David Brown drove his golf cart past half-assembled tents and clothing racks packed with purple-and-blue wizard robes.
Cloth ran between wooden posts and stuck out of the newly packed ground, forming a maze.
Vendors unloaded trucks filled with empty glass bottles, soon to be filled with homemade sarsaparilla.
They were setting up for the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire, a process that continues today as an age-old city reappears on the Alachua County Fairgrounds.
The 26th annual fair will take place Saturday and Sunday and Feb. 3 to Feb. 5. Entrance is $14 for adults, $7 for children ages 5 to 17 and free for children younger than 5.
The sounds of hammers pounding posts and the smell of musty costumes drifted through the air at the fairgrounds, located at 2900 NE 39th Ave.
For about a week, 20 workers put in 10-hour days to set up the fair, said Brown, site manager at the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire.
"We have had some of the best laborers ever this year," he said, adding that the setup for the fair was a half-day ahead of schedule.
Each day, about five inmates and 12 workers from a temporary employment agency, TempForce, set up the fair, Brown said.
While preparing for the fair, Brown and about 20 workers brought in 25 to 30 temporary bathrooms, 500 benches at $75 each and 5,000 to 6,000 combinations of nuts, bolts and washers, Brown said.
"It's like one big puzzle," he said. "Every piece has to fit its spot."
Brown drove through the life-sized puzzle while each piece was starting to fit. As he went along, he watched tents transforming into medieval storefronts, stages for jesters to please royalty and a chessboard big enough for human players.
It takes one to two weeks to transform the fairgrounds into a make-believe medieval town. But planning is a yearlong process.
Brown has been managing the fair for two decades, but he only does it three weeks each year. When he's not working with the fair, he said, Brown pulls up and puts down asphalt for the City of Gainesville.
"It's a nice change of pace," he said.
Brown drove down the center path, and he heard classic rock from a van a few tents down. He saw the Walker family setting up display cases that will hold the results of a lifetime of practice.
After 20 years, Bob Walker, 48-year-old puppet maker and owner of Midsummer Knight's Dream, said he is still happy to drive from Ocala to participate in the fair.
"It's about home pride," he said.
It takes a minimum of four hours and an average of eight hours to make a puppet, he said.
The puppets — figures of cloth, wood and imagination — are assembled in Ocala.
People either smile at or are terrified by the puppets.
"Some people will not believe when you tell them [the puppet] isn't real," Walker said.
Brown kept driving. The smell of freshly cut wood and the sound of men laughing over a cold beer whisked by.
Kyle Parker, 38-year-old craftsman with Royal Armoury, said the company drives more than 1,000 miles from Holly, Mich., to Gainesville and has been for all 26 years the fair has been running.
Royal Armoury sells wooden shields and swords for children. The family-owned business has crafted the toys for about 40 years - through three generations of apprentices.
Parker's children, mostly in their 20s, paint the intricate designs, he said, and the company brought more than 2,000 pieces of wooden crafts to sell.
The sound of water in crystal glasses played by deft hands rang, and Brown drove onward toward the back of the town.
Eric Scites, 49, and his wife, Susan, 47, swept their hands across the rims of the 41 snifters that make up the glass harp.
The couple has played the glass harp for about a decade, Susan said. Creating music with only their hands, crystal and water is their full-time job.
For the eighth year in a row, they'll sit in their tent by the trees as they share their music and the lore of this recreated world.
"We're here for the history," Eric said.
Brown drove away from the town-raising, past the racks of cotton costumes, past a storage warehouse with flags of imagined nations and toward the open front gate.
Outside, logistics like parking and police patrols wait for him. But inside, a world of imagination is unfolding.
Eric and Susan Scites practice the glass harp Wednesday afternoon in preparation for the opening of the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire. Eric, 49, and his wife, Susan, 47, travel the country demonstrating the instrument.
