour, but we're definitely a seven day week operation. Well, and I love that you mentioned that even earlier because again, like people just have no clue of what goes beyond to make this magic happen, and that to me is the biggest ordeal.

15:55 Again, we have a I couldn't tell you how many, but we have an incredible site crew team. So up about Paul, how many people are on sche crew? Five thirty five? So you have a team of thirty five construction and sanitition and carpentry and just all the elements that we need to build, which is one of what we pull off. Here at the Florida Reizance Festival. I think it's unique in the country because we come into a blank canvas a park. It has nothing here, and we bring in tractor trey aload attract to tread equipment that we set up and once it's up, you can't tell it's not a permanent site. So we are very excited with what people off.

16:36 Here each year, and then it goes all away and there's nothing left on this ground when we leave. Yeah. I was even saying Tom earlier as somebody that goes to the park when there's not a Renaissance festival and goes every year when there is. It's like the transformation is so magical, because like I have no idea on that Quiet Waters Park when I'm in there. We try, we want to make sure that when we leave here, other than some patterns in the grass, right, there's no really left that you can tell we were here. There you go, I'm glad that all right evolved. Okay, But again, Paul is kind of the way I bridge the entertainment with the cyclo in our department. Paul also is our stage management stage manager who bridges the psy crew with the entertainment part of it as well.

17:28 And what else do we have new in twenty twenty six, because you've instituted a lot of new things this year. Yeah, so again over the past couple of years, so we've for this year we have some really exciting new entertainment acts. We have some old favorites for turning in with us in a while. We have two out of three the members of Cantiga, which is an amazing true early music renaissance band. Martha Gay and Tom Wedville on the fiddle and they play beautiful medieval and renaissance music. They're back at our early music stage to fight from the fiddle. We have some returning favorites like wrote the Temporess, who comes all the way from Italy to do our show every year. It's a medieval bagpipe and drum band Sam Coma, which is a tycho and kind of Viking fusion band, which is also super exciting. Again, we have our cast and it's the largest cast we've had potentially ever, but definitely.

18:33 Last ten to fifteen years, and again we have about seventy people, and that's. Not including our dance troupe or our our independent acts. So we have a whole village full. Of characters ready to meet a great and welcome you to Kiven now. As well as let me just trying to think off the top of head. We have the Crimson Pirates, which is my band, so I'm also a performer here at the festival. We do a bunch of Celtic standards and maritime standards with kind of a folk rock twist. There's Pirates Creed who is also They call their music style seagrass, so it's sort of like a maritime and bluegrass millange. Oh my god, there's just so much and there's also part of the reason, I guess we've talked about the season passes a little while ago, but not only is there so much entertainment than you could see on any given day, we also have rotating acts as well, so we have new x coming in on a kind of rotating basis, so you'll never see the same stage lineup on any given day really, or at least any given couple. You know, you come in on weekend there's going to be new acts by the time you come back on weekend three.

19:52 So that's really exciting as well. That's why it's so important to get season pass and go every weekend. You know, it's it's really you know, it's a great bang for your bucket, especially like you look at you know, we're in Florida here, you have you have access to so many high end, wonderful parks in Orlando a few hours away. But you know, for people in Broward County in the greater Miami area, this is in your backyard. Yeah. And you know, you a season pass that gets you sixteen days of entertainment is about the price of the one data in one of the parks in Orlando. So you get a lot of entertainment for that ticket price, for sure. Absolutely.

20:32 And then you even have a special going on for weekend five where you're doing a special offer. Yes. So again I mentioned we have over one hundred vendors and artisans, so we have our marketplace weekend. So we've partnered now with our vendors so to encourage people to come in and you know, buy that beautiful Renaissance dress, maybe go and buy some jewelry, stock up you know, your early Christmas shopping, holiday shopping done here. Because there's so many unique things. I bought earrings for my mom the other day, so I was like, oh my god, she's gonna love these. So I went and you know, you never know what you're gonna find kind of here from that end. But yes, if you spend and I forget the breakdown, forgive me.

21:19 I have it? Do oh do ared? I appreciate that? How about that? So yeah, the guests who spend two hundred and fifty or more on any Artesian vendor booth purchases only will receive one or more complimentary tickets to come back for the twenty twenty sixth show. The total amount can be divided up between multiple Artesian purchases, does not have to be one single transaction. For every additional two hundred and fifty dollars spent, you can earn another complimentary ticket for up to a maximum of four tickets of one thousand dollars total. So you know, everybody needs to go to the website. Go to Renfest dot com.

