Book Signing, Markets & Festivals

St. Ives Medieval Faire

I’ve attended this Australian Medieval Faire in St. Ives, New South Wales a few times before, but this was my first time to run my own booth at one. It’s quite a different experience running a booth at one of these than walking around as the general public, which up to this point is how I experienced them. To those in the US and elsewhere, the Medieval Faire is similar to Renaissance festivals we have there. Originally, I had wanted to get a white booth tent for better neutral lighting, but while trying to place my order here in Australia, they were out of white tents, so I went with purple instead. After the event, I’m kind of glad I did, as there were not many who had such a colorful purple tent and standing out in the crowd is a good thing. I was even able to see my tent from an aerial shot for the event’s promotion shown below.

St. Ives Medieval Faire Promo

Setup of the booth the day before the event.

Fantasy Author Jon Ray in medieval garb.

Sitting in my booth, which will look similar but with more books and maybe some maps hanging up in the background for next year’s St. Ives Medieval Faire.

During the event I got to meet many new readers and garnered a few new fans in process. I find the feedback I get from these events very valuable of what customers want and are looking for. I’m also really excited to finally have more than my first Gorp book to sell and plan on having maps made of “Ye Olde Map” of the Gorp fantasy world to sell at future events. In the last photo above, I was sharing my booth with my partner who was selling handmade items and another author on the end to help offset the expensive costs of having a stall at one of these festivals. I also made a short video when I went Live on Facebook.

I do plan to be at the St. Ives Medieval Faire 2019 next year, so if you’re planning on coming out, be sure to look for me in the purple tent!

For more details on tickets about the faire: https://www.stivesmedievalfaire.com.au/

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