Yep, you probably saw this thread coming Tønsberg Medieval Festival of 2015 was awesome. A year ago, I went there and I loved the aura of it all, but couldn't indulge myself that deep into it because, well, I hadn't planned to. But it inspired me to do it the next year. For one year I've spent a lot of time buying materials and items for the costume, be it over internet or by having to drive really far. All in all, it cost me about 9000 Nok (1000 euro/1150 USD) to make my costume, and also a lot of time for the small parts that me and my friend made ourselves from scratch with fabrics, tools and metal-parts. And in the end, it turned out awesome. When you walk into the place, you're just met by this really really realistic and welcoming medieval-feeling, and your soul just lights up and gets ready for the time of your life. (At least, that's how it felt for me). The smell of medievalistic sweets, food and drink everywhere, the constant sound of medievalistic music, and always someone dancing around and enjoying their time. Almost everyone wore some sort of medievalistic clothing, be it simple garment with a leather belt and a fox tail, or full heavy clanking steel plate armor over a thick layer of chainmail and/or gambesons. The area is perfect too because it's the oldest City in Norway, and it's on top of the mountain there which is surrounded by ruins of an old castle, with a remaining tower on the top, and a perfect gravel-road-area for the markets. I'm a generally shy person and I was alone all Friday so I thought it was gonna get boring, but the longest moment I was alone and bored was max 15 minutes, and I used that time to gather myself a bit and get some fresh air and silence on the absolute top of the mountain. All the other time, there were always someone greeting you and wishing to spend time with you, and there was always some sort of entertainment here and there, so there was never a dull moment. I got a lot of attention and praise for my costume, and at least twenty people asked to take a picture of me or with me. Amazing juggling, jokers, different medieval bands that were really impressive, and in the midst of all this: One giant tent with a stage, a lot of benches and tables, and a bar with lots of different beers and mead etc. Saturday evening/night in the big tent was great; it was completely full, but if you managed to find an available seat, the whole table of people would immediately talk with you and get familiar with you, then they'd invite you up in front of the stage to dance and drink some mead (I had my 0.5L mead-horn of course). One of the bands, primarily, was a heavy metal band with a medieval twist to their songs Obscurus Orbis was the band's name. I believe they're Polish, maybe Bamul is familiar with them? There were a lot of poles there this year, and I think it was because of that band. A group of Polish Live Action RolePlayers had brought many similar bows and arrows with rubber-balls on the tip, and they invited me and my friend on Saturday. We divided into two teams of four and jumped around behind rocks and trees, trying to shoot each other, it was really awesome One thing that really made a, well, "personal impact" on me, was the International Medieval Combat Confederation. It's the first time they're on this festival (The festival is nine years old now), and my mind was just blown. They had this squared large arena where they'd fight 1vs1 or 2vs2, either with two-handed swords, huge two-handed axes, or short swords and shields. This wasn't staged fencing, on the contrary; they were all suited up in full steel plate armors with gambesons and chainmail, from top to toe, and they just slammed wildly at each other with all the strength they had, and it actually looked pretty painful despite the heavy armor and the blunt weapons. This was hardcore straight-to-the-point medieval combat, live-action. Also, on Tønsberg's Internet-newspaper, the leader of the combat group was interviewed, and I'm in the background with my friend who's wearing Roman clothing (I also ended up in the physical Newspaper with one of my selfie-fans) Spoiler http://www.tb.no/kultur/kamp-pa-slottsfjellet/s/5-76-81390 Sadly I only got a short ten-second video of one of the really good bands, but it's still worth giving a listen http://vid1183.photobucket.com/albu.../Snapchat-6820139339169775563_zpsghhua4tr.mp4 I also bought a Spetsnaz-like Machete Spoiler And finally, my whole costume: (I later added a really nice expensive leather pouch and a really nice expensive leather/wax bottle to my belt. (Oh, and, see the Skyrim facepaint? )) Spoiler The cape is hanging wrong because it wasn't attached properly in the pics, I didn't fix that until Friday evening. The shoulders aren't that well visible either, 'cause they keep sliding backwards and under the cape One thing that surprised me was when I was in line to buy some food, and one of the MedievalCombat-warriors came over to me and started talking to me. He was balled with a flaming-red face and a looong viking-beard braided into two thin strings. He told me he liked my outfit and started talking seriously about me joining them someday. He told me that it's actually a rather large international thing that recently arrived in Norway, and they're in need of people who're interested in joining. He saw how scrawny and small I was compared to him and the others as they're all 35+, but I think he saw the potential in me. I am very very interested but sadly there are two things stopping me: Time, and money. I'd have to get my own armor, and god knows how many thousands that would cost. I'd also have to go to a city that's 2-4 hours from where I live, twice a month. It'd take a lot of my time and cost me a bit of money for the trips there itself. I'm also pretty sure there's a membership fee too. Maybe in another life, who knows?
