Breakfast Topic: Brewing up better faires and festivals

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I've just spent a day being Scottish. My father's family hails from Scotland, and the summer months will find me out and about at a variety of highland games in the Midwest. Sometimes I'm a spectator, and sometimes I run a tent for my clan. There's a general understanding that the highland games were created to prepare men for doing battle with the English. Each part of what has become the athletic portion of the games can be traced back a need for hurling hurl rocks, logs or flaming bales of vegetation at advancing troops or fortified positions. At the games I just attended, a group gave demonstrations on medieval swordplay.

In World of Warcraft, the Argent Tournament springs immediately to mind. We were informed this was a training ground to prepare us for an assault on the LIch King and his forces. The Darkmoon Faire and Brewfest are examples of festivals with games of chance, food and vendors, and tickets you have to procure by participating in events or getting lots of items requested by vendors.

We've heard rumors (or perhaps it was a column of wishful thinking on WoW.com's part) about an upgrade to the Darkmoon Faire. I'd go more often if I could make an attempt to toss a caber, the stone or the sheaf. These are strength and agility events; having purchasable trinkets for both attributes would give everyone a chance to succeed. Rewards could be class-specific buff items of a certain duration. If you can get the caber to twelve o'clock (the prime position for this event; check out the North American Scottish Games Association for the rules), you get a scroll that will give a hunter an additional 50 agility for 10 minutes. It might be something of minor interest to a level 80 -- but you can be sure I'd be at the faire, just to try to toss a caber.

I'd also like the ability to set up a guild tent. Charge me 5k gold, but give me the ability to have a tent at the faire where we could recruit, give away items or allow our crafters to provide their services. This is not a roleplaying event. This is another way for those unguilded people who don't read the realm or WoW recruiting forums or pay no attention to the recruitment spam in trade or general chat to talk with guilds and maybe find one they like.

There have to be other festivals celebrating specific cultures that have events which could be incorporated into the Darkmoon Faire. Right now, the faire isn't something most people attend, beyond a "what is that?" the first time they see it. By incorporating more ideas from current world festivals, the faire could be something incredibly exciting. What are your suggestions?

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