Welcome to Charlotte! Maybe we’ll have to have another Dopefest to celebrate. The Ren-Faire is held north of town, in Huntersville. All the info is here.
We did the one in Vegas. A big part of the show was the audience participation. You have a champion for your section that you all cheer for. Otherwise, this exactly describes it:
LOL We went to the one up in Mass - in a medieval recreationist group in medieval clothing. I was wearing my 13th century Norman stuff. [a bit less embroidery and in blue]
They got really snippy when I wanted to use the fork from my chatelaine. I told them I wasn’t going to get my clothing greasy and ignored them. The server got fairly grumpy, “they didn’t use utensils back in the middle ages” pffh.
Dude, I got a lot of tables.
As far as I recall, the fork wasn’t commonly used in England and France until the early 1600’s. It was used as far back as the 12th century in what is now Italy. before then, most people used knives to cut and spear, spoons for soups and stews and their hands for most other purposes.
So, it appears that ‘they’ used knives and spoons in the middle ages and if ‘they’ included the Italians then forks were used as well. But most Americans don’t imagine that the middle ages occurred anywhere but in England.
The real reason that they don’t want folks to use utensils is because it makes for easier clean-up. And don’t argue with your waitress. She has a lot of tables to serve.
I wasn’t asking her to clean up my fork, I simply was acting civilized for that persona’s time and place. After all, wasn’t Florence the center of civilization?:dubious:
It’s fun, but a lot of reality will invade your fantasy. The food is decent, if uninspired, but the menu is limited and the beer selection was a choice between Bud, Miller, and (I think) Guinness or Heineken.
The fights and jousting are okay, but as was said upthread, you’ll find better at the Renaissance Faire.
It’s fun to go once, but once is enough. Especially at $50+ a person.
Don’t you mean “serving wench”? 
My son went yesterday. He loves it. I think it is his 5th time now. I’ve been once. The food is fine and it is fun.
Yeah, call her that. It adds to the atmosphere. 
Since it’s been referenced a few times, I’ll post the video. 
Dangit, how was I picturing Stiller delivering that line instead of Broderick? (I mean, yes, it’s a guy being directed by Ben Stiller on how to interact with Janeane Garofalo, but that’s still no excuse.)
In my defense, I’m now re-imagining the entire movie with Stiller – and it’s slightly funnier.
I went once about seven or eight years ago. It was fun enough for what it was (we brought kids) although I can’t say the upgrade was worth it. The package we bought guaranteed seating in the first three rows but the event wasn’t particularly crowded and the view from Row #5 wasn’t going to be much different than the view from Row #2 (picture bleacher type seating). I think we got a few other things out of it (a photo, etc) but we had mainly upgraded for the seating.
How in Hell speed-dating became more popular than combat to the death by Lirpa, I’ll never know…
“Troika…!”
“Is this Vulcan Chivalry? The battle arena air is too hot and thin! He’s not used to it!”
“The air is the air. What can be done?”
“I can compensate for the atmosphere and the temperature… with this Jager-Bomb!”
“You may proceed…”