The Dickens Fair welcomes the wafting smells of cinnamon and spice to the air of Cow Palace from Nov. 23 to Dec. 22, showcasing the works of Charles Dickens in an immersive Renaissance Fair.
People from all different backgrounds gathered to kick off the holiday season with a celebration of the works of Charles Dickens, such as “A Christmas Carol.” The fair, aiming to “transport you to the London of Charles Dickens,” according to the official website, included performances, shopping, dining, and crafts that paid homage to Dickens’ influence on Christmas traditions.
According to the Dickens Fair website, the roots of the fair lay in the 1960s when Ron and Phyllis Patterson created the concept of Renaissance Fairs. In 1968, the Pattersons held a holiday party at their home in Hollywood Hills, taking inspiration from Dickens’s novels and other late 19th-century history. After expanding to Northern California, the first Dickens fair opened for three weekends in December of 1970 in San Francisco. Guests enjoyed the variety of costuming, food, decorations, and games, prompting the event to become a tradition.
The fair is split into three main halls, with performance areas and food, clothing, and accessory vendors adorned with Christmas decorations.
Vendors were passionate about transporting guests back to Dickens’s time period. Bob McGehe, one of two owners of a bag shop called Time Traveler, aimed to bring the atmosphere of the time period to life in his shop.
“Part of the thing for the Dickens Fair is that you’re supposed to reenact that it is 1800s-era London on Christmas Eve, always. So I will throw on an accent; I do really try hard,” McGehe said.
Vendors and attendees alike appreciated the inviting and immersive experience the fair offered.
“It’s a very enclosed and immersive experience,” said Mickey Tammy, an attendee who used to run a toy shop at the fair.
The event has a variety of experiences that guests can choose from, all of which help add to the ambience of the fair.
“It’s very welcoming, very warm,” said Tabitha Paigen, a senior in high school who has been attending and helping her parents, who are vendors, for around 15 years. “There’s just so much to do, and you really can’t do everything in a single day.”
For some, the fair provides an escape from reality and a chance to pretend to be someone else for a while. McGehe appreciated the ability to dress up and act as another person.
“It’s kind of fun, in a weird way, to enact a so-called character while you’re here, to put on an accent, which is usually horrible, but to be immersive, because the people that come here want to be part of something I do,” McGehe said.
Echoing McGehe, Michele Edler, a fair-lover and the other owner of Time Traveler, also appreciated this aspect of the Dickens fair and other Renaissance Fairs she has attended.
“I didn’t have to be me,” Edler said. “I could be anybody and have a blast. And I love the fact that I could dress up and look amazing. I felt beautiful, and I was beautiful, and it was just fun.”
The costumes, food, accents, crafts, and performances all culminated to form an experience that made guests feel like they were truly in London.
“You walk in, and you’re in downtown London on Christmas Eve, and at any moment, you can have the Fagan boys running through with a bobby chasing them, or you’ve got the chimney sweeps escorting Father Christmas. It’s just so cool,” Edler said.
