There has been a lot of discourse about Renaissance faires near me, as in the discourse is happening locally and is about local faires (mostly). Since I can rant here and it won't be read by anyone and it won't have my name attached to it, I will.
There is nuance to be had in every topic, and everyone has their own point of view. But faires responding to recent bouts of poor behavior by banning some costume elements is not unheard of or rare. Faires asking people to consider that children will be in attendance and limit behavior to a PG-13 level is also not beyond the pale.
One of the things people have gotten into a twist about is that one of the local faires specifically listed fur suit heads in their list of prohibited masks and listed the reasons that heat made them a concern and they were banning full face masks anyway for security reasons. This turned into fights between anti-furries and pro-furry/anti-mask-ban people. My opinion is that the ban is reasonable based on issues in the past couple years (not limited to furries either, they cited incidents where masked individuals caused security issues or displayed inappropriate behavior and were difficult to identify as a result of the masks, and incidents where fur suiters had to be transported due to heat exhaustion and heat stroke which is incredibly dangerous!). This is a liability issue, not a moral one, and furries aren't specifically targeted by these rules.
The behavior issue is not a new one at all. And while I agree that some of the handwringing about "inappropriate behavior" is just a resurgence of puritanical ideals toward public behavior due to our current socioeconomic hell. There are good reasons for faires to put limits on how faire goers should act, and some of it is (again) about liability! Kids have been going to faires since their inception, and they have not always been as PG as they are today, but dudes shouldn't be accidentally (or purposefully) showing their balls because they wear their kilt regimental and that is a conversation that has happened in my presence at a faire! Faire goers should not be getting handsy with performers or each other, especially without consent, I have been a victim of such behavior at faires and it is humiliating. The people saying that this is purity culture gone too far and that faires aren't family events have genuinely missed a lot of what makes faires amazing. It is a step into a fantasy world like kids read about or have read about to them, most of the folks who say that also were kids at faires when they first attended and it is Lost on them that if you don't allow kids the tradition dies! Wanting faires to be an inviting space is the right way to go, and that means that some of the behavior does need to be kept in check.
But there are always the costume debates too, "What is thematically appropriate" or "Where is the line on revealing costumes" are the big ones. And I have to say that I am not best equipped to talk about these. But the people that insist that if you go in costume that it should be "thematically appropriate" are called rivet counters in model railroading and everyone hates them. You could go in Star Trek uniforms or other cosplay and be just fine.
And then there is the trinket trading thing, which is it's own bag of wyrms. It just isn't a part of the tradition at my local faires, and those faires are not real happy with the idea of it because they have strict vendor standards and they can't maintain those standards for the faire goers that want to do that. But it is part of the tradition for faires elsewhere so it seems like a more regional nuance, if that makes sense, so I just think that you should abide by the rules of the faire you are attending on this one.
Also; the behavior of the general public at events has gotten so bad in the last few years and I can't believe some of the ways it has manifested. People need to fucking chill.
