Sioux Falls Gets It Right - Again

The last weekend was spent in Sioux Falls for the Siouxland Renaissance Festival. I'm rather fond of this festival for a few reasons. One is that I was involved, albeit in a minor way, from about the start. I responded to a posting about the possibility of a faire in Sioux Falls and in a couple weeks met a couple of the folks who now run the thing. The impressive thing was that they did research. Not just on "what is renaissance" but on what other faires got right and what they got wrong.

At the odd meeting I made it to, the level of organization was almost scary. They made plans and generally stuck to them and had the jobs carved out and sectioned - but not to the point of messing up communications.

This lead to their first faire, last year, being so good that many commented that it was amazing it was only a first year faire. Other faires, with many years behind them, got more wrong. Now, last year was not perfect. There were bugs. But Siouxland took notes and asked what needed to be changed. Not only that, they acted on the results they got. Result: This year was even more impressive than last. There are still a few bugs, but they're all little ones. I expect next year will be better still. People may run out of positive adjectives.

( Details of last weekend at Siouxland )

If you've not been to Siouxland, or not been to small faire, or just need an astoundingly positive weekend, Siouxland plans to do it again in 2004. How good it this festival? I haven't heard anyone say they wished they'd been somewhere else. I have heard folks say they'd skip their closer "home" faire to go to Siouxland if the dates were to conflict. Even with the rain and mud of Sunday afternoon it got praise for that time. That's how good. No, it isn't. It's much better. You'll just have to see it for yourself sometime.