>>40766770>>40766820No but I came across this while looking and I'm definitely putting down a note to look into it deeper.
My think is much more like the Aksarben king and queen but I'm almost certain that's not the thing I remember because it looks too professional. The photos of the ceremony and costumes I saw looked much seedier and cheaper and also the king and queen role were very