Blades of Glory, sword fighters

#1 The Duel. It is a 20 minute show.
We have an MC, 2 knights, Marshall (ref) and a DJ or Minstrel
We choose a girl in the audience to become our princess and she sits in our throne.
We choose 2 boys in the crowd to pass tests to become Lords. If they pass then they get sword fighting lessons (using foam swords). They get trained by our 2 knights. They stand by the Princess.
MC tells the story.
2 knights choose a female in the audience and give her a flower, then present themselves to their respective Lord.
2 knights get ready for battle (helmet on and weapon in hand).
The much anticipated fight happens. Marshall is the referee.
Winner is declared.
Volunteers are acknowledged and thanked.
Performers are available for pictures.

#2 Little Lords battle a Knight
We have an MC, 2 knights and a Marshall.
Our MC starts the show.
Little Lords/Dames line up and they get a costume (tabard) on and a plastic helmet.
They enter our Fighting area where a fully armoured Knight awaits.
Both are handed foam swords.
We play music and they battle for 30 seconds. MC helps get the crowd to encourage the young challenger.
At the end of the fight, the MC announces the victor (the young boy or girl) and gets the crowd to cheer.
We repeat this process for about 20 minutes.

#3 Tournament of Champions
We have an MC, 4 to 6 knights, Marshal (ref), 2 squires, DJ or Minstrel
Intro music is played.
MC addresses crowd.
MC chooses 2 audience members to become the King & Queen. After they don their royal capes and crowns, they take their seat upon our 2 thrones.
4 to 6 knights are presented one at a time with their introduction. As they enter the List (fighting area) they bow to the King & Queen and they wait until all are introduced. The MC reads the rules of the tournament and then dismisses them.
Each knight chooses a Lady in the crowd to hand a flower to, then return to the tents.
The first 2 knights get ready and enter the List (fighting area) where they battle for the first of 5 fights. Judges (from 1 to 3) determine the victor based on hits of the weapon against their opponent.
At the end of the fight, the marshal meets with the judges to determine the victor.
Marshal announces the winner.
The next 2 fighters come out - same process
Intermission/specialty middle fight (depending on the numbers of knights)
Fight #4 pits the knights who lost their first match.
Fight #5 is the Championship

#4 The Dragon Shoulder Puppet.
Our Dragon, Gaasyendietha, comes with it's own Dragon handler to keep it under control. It' mouth opens, the eyes blink, the wings expand, and it roars as well. Nonce in awhile it even breathes smoke. Children and adults love it.

#5 Throne and stock rentals.
We have 2 gorgeous thrones. They are 5 feet and 6 feet tall. We also have 2 sets of stocks for rent as well accommodating both adults and children.

#6 Medieval tent rentals. We have 4 large medieval Pavillions, in addition to some smaller round and square medieval tents

Blades of Glory was born in 1994.
It started as a hobby that created 2 Medieval/Scottish Festivals in the mid-90's. People came to the festival from Montreal to Buffalo.
Our Medieval Sword Fighters were popular and we travelled across Ontario Canada going to many fairs, festivals, museums, and special events, including Ontario Place, Casa Loma, the Royal Ontario Museum and we were featured in 2018 at Bloor/Yorkville Icefest.

I was a supply teacher for a school board. I took this knowledge and created a travelling history show for schools in addition to acquiring authentic museum quality artefacts . We taught Medieval, Ancient Civilizations, Pioneers, and Canadian History for grades 3 to 7 and 11. We use costumes, artefacts, lighting and skits to help teach the students. This form of teaching was amazing especially with the "hands on" learners, behavioural and autistic students.

With the success of our travelling school presentations, we opened up an Educational Medieval theme park in 2003 for Grade 4 students. We followed that up with an Ancient Civilizations theme park for Grade 5 students in 2006. We have students coming for end of year school trips, from North York to Ottawa. We did choreographed Gladiator fighting.
The curriculum changed and we merged the two theme parks into one, continuing with our Medieval sword fighting show at the end of the day. We opened up an Educational Canadian History theme park in 2015. The culmination of the day has our Vikings in combat.

We took our vast knowledge and created a touring Medieval Festival in 2014, complete with knights in combat, teaching a medieval dance, armour and weapon displays, face painting, animal displays (Dragons & Lizards), story telling (Sword in the Stone), and minstrels.

Our members had other talents & skills and we started making our own armour.
We make chainmail, plate, scale and leather armour.
We offered chainmail construction as an activity for schools to accent the Medieval history education they were booking us for.
But, our park was exclusively for school trips. We rectified that and opened the park in the summer for the general public in 2015.

In 2016, we were preparing for a rather large show on Labour Day weekend but it fell through with a month to go. Making lemonade out of lemons, we then created the Hastings Medieval Festival, showcasing different sword fighting groups. Last year we had 7 different groups attend: LARP, SCA, Fencing, Vikings, 2 HEMA groups and our Blades of Glory Knights. We are preparing for the next Festival which will be even better.

Blades of Glory started sword fighting in the summer of 1995 with a system very similar to that of LARP and SCA. In 1997 we changed our sword fighting style to more of a boxing match, except we use various medieval weapons: swords (various sizes), daggers, flails, axes and polearms plus we use various sizes and shapes of shields. Our fighting system has timed fights and we do not grapple or thrust weapons and subsequently have much less injuries than other systems.
We opened up a sword fighting school in Hastings/Campbellford in September 2017 and then expanded by opening up another school in Durham (Oshawa) in January 2018.

Blades of Glory's performers are amazing with the public and especially children. Our members have passion. Passion for the art they are in and passion to teach history to the public in an easy learning environment - putting medieval helmets on customers - seeing the glint in their eyes, not just the children but the adults too - taking them back to their childhood.

Blades of Glory has been around for many years, constantly changing with the times revamping ourselves to meet the needs of the public yet never compromising our integrity to teach history.

We usually bring our own system.
If you have sound equipment, we have our songs on a Flash drive.
We would also require 1 or 2 cordless microphones.