Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to BARRIE PAULSON. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

BARRIE, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Our GM and my husband, Lars Paulson, worked his way up to being the GM of several large Renaissance/Medieval festivals and always wanted to have his own to “build it right from the ground up.” As GM at other shows, he always came in on time, under budget, and improved quality.

Lars and I met working at festivals in different capacities–he in production and me as a comedy/stunt performer. We both worked our way up to be leaders in our respective areas. We met working a large festival and liked that we were both problem solvers and liked this creative environment.

As GM, Lars knew how profitable these shows could be. The large/mature festivals at that time averaged 200,000 patrons in 7 weekends, at $20 per ticket; so that’s $4mm walking in the door (plus vending fees, and merchandising sales).

We felt these festival would be successful in East TN for many reasons: East TN is an outdoor tourist destination. Knoxville is similar in demographics as Kansas City, KS, where Lars and worked as GM of the Kansas City Renaissance Festival. There were Scottish and Shakespeare festivals in the greater Knoxville area, but no Renaissance festivals from 150-250 miles in all directions.

Lars wanted to build the show with the end in mind. He was most excited to have creative control. We also wanted to have a family-friendly festival (G-PG lite) and use our collective backgrounds (production, performing, teaching, and business) to provide more creative opportunities in Harriman, Roane County, and East TN.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Lars has an art degree from Ringling College of Art and Design and worked for the Ringling Circus prop shop, Hagenbeck and Wallace (now Feld Entertainment). He also worked his way up in production of Medieval and Renaissance Festivals from construction up to GM.

I have a Master of Science in Consumer Economics and a Bachelor of Science in Biology. I worked in outdoor education; corporate total quality management, marketing research, and brand marketing. I also enjoyed being in numerous community theatre plays, taking and performing dance, teaching musical theatre, and performing comedy-stunt shows at Renaissance/medieval festivals. I strive to create win-wins with business, customers, and the environment. So Lars’ and my skills, education, and experience bookend each other.

When we first knew each other, we would see each other onsite. We each would think, “Hey, you’re a leader and problem solver and like this festival. I’m a leader and problem solver and like this festival.” So producing a festival is an outgrowth of everything we loved–historical premise, stage combat, dance, original scripts, characters, costumes; vending; management, creative design, props and sets, and creative business, etc.

What are very grateful for our individual growth and the growth of our shows. For example, not only does Lars design the advertising graphics, design and build our props and sets, and maintain and expand our site, but he now writes our show premise and scripts (which strengthens our entertainment program). For me, I recruit vendors, hire festival staff and touring acts; but I also train our local actors and give them skills to become professional. Our shows have also won awards–Excellence in Tourism, Best Festival, etc. This shows that our festivals are being recognized for high quality and meeting needs in our community.

What we are most proud of is helping others improve and grow. For example, one of our local actors (about 40 years old) had struggled for years with brain trauma as the result of an bike/car accident when a college freshman. After working with us for a few years, learning improvisation and performing as street and stage performer, he credits the show with helping him to get reconnected with life and society. He was able to go back to college and be successful, and is now attending an Ivy league college and doing well, and has his sights on graduate school.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Having enough funding until our shows have started to become profitable has been an example in resilience.

Fortunately, we had investors who were supportive with our start up. But the years it’s taken for our festival to start becoming profitable have been more than expected (8-9 vs 2-3 years). So, besides investment funds, we had to use my husband’s inheritance, sell our guest house and investment property to help fund the business.

It was demoralizing to work so hard, only to lose money. But each show would lose Less money. After a show, I would have to just put all my files in a pile until I licked my wounds until I could get up the courage to start working on the next show.

One compliment that the mayor Harriman, who spear-headed bringing in the festival, said of us early on, “These people are for real. They do what they say and say what they do.” We were also winning awards for our festivals, and our investors were mentoring and encouraging us.

After a couple of years, we were nominated by our county’s Chamber of Commerce for a small business boot camp called the Propel Program with the Knoxville’s Chamber of Commerce. This was very helpful to be in weekly classes over the summer with other start ups. The program partnered each of us with representatives with a large businesses for weekly mentoring. The program helped hone our advertising message, how to quickly explain our business and goals, and how to do basic bookkeeping. Also that we weren’t alone.

