On the Road: Wicked Faire 2008, Edison NJ

On the Road

Wicked Awesome: Wicked Faire 2008, Edison NJ

We first met Jeff Mach last summer at Pi-Con in Springfield MA. He came over to our table, chatted a bit, and bought a couple of our comics. Later in the convention, Jeff returned with information about a couple of shows that he was putting on in the New Jersey area and invited us to be part of the artists' area for his events.

Jeff's events, Wicked Labyrinth and Wicked Faire, are not the typical convention. These events are indoor renaissance faires: part LARP, part goth club, and part convention. Wicked Faire is an adults-only event (actually, 16+ for the Faire in general, with a designated room restricted to adults only for vendors of hentai and other adult products). We originally accepted Jeff's invitation to attend Wicked Labyrinth at the beginning of October, but my Mom went into the hospital a couple of days before the event and we had to cancel.

We gave it another try when February rolled around, this time for the larger Wicked Faire event. In spite of an ongoing dispute following a management change at the hotel, Jeff's crew put on a spectacular event.

There was continuous live entertainment on several stages, a huge number of vendors, and a very impressive array of costuming on display both by attendees and vendors.

The show's schedule did present us with some logistical difficulties. Wicked Faire starts Friday evening, and it runs late into the night and then all day (and into the night again) on Saturday. There is no programming on Sunday. This is definitely an event for a night-owl crowd. With my work schedule, I couldn't leave until late afternoon on Friday.

Gynn ended up driving down on Friday afternoon. After some adventures involving her GPS (which couldn't seem to figure out New Jersey! I wonder why?), she arrived and got set up. The space we had was a bit cozy, but we made do.

Meanwhile, I was taking buses. Three of them. A coworker dropped me off at the Barnstable Rest Area on the Mid-Cape Highway, and I caught the bus to Boston. From there I only had to wait about 15 minutes to get a Greyhound bus to New York City.

I caught up on some reading on the bus ride, and they showed a movie (Bridge to Terabithia, which was better than I expected although it still didn't live up to the book; complete review here).

I got to Port Authority and made my way to the ticket window to buy a bus ticket to get to Caldwell NJ where I was staying. After paying for my ticket, I asked when the next bus was leaving. The attendant smiled and told me "In two minutes." Ack! Frantic Port Authority Dash! Made the bus and had a nice relaxing walk from the bus stop in Caldwell.

I arrived at my aunt & uncle's place about 30 seconds before Gynn pulled into the driveway, rather exhausted from her evening at the Faire and another GPS adventure on the way home. The machine sent her over the Outerbridge Crossing, then the Goethals, then through (scenic!) downtown Newark. Really, this GPS system has worked great right until the moment we brought it to New Jersey. Coincidence?

We ended up sleeping in on Saturday, then going for a walk, and then getting lunch, so we didn't arrive at the Faire until mid-late afternoon.

We still had a great time chatting with our fellow vendors and with various convention attendees who came by our table. There were some incredible costumes on display and everyone seemed to be having a great time.

Here is Gynn, manning our table, along with another shot of our comics.

We didn't sell all that many books, but we sold some and we did some very good marketing and networking.

Sharing our vendor area was Disa Bayless of Dream Muse Designs. She makes handcrafted glass beads, which she incorporates into leather and jewelry.

Here's Disa with some of her wares:

There was plenty of live entertainment. Here is Folk It All performing. They do a pretty cool mix of traditional folk, bluegrass, and reworkings of pop songs. Fun stuff.

Here is a shot of a medieval combat demonstration that drew quite a large crowd.

The whole con was decorated in festive Renaissance/pirate/ninja/Lovecraftian/just-plain-weird style.

Lots of great costumes to be seen as well. Here are Laura and Mike, a couple of friends we met last summer at Pi-Con.

Here are Benny and Jen at Oxelot's booth.

 Oxelot makes Cyberlox Hair Falls, as well as these gorgeous wings:

Jen is also an artist. You can view her gallery at Intangible Reality.

We chatted with lots of people who came and visited our table, including a couple of other webcomic creators. Tony DiGerolamo, writer of Super Frat, had a table in our room. We also got to meet Rob Balder, who writes Erfworld, published by Giant in the Playground.

There were plenty of parties going on into the early hours of Sunday morning, but we had a long drive back to Cape Cod, and ended up leaving around 7 Saturday evening. We had a great time at what was truly as one-of-a-kind event.