Court jesters, mercenaries, trolls, pirates, royals, peasants and wenches will all inhabit the Cook Carillon Clock Tower plaza for the 15th annual Renaissance Festival Saturday.

The student-run free Renaissance festival in the country will feature period garb, merchandise and entertainment on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to dusk outside of the Cook-DeWitt Center on Grand Valley State University’s Allendale Campus.

More than 2,000 people attended last year, a number the Grand Valley Renaissance Club hopes to top this weekend.

“The whole place transforms overnight,” said Neal Sosnowski, president of GVRen. “You will not even recognize you are walking through the clock tower plaza.”

Vendors will sell costumes, jewelry, trinkets, incense and artwork under endless rows of white tents. The merchant and entertainment directors will go to other Renaissance festivals throughout Michigan recruiting new and previous vendors and performers for GVSU’s fair, Sosnowski said.

This year the festival will reintroduce the Kids’ Korner as many festivals get the reputation for not being family-friendly, said Jacquelyn Laba, the entertainment director.

GVRen members and independent performers assume personas and costumes of the period. They may be nobles, pirates, merchants, peasants or members of the Cross and Crown. Their costumes reflect their status.

Members of the Cross and Crown are the festival police. They run the jail and fight with pirates. Attendees can pay to have their friends put in jail, and they will have to do something humorous to get out.

“It is public humiliation in a fun way,” said Tyler Wiedmeyer, a Cross and Crown member.

Pirates are the loudest group, Sosnowski said. They wander among the patrons and cause as much trouble as people allow.

He said the nobility looks down on everyone else. Peasants interact with patrons and run the tavern.

Some members are assigned to “wench walks” where the woman picks on single men. The wench will apply lipstick and kiss the man on the cheek.

Many members of the GVRen club agree their favorite part of the festival is dressing up. Sosnowski said people not wearing period garb are termed “naked.” Members make, purchase or borrow costumes. Women wear corsets, but Laba explained they are not too painful to wear.

“It helps improve my posture,” she said. “It is also good to wear when eating because you don’t eat as much.”

Laba, who helps make costumes, said she finds patterns and fabric at craft and fabric stores and uses a sewing machine to assemble the costumes, but some members hand stitch more elaborate designs.

There is a wide range of acceptable clothing, said Peasant’s Guild head Heather Wade. Many pieces can bridge different characters.

The clothing for nobles is more elaborate, but as the social classes descend, the clothing gets less decorative.

A member can play a peasant one year wearing a grubby tunic and pants, and the next year, add a vest to become a merchant, Wade said.

“It is like going backwards in time, but you can apply it to also go forward,” Wade said.

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