Kristen Eaton has written a column on Pennsic for the mundane arts and culture site Broad Street Review. "To me," she writes, "[Pennsic is] a cross between a university history department, a theater, a really great pub, and a really bad frat party."
She contends that Pennsic functions today in much the same way that festivals functioned in the Middle Ages: as a sort of societal or personal "safety valve."
