As one of the largest craft festivals in the nations, the Scarborough Faire hosts thousands of craft enthusiasts each year. Many participants choose to stroll through the streets with family and friends at their own pace, while others sit in on hands-on demonstrations of glass blowing, sword making, book binding, sand casting and candle making. Artisans engage in the dialogue and mannerisms of the age, including petty street vendors who dress in rags and roaming wenches selling magical wands and hair garlands. Although one of the festival's 10 stages is devoted to a muddy comedy sketch loosely based on the story of Beowulf, many of the fair's 10 stages are devoted to musical acts and styles representative of the time. Musical gazebos and countless side shows are scattered throughout the countryside, offering continual laughter and melody for participants who desire a rest along the way.
Musicians play wooden flutes, guitars and drums and often dance happily across old wooden stages.
At noon, the festival holds The Royal Procession, and hundreds of costumed characters flood the village, telling stories of imagination, enchantment and mystery. Throughout history, people of royal stature as well as peasants were brought to the dungeons to be interrogated. Many confessed to crimes just to escape torture in the dungeon. Interrogators used branding irons, wall mounts, hallucinogens and often mace in order get prisoners to confess. The tower houses an iron chair, usually heated and covered with metal spikes, as well as a hanging cage and a torture wheel.