About the

Melbourne Medieval Fayre and Tourney MMFAT® 2008

What an Great weekend. With the City of Casey's support the event had many activities for the public to enjoy. We also received the usually high support and assistance from the Staff of the Old Cheese Factory. The Traffic guys did a great job as they usually do.

We had more Living History groups this year as the event grows and expands. 17 Living History groups in all, and with The King's Horses Medieval Equestrian Society Inc. a mounted Medieval Equestrian and Jousting group in Victoria. On top of that, Jenny and Gary Baker went through the stress of actually managing to gather all the Viking Re-enactment groups together to form a full blown Viking Village, which included Sandy's Fröjel Museum.

On top of this, for the first time, Cherelyn put together a Living History Fashion Parade, which covered the clothing from the Ancients all the way through to the American Civil war period. The Crowd loved it. It gave people an up close look at how much Clothing changed from both generally and from a Cultural perspective. Effectively it was 3000 years of Clothing and Culture in around 30 minutes. Heaps of educational information came out of it for the public.

On the Saturday, we had a group of Homeschooled Children that had participated in the Historical Art Exhibition. They display was showed off at the end of the Living History Fashion Parade with them demonstrating their efforts in researching and making head dresses from the Medieval to the Renaissance periods of Eurpoean History. They got up in front of the large crowd and strutted their stuff, then went into the Chapel to show off the Medieval Dances they had researched and learnt. Over all a job well done and we know that they learnt something different from the experience and we hope to see them back in 2009.

At the 2008 event the groups once again had liberty to organise and run their own displays on the field and tournament grounds. This freedom produced some absolutely spectacular displays by all the living history groups and even filled the program so much again, that there was always something going on, wether it be Living History battles, the Belly Dancers showing us what its all about, there was something for everybody at any time of day over the whole weekend.

For Stalls, we had some different interstate traders this year. 1 from Queensland and a couple from Adelaide.

Once again, the event attracted Interstate and International visitors this year, with people from Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and NSW, and some all the way from China.

The weather was good, considering it was supposed to have rained. Once again I came away with sunburn. A few minor issues arose over the event, but considering the event has been problem free pretty much every year, thats really good.

The 7th Annual Fayre is currently scheduled for 14th - 15th November 2009, and is already shaping up to be even more different than the 2008 event so stay tuned for it.

We would like to take this further opportunity to deeply thank all the Living History groups that attended the event, without whose support would leave Victoria with no event of its kind at all. We would also like to thank the stall holders and Craft Guilds that attended the event and have attended the event over the previous years. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank the City of Casey and the staff that have assisted us over the year preparing for the event and the Old Cheese Factory and their staff and volunteers for their assistance both before the event and over the weekend. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Jenny and Gary for organising the Viking Village, Sandy for joining us and bringing along his Museum pieces to show the public, and Cherylin for deciding to run the Living History Fashion Parade.