Early on, we hired assistants; but even with close management, we were often taken (no or shoddy work done and/or funds stolen). So eventually, we just did more work ourselves. While it added stress of a long to-do list and learning how to do something, it was actually less time than managing someone and correcting them to do it right. We’ve also put many more safety measures in place, such as multiple audits of sales to catch any losses quickly. We’ve added security cameras. We now watch for and pay attention to red flags in people’s behaviors. We cut staff quickly when problems arise.

We also had exit surveys for years which helped see which advertising worked the best (for us billboards and social media), and have been able to cut our advertising budget by at least 1/3. With Covid-19 funds from an adjacent county, we were awarded a new website. This has been a huge help.

One of our local actors has grown in ability to play lead characters, such as Robin Hood. His real job is directing advertising videos. As pet projects, he has created professional videos for us and others. This has helped us promote and helped him with content for his CV/resume.

Using my corporate skills, I also give the Harriman City Council a briefing before the shows and debriefing after the shows and give them our thanks and the credit. We just read in the paper that Harriman was awarded by the state of TN for growth and improvements. Our festival was listed as one of the contributing factors.

So, as we have continued on and creating festivals that people enjoy–we settled on Pirate Fest in May and Medieval Faire in Oct–there has been help along the way.

I also pray our way through everything. I feel what I do is under-cover missionary work. We don’t talk politics or religion, but we strive to live the qualities we all want — love, kindness, opportunity. Step by step things are moving forward.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

First, our GM and my husband, Lars, has the experience of running huge festivals and knew what he wanted to do with our start up festival. Second, with our combined skills and working well together, we bring that joy and passion to our projects.

Also, we strive to present high quality outdoor family-friendly entertainment. People in this area want this as well. I also teach Sunday School, so I want shows that my students and their families can enjoy. We tried having our Pirate Fest be a little more racy, PG-PG13, but some acts were too graphic, and it hurt our Pirate and Medieval shows’ reputations. So, we have settled on “Shrek-level humor,” meaning a little cheeky (G-PG lite). We also serve malt-based adult beverages in a controlled way–all have to buy an entrance ticket to get in the show, all who wish to drink are carded, and we strive to not over-serve.

We also strive to work with nice people and to have all our participants to be welcoming to everyone. If any participant becomes difficult, they find themselves not invited back. We have a “big tent,” but we ask our participants to wear modest period costumes, not to swear in a modern way (Shakespearean insults are fine), or discuss current politics or social agendas during the show. We strive to create an escape from modern life and a safe place for everyone.

We’ve taken heat from both extremes of the bell curve. We get patrons coming from ultra conservative shows (only modest costumes for patrons and no alcohol served) and they enjoy a more moderate festival atmosphere. On the other hand, some of our participants have questioned our focus on high quality, family-friendly, big bell curve appeal. But then they go to other Renaissance festivals with a more “carny” aspects and/or R rated shows, and they felt protective and embarrassed for the children and grandparents in the audience.

Also at some shows, no street characters are welcoming and interacting with patrons. With our months of training local actors, we strive to create that welcoming atmosphere, where patrons are seen and included, if they wish.

In comparison to the mature festivals, we’ve been described as “a small show with a big heart.” We like this and that we’re growing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tmfaire.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tennesseemedievalfaire/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrie-paulson-4a9b7946/
• Youtube: https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UChucATvSMdbXKK2dYChsrGA/videos/upload?filter=%5B%5D&sort=%7B%22columnType%22%3A%22date%22%2C%22sortOrder%22%3A%22DESCENDING%22%7D

Image Credits
Photographer Trent Eades 1) Medieval billboard photo – Medieval fairy, Mary Katherine Rogers 2) Pirate billboard photo – (L to R) Jerry McMasters, Katrina Bosse, Ethan León, Eli Welton 3) Medieval swordfight – (L to R) Jonathan Socha, Eli Welton 4) Medieval Lady Marian – Ashley Georgakopoulos 5) Pirate captain – Garrett Wright 6) Celtic/Pirate band – The CrossJacks (R Reagan De Busk, Mark Dudek, Dawn Cunningham) 7) Medieval jouster – Patrick Croce 8) Turkey legs 10) Pirate band – Tom Mason and the Blue Buccaneers Photographer Rob Welton 9) Pirate Fest end of day group shot