Beggar's Faire

It's a one weekend a month all out celebration of fun, ingenuity and skill. It's rather like a Ren Faire with shops and stalls, entertainment and curiosity. It's highly magical, but not affiliated with any branch - magi, jolts and druids are equally well represented. It's also highly exclusive - people have to be known by others in attendance, registered and approved, and once they're on the list they recieve a text or email alerting them to the upcoming event about a week before.

You have to be known and registered with the people who organize the Beggar’s Faire in order to get in. Once you’re on their list, they’ll send you a text (or email) the weekend before it’s scheduled which contains the necessary information like the times, duration, and that month’s passcode knock.

Location
As present, the Beggar’s Faire is located in an older part of town, a semi-business district that’s been taken over by an eccentric grouping of businesses (there are several large buildings down the road that have been converted into clubs, a vintage clothing store, custom framing, a bicycle shop, among others).

Description
From the parking lot, the building looks like it used to be a clothing store. The sign is mostly gone, but you can still see the faded outline of the name. All of the windows have been blacked out. The door to the building has been replaced, and it’s surprisingly thick and sturdy. The door is often answered by someone in costume, like a big, burly man in chainmail, or a tall, thin man dressed as a sorcerer (Bruce), who greets people quite grandly and ushers them inside.

On special occasions, and when people are visiting the first time, and at random the door person will hand visitors a gold colored token the size of a silver dollar with a steampunk dragon imprinted on one side and a Celtic tree on the other. The coins are “surprises” and they can either be kept or spent (when presented to most stalls, the stall owner will give the person a surprise item, make them something special, perform something specifically for them, etc.)

Inside, it’s a very large space that’s been divided into sections in a flea market stalls way. The “stalls” are separated by sheets acting as curtains, actual curtains, partitions, paper screens, or whatever random thing can stand in as a separation.

There are familiars and flares everywhere and the place is surprisingly full of druids, but everyone save monks are well represented. A fair number of people are accessorized in interesting ways with steampunk or Victorian or tribal druid things, and some people are outright fully costumed in all of the above.

The area is reasonably well lit overall, but each stall and section has created its own ambiance.

Purchaseables

 * Handmade scares, mittens, gloves and hats
 * Hand woven baskets
 * Paintings on threads drawn across square frames
 * Paper lanterns
 * Jewelry of all kinds
 * Crafts
 * Amusing or clever print shirts
 * Specialty items and clothing, like steampunk, Victorian garments and Ren Faire items

Food and Drink

 * Cookies, cupcakes and baked goods
 * Cotton candy
 * Freshly dipped chocolate fruits
 * "Old Tyme Potion Drinks" - non-alcoholic mixed drinks with some harmless additions that make them smoke, or pop, or change colors, etc.
 * Meat pies
 * Varied traditional ethnic food offerings
 * Soups and stews
 * Meat on a bun
 * Varied skewers

Entertainment

 * Fortunetellers
 * Storytellers
 * Playing instruments, singing, dancing, showing off talents for tips
 * Pumpkin carving (in Autumn)

History
2002: The Beggar's Faire starts as a small collection of craft makers and magic entertainers. The idea started as a celebration of magic and ingenuity.

By 2005, The Beggar's Faire was fully realized as to what it was and what it wanted to be, but it was still very much in its infancy. Small in size, it borrowed space from wherever it could to host it's once monthly event, usually only lasting a day at the beginning.