Awesome Love this band too, thanks! We have plenty of historical reenactment events here and I'd love to visit one sometime, but I feel out of place there. Eh I've been to a Stalker game once though about... seven years ago or so. Was rather uncomfortable for me to be with a bunch of people I don't know and sitting in the swamp with a machine gun for a week. Spoiler
That looks incredibly fun and, as expected, the cape and face paint make your costume look even better than it already was. I've seen videos of similar events in Poland, so I think there's stuff like that all over Europe but curiously what I've seen was usually from Northern or Eastern Europe. As for the band, I think I may have heard of them but they are actually Latvian - not Polish, though we do have some similar bands. I'd love to go to such events, and frequently, but it always ends up being too expensive. The Stalker event looks nice too, I think I've seen some photos from that previously. I've also seen some Stalker festivals in Poland (though I have not been to any personally), but to my knowledge there has never been one that large over there. However, we do have a constantly growing fanbase for the Metro 2033 Universe series and even the Survarium novels, so maybe I'll get to attend something larger for those things in the future.
That is amazing, Skaara! Well done!! Again, the outfit is great -I even see it good enough to be used in a movie. Awesome that you got in the newspaper too. They don't just waste precious paper space for anyone....Well, actually sometimes they do. Like when they're really desperate, for a picture or a news article, and they just go ahead by post some rubbish; but fortunately, this wasn't the case . The events and ambiance over there sounded amazing too and I bet the food was delicious :hungry: Were there any people that took the honor of dressing up as the town beggar? Edit: And I love the machete.
*Returns to thread after some weeks* Hahahah, I'm not surprised to hear that from you :lol: (Un)fortunately, most Norwegians there could afford a proper costume, but the jugglers always begged for money after their shows I just found the rest of the pictures that were taken of me. Sadly, I haven't been able to find the pictures that were taken on the actual festival because I don't know the people who took them. But these pics have better quality than the previous ones. Pale, like a real viking Spoiler Remember I said in the Count To 1000 thread once that I'd post a pic of myself in my car with my costume on, posing as TechnoViking / Nord Pimp? I'm currently working on that At the same time, I'll go somewhere (not sure where yet) that might make a fitting medieval-styled background. Shouldn't be a problem, there's plenty of places like that here in Norway. There's actually an old place with a watermill just down the road from where I live, but it's always dark because of tall thick trees, so it wouldn't be that good.
Awww, darn (in a way). That's so Norwegian, though. Haha, nice. I imagine that the Techno Viking -rather than giving a juggler a bit of cash or coinage- would instead be eating a large piece of mutton, in front of one of the jugglers, and decide to drop the half-eaten-meat into their 'hat' when they go around asking for money. And nice pics . Though, I don't remember the pimp techno viking picture discussion derp, I'm looking forward to seeing how they tun out.
Update: The Medieval Festival 2016! I would try to describe it, but I don't need to because I just re-read my first post in this thread and saw that it describes it all so perfectly, if you can be bothered to read it again. Only this time, there were a lot of fine women as well The festival was slightly slower this year; less events on the program, more waiting-time between events. Much less entertainment, less music, less partying, less dancing, less drinking, less people I got to know. The primary band from last year weren't there, neither was the amazing joker/juggler. Despite all this, I hurried to the bar and bought two large beers that I quickly drank before I slammed both my fists in the table and said "I've been looking so forward to this festival for a whole year, and the thing I have most anticipated is dancing!", then I stormed up to the band who were playing on the ground in front of the stage, and started dancing all on my own, in front of everyone in the massive tent. The whole atmosphere and mood was so.. LAME compared to last year, but once I got started with my totally noobish yet pretty darn amazing foot-work, I could just hear everyone's voices growing louder and the applause was just rocking the whole tent. I've got this strange dance where I bend my knees in any angle so my legs go flying very fast in every direction, kind of like you see in traditional step-dancing, just more wildly. That, in combination with my armor flopping around, changed the whole evening, at least for me :lol: Eventually three more people joined me in dancing, so I wasn't dancing all alone in the end. It wasn't much, as it only lasted for the last remaining song of the evening, but it was worth it, and it was enough This year, I brought my two friends and we made a fourth friend who was really awesome. Also this year, a Polish man who works with the Medieval Combat Federation brought training-gear. First he taught us techniques thoroughly, and I realized that actual melee combat is a lot more difficult than I expected it to be. Never the less, I kicked my friends' asses, and that's what I wanted to do :lol: We got dressed up in hard foam-armor, and got small shields strapped to our left arm and a hard long heavy rubber-foam-like sword to bash each other with. It was even more fun than I had thought it'd be The man who'd brought the Medieval Combat Federation to the festival actually stopped by to talk with us this time, and he gave us his contact-card, and said he runs a sport with this kind of