A salesperson (with my employer, Broadcast House) asked me a while back how I felt about covering a renaissance festival. She quickly followed the request up with telling me that I’d be paid for said endeavor. That certainly didn’t hurt her case.

The reality is though, I was not going to be hard to convince. I had never been to a renaissance festival, but it always sounded like primo photo taking, so I wanted to check it out. The renaissance faire in question was the Lincoln Renaissance Festival. So I headed for the Cornhusker Council Outdoor Education Center on the north end of Walton this past weekend.

On this particular day, not only was the weatherman’s timing not off, his forecast was spot on, and blistering hot temperatures awaited festival goers on Saturday. Undeterred, we were all able to take in some pretty good shows. Adam from B107.3, in full ren-fest regalia, even greeted me at the gate!

Black Lips Bonny was the first show I witnessed, and I stuck around the pirate stage for Molotov Stoopid Human Tricks. From there, it was through the various shops and wares to capture more video.

Fun though it was, the heat was pretty extreme, which cancelled jousting for the weekend. Horses get hot too, ya know? That being said, I didn’t stick around all that long on Saturday (see previous article), figuring I’d come out on Sunday to get more.

And that’s exactly what I did. The second day yielded video of sword swallowing, Bawdy Buccaneers, and axe throwing, among other attractions. The two-day festival was a lot of fun, and so I decided to put together a little highlight video.

That dude swallowing the sword at the end? I captured some pretty good video of his routine, which is not for the squeamish (maybe I should have put this disclaimer before the last video). Audio’s not great, but that’s not exactly what I went out there for.

There were other entertaining shows, it’s just that this one worked pretty well for a standalone video. A lot of these folks had great senses of humor too. It also begs the question: at what point after the sword was invented did some person think, “I bet I could stick that thing down my throat”?

I know I’ve said it before, but I’m going to bang that drum again: I am especially lucky to get to do what I do. There are a lot of great people in my world and who I’ve met along the way that enable these experiences. Sure, I may have put forth a bit of effort too, and because of that, I get to bear witness to all of these amazing stories within our great, big world. But you can’t let the heat make you crazy, that AC and couch will be there when you get back. Huzzah!

Oh, I got the music (Mustering the King’s Men) from matthewmikemusic over at Pixabay. Check out his profile!