22:05 That's ren Hyphenfest dot com, slash events or just click on the events tab and then what's new and you can take care of that special weekend and haggle with you there exactly. Yeah, and I mean again, like I said, if you want to get your holiday shopping done early and then you get some you know, some tickets to come back and join us again, it's a great promotion that helps the show, helps our guests, and also helps our vendors to you know, sell some of their beautiful stuff. My favorite thing to buy at the Renfest I look forward to every year is the weapons. Because I'm a person I don't own a gun. I don't want a gun, but I do like cool weapons that are unique, you know, and like so I love going to different vendors that have all the different weapons and you know, listen, a renaissance gone I'm good with, but like and swords and.

23:06 All the different knives. I have this thing. It goes on my finger and it's a blade on it. That thing. I didn't realize how dangerous that that I could do some serious damage. I've I've made myself bleed with it. Don't have when you well, yeah, yeah, you can't be doing that. And then I like the damn, I'm drawing a blank right now. That where you have to stick with the ball with the spikes on it. Oh fail, or a mace yeah, has the chain and the mace is just on the stick. Yeah, I like. I like both of them. Actually, you know, I like those unique weapons that could do serious damage that I probably wouldn't damage anybody.

23:49 With damage yourself. That's the most. Important exactly, But you know, sometimes it might be worth it. I don't know. I'm just kidding. But and I'll tell you what too. I don't know what your favorite act of the Renfest is, and you it would be hard to play favorites. But those washing Well wenches, oh my god, oh man. I mean, they are an institution for a reason, and you'll find them at almost every festival in the country. We're very fortunate to have an amazing duo of cousins. They're all cousins for some reason. I know they're all cousins. I think they're all from West Virginia, originally.

24:31 West Virginia via Sussex, England. Yes, yeah, they immigrated from Sussex, England to there. It's very possible. It's very possible. You know, one of those shows. It's again one of the things that I fell in love with the festival back when I again twenty two years ago. There truly is something for everyone here because we have everything from the washingbell wenches, real beautiful broad committi South comedy and you know a little innuendo but you know enough that it'll go over your kids heads if you go see them. Two we have the jousting on horseback to amazing music acts. Again we have everything from you know, singing pirates to true Renaissance music.

25:19 We have a few. We have Cantiga coming in next week, but this week we have the final weekend of the hardware and the minstrel who play so many different period instruments from the Renaissance era as well as a merry noise. There're a Renaissance woodwind, you know, and they have everything from the little tiny recorders to the big contra bassoons of the era. And it's just it's just there's so much to see and do here. I love the brass. What's it called the. Bras ivanhoe brass. Yeah, the big, the big looks like a big ancient machine playing oh the bells and. All that, yes, yes, bells to go cast and runs there with us this season for the full run it is we always we have a line in one of our scenes where the mistresses. We even have the world's largest heaviest instrument, something I do all too much about the Carolina bells. So yes, so that is a full Carolina tuned bells that he plays five times a day, kind of right in the heart of our pharaalel back towards the jobs field.

26:33 And it's true. I always say our show has something from people four to one hundred and four. You know you've got every There's no reason you should come here at any age and not have a full day of entertainment and fun and adventure. Well, I do have a funny story from a couple of week in weekends ago and okay, the show says right outside it was R rated, but I think there was a father that didn't see that brought his kid in and it was the was the guy that does the poetry. Arthur Greenleaf homes. Yes, yes, Andy, oh sorry you well, he's he's He said something like right after he started he said, are you sure you want your kid here?

27:25 And then oh, yeah, it's okay, it's okay, And then he started finishing, going on whenever he was reading and got and left because it was it was really really good, but not for the kid. Yes, but we do have one stage that is dedicated as our R rated tent, the Great Hall Stage, where there is very risky but very clever acts there. So we just had again talking about the rotation of acts. So Arthur Greenleaf Holmes is with us for the for the for the of our show, doing his unique brand of jergy ditty's and poetry, but incredibly clever.

28:10 I mean he's been you know he has. He's been all over the country. He has had several off Broadway runs doing his his work. He's a really amazing professional. He gave that dad the out. That's all I'm gonna say. He said, you know, are you sure you want to be here? He did, like, uh, listen, it's your fault. Listen. If somebody tells you that, they're really telling you. You might want. But you know on that stage. Also, this season we've had Midwife crisis, which is a oh yes, she finished her run with us for this season, but I'm hoping we'll have her back next year. Now we have arriving Chase Treasure, which is three Ladies of the Court who sort of like Arthur Greenley poems.