equippment every Saturday, and we're welcome to give him a call and join for a very small fee. You know what the best part is? It's at the school that is literally right across the street from my house, and I've never known it ound: Apparently, joining this class and doing some training for some time, is the way that you can work yourself into their sport, and if you find out that you really like it and that you would like to take the next step to join the "real" fight with proper armor and weaponry, they will help you find the best and cheapest way to get proper full-body armor, and will make you a full member. They're very welcoming because the sport is rather small and they need more fighters, especially here in Norway, so they're very glad that I'm considering to join Now, back to the festival: The Medieval Combat Federation had fights this year too. The fights were slightly slower this year, but there was one person who was so extremely skilled, big and strong that he kicked everyone's asses and could overpower two opponents at once. He was from Denmark and had long hair and long beard. I stood and watched from the same spot during all fights every day of the weekend, so before the last match he looked over at me and nodded in recognition, and I nodded back. *err mah gerd, celebrity luv me* :lol: In one fight, he actually dropped his shield intentionally, and managed to grab around the neck of another fighter and held him pinned. He then proceeded to mash the butt of his sword in the opponent's helmet like ten times or so, until he couldn't keep going anymore out of exhaustion, then he proceeded by grabbing the opponent's head/helmet with both hands, pulled it down and knee'd him right in the face/visor :lol: NOW, over to some photos. The cape took a lot of time and work, but to no avail it just turned out skew, too short, and all in all just hid my armor. I wore it on Friday, but decided to not wear it on Saturday and Sunday, and realized I got a lot more attention that way. Spoiler Here's a photo of my friend trying on some real armor, and a photo of me where you can see the armor without the cape, and see how the hair is: Spoiler This year, it was extremely hot outside and not a cloud in the sky, the whole weekend. The sun just boiled anything in its path, it was like a swamp under my thick suit. Whenever I pulled the armor away from my chest to release some steam, it was like a dragon's fire-breath just spurting out :lol: I forgot to wear sunblock, so my face is fire-red like an over-boiled lobster, and I've got white stripes after the face-paint. In addition, I had to cut off the dreadlocks so I've got this short and dyed weird-looking hair. You can imagine I got mocked at work today After a long, hot boiling weekend, we finished with a bath in the cool ocean, and it was just an amazing finish after an amazing weekend. As for next year... I met a guy from my old school, and hung out with him a bit. He's become a boat-builder, and said that he determinedly plans to build his own triangle-shaped large medieval-tent to use for the festival. While I, on the other hand, are planning to go to Norway's capital to attend the medieval festival there next year, which will be wayyyy larger, so I invited him to bring his tent so we can go there together. I'm looking forward to it already P.S: I took a couple videos of the Medieval Combat fights and posted on my Instagram, which you are very welcome to follow and then proceed to watch the videos after I've accepted the request. (Couldn't find a way to download the videos and upload them somewhere else)
Although, as you said, it wasn't as exciting as last year - this still sounds pretty fun, especially training with your friends and watching the actual fights. Your armour suit looks just as awesome as it did back then too, plus the idea with using your old dreadlocks as weird as it may be actually looks fantastic indeed. I'd watch the videos, but unfortunately I do not have an Instagram account.
Thanks, I got even more "fans" this year than last year because of it, and many people recognized me I just discovered that the polish guy in charge of the training, posted a little video of him teaching us the basic moves. Sadly the actual fighting between us wasn't actually filmed, but at least here you can see me in slight movement with some of my armor. I took off the torso/shoulders because it would just be way too difficult to run around in the heat and move in an agile way with that thick warm bulky thing on my upper body https://www.facebook.com/maciej.ryszkiewicz1986/videos/10206268855781882/
UPDATE: Just found yet another video, this time with some fighting. They captured one moment where I blocked the "blue" guy pretty nicely, but he was damn fierce and there was no way to properly defend myself against him haha. I got a real good fight later on with each of my two friends, but it didn't get filmed of course https://www.facebook.com/maciej.ryszkiewicz1986/videos/10206287218920949/
Thanks So, today we had our first training lesson. A lot of warming-up, training some stamina and strength, then doing some "wrestling" with our hands on our back, then finished with some proper sparring. There's this Danish guy that is a real pro at this, looking like a proper viking with the beard and hair, muscular body with tattoos and all. He kicked the s*** out of everyone at the medieval festival. He trained us today and showed us some really awesome techniques, then we finished the day with a huge barbeque feast at the other trainer's place, and the Danish guy was there of course, we got to know him pretty well. And they showed us this video of him in a fight from earlier, and my face just went :shocked: https://www.facebook.com/javisiod/videos/10208128464942866/ One guy is hanging on his neck while the other is literally standing and jumping on his back in full heavy armor, and he stays up and then gets back up! :lol:
