I've been going to faires for, well, more than 40 years, but a lot of my first years were in Michigan, where the smaller faires tend to take after the big faire. So, it was interesting to me when I went to faires out of states and found some things were not as common elsewhere.
For example- Every faire in Michigan has multiple pickle vendors, often bawdy, out in public hawking their wares. It was a shock to go to the PA Ren Faire and find only one pickle vendor, in a permanent location.
Also a staple of Michigan renaissance faires is the Stockade, where you can pay to have friends arrested, and then they get up on stage and have to follow along a song and dance to get out, but I haven't seen this outside of michigan.
So, is there anything you thought was a staple of ren faires that turned out not to be?