28:56 Sells us sort of dirty poems, but. I remember them, yes, and then let when I I don't know if you have it this year, but one of my favorites also is Christian Salter. Do you remember him Christian Salter? Oh, yes, yes. So he he's not with us this year, and I don't want to speak at a turn. But he's also a fantasy novelist, so I believe that part of his career has been taking off nice maybe switching gears a little bit, but don't quote me on that he was making that transition before I became the assistant of entertainment here, So I don't know one hundred percent. I don't want to talk out of school, but I believe it's all good things that he's not here.

29:40 It's not like, you know, I get out of here now. And there's a lot of things there that are very similar to all that, which is what I love. It's like it's that humor that really, you know, you can't even define it as dirty humor because it's done so cleverly right. It's uh, the art of in you do, I think is kind of what it really boils down. To, and that you know, it is a sort of there is this sort of British humor slant that I think the. Renaissance Festival apparently gravitates towards that sort of monty Python, absolutely fabulous, faulty Towers general sort of slightly more farcical and clever humor that you know, we're our type of entertainment industry is.

30:29 Going for absolutely So is there anything we haven't covered that you want the listeners to know? My goodness, I mean we talked, we've touched about everything. But again, like in my mind, there's between the the entertainment. You know, if the entertainment starts before our gates even open, our opening gate scene starts to welcome the guests at about. Nine forty eight every day, and the entertainment. Doesn't stop until we're waving goodbye to everyone at the front at that same gate as the sun is setting. You know, we have. Again, we have everything from jousting and stage combat to those clever, you know, more adult theme shows, to music of every sort of genre again, from folk to.

31:23 True Renaissance and Celtic music. We have a new group this year, new Minstrel Review, who has been around forever, but we haven't able to get them down here. We've finally got them down here, and they're an incredible trio doing all original sort of folk and kind of blue grassy music, just incredible stuff. Uh. And from that, and then not only that, but we have the vendors, and we also have the food and the beverage. Like we have seven themed pubs. So the pubs aren't just walking in and like buying a beer. They're all themes to their areas. So we have the Black Wolf Pub, which is our beautiful biking themed pub.

32:06 We have the Crossroads Pub, which is our beautiful pirate environment. It's very environmentally. You walk in, and their sails and netting and everything you walk inside you feel like you're inside up different. Uh. And then there is the Mad Tentacle Society Pub, which is. In our steampunk area. So there's all sorts of steam tanks and pipes and everything putting that bar together and you know, and so everything you kind of are walking into is an aversive environment to make you feel like you're part of this this village and this area. And of course, oh my goodness, our. Owners would never forgive me if I didn't mention our champagne bar. Champagne bar also in the Pirate area with you know, prosecco as well as all sorts of sparkling.

32:54 Wine cocktails which are a lot of fun. And it's even we have character who holds to Champagne, Madame Jacqueline Salse. She would be so happy to greet you and offer you a bless of shemping. Yes, I was there. It's amazing And I'll tell you what My favorite part still to this day is the end of the day where you have both the pub Sing and then out in the middle with the music and the dancing, you know, out in the middle of there at the end, Like I just love that. Like I sit there even this last time I'm watching people leave. I'm like, how it's like leaving for the encore band at a concert, Like what's wrong with you?

33:41 You know, I will say, maybe people are trying to get home, maybe they have kids, But no, I mean again, we go up are we have two our final two shows of the day, the pub Sing, which is sort of our variety act where all of the all of the music acts from across the festival come together at the end of the day and we have and we kind of jam together and feature each other and play with each other. And you know, we send everyone home in song, you know, sing along with us at our final couple songs. And then our big drum bands also hang out at the crossroads and do again kind of a big drum and bagpipe dance party two as well. So again the entertainment goes right up until the last moment, that last candid fires and we close our gates and said.

34:25 Your home, and there it is. And if you haven't gone this year yet, there's still time people. You have till March twenty ninth weekend Saturday and Sundays. You can't miss it. And I can tell you too that there's some really cool weekends coming up here. You know we talked about you know, His Majesty's Marketplace, but there's also you got the Clover, the Rainbow, a gathering of green. You got rives of the cockkeepers tinkering in time. Then you got the fantastical fables, a world beyond the page. And then the last weekend of September of how did I combine February with September, I don't know. The last weekend of February beginning of March, and you have sirens and shipwrecks party till the end of the plank.

35:24 And this weekend is a Vikings vealor we we'll have our vikings coming to take over our village to see this year nice. Well, it's been a pleasure speaking with you. I always love, love, love the Renfest, and everybody in South Florida, they need to go, because if you haven't gone to one, and all you people that moved from other places, this is the premiere event in South Florida. You need to go. Don't miss it this year. Well, thank you. I hope to see all of them there and I hope we get to see you there and as well, hopefully. Put the end of the season. You got it. Thank you all right, thank you.

36:05 Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Patement on w for c u I Radio