Quote Originally Posted by Tobus View Post
Like Jamie said, it's mostly just about insurance and liability. It's a sign of the times. I disagree, though, that it's necessarily "common sense" for them to ban open blades. Back in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, I saw exposed blades all over the place at Ren faires. And it simply wasn't an issue. Either no one had common sense back then, or common sense today is different than it was then. Aye, I think it has more to do with the organizers looking to cut down their insurance costs and make their lawyers happy. Which is sad.
Sadly, I think common sense today seems to be different than it was back then!

I know that there are plenty people that come to faire that know how to use a sword safely, I could count myself among them, having fenced a lot in college. But we don't have sword licenses, so at faire how do we tell who's safe and who just dangerous? If folks just crossed at random, who's to tell a patron that just bought his first sword that he can't have a mock fight with his equally inexperianced buddy? In the lanes with 20,000 distracted kids and adults wandering by?
You know all those kids that get the wooden swords and axes etc. that start swinging them around with no idea what they are doing? If that was an untrained, possibly drunk adult it would basically be the same thing only with a stronger arm swinging a blade that will kill you.
Insurance costs and lawyers play a part, but I wouldn't want to be the owner of the faire where somebody accidently got something cut off.