An Increasing Amount Of Medieval Times Performers Are Voting To Unionize With American Guild Of Variety Artists

On Friday, a supermajority of 50 employees - knights, show cast and stable hands - working at the Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament in Buena Park filed for a union election with the NLRB to be represented by the American Guild of Variety Artists. This action is a week after performers at the Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament Castle in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, voted to unionize with AGVA.

In a statement, the California organizing committee of Medieval Times Performers United said that "In order to create a fairer, safer, and more enjoyable workplace, we also need to have a place at the table, with the American Guild of Variety Artists, and collaboratively can achieve improved safety protocols and working conditions, as well as wages commensurate with our skills.

"Although the Buena Park Castle shares many of the same issues as the Lyndhurst, New Jersey Castle, our rigorous performance schedule - as many as 16 performances in one week - weighs heavily on a show team that has been critically understaffed since reopening post-pandemic in June 2021. Through collective bargaining, we can close the gap and ensure that all performers are safe from injury, including our spectacular horses."

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The American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA) is an AFL-CIO affiliated labor union founded in 1939 to represent performing Artists and Stage Managers in live performances in the Variety field. The variety area of performance includes singers & dancers in Theatrical Revues and touring shows (non-book shows), Theme Park performers, skaters, circus performers, comedians & stand-up comics, Cabaret & Club Artists, lecturers/poets/monologists/spokespersons, and Variety performers working at private parties & special events.

AGVA members include Performers at The Disneyland Resort and Universal Studios Hollywood as well as the World Famous Rockettes, all of whom perform under AGVA Collective Bargaining Agreements. Other notable AGVA contracts include Cirque du Soleil Productions of Banana Shpeel at the Beacon Theatre, NYC, IRIS at the Kodak (now Dolby) Theatre, CA, Zarkana at Radio City Music Hall and on Tour, Paramour at the Lyric Theatre, NYC, 'Twas The Night Before at Madison Square Garden, NYC, as well as hundreds of Revues On and Off-Broadway and across the country. Award winning AGVA shows have included: Swing, Ring of Fire, Sugar Babies, Black & Blue, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, Jackie Mason, Dame Edna, Fool Moon, Def Poetry Jam, and others.

Photo Credit Medieval Times Buena Park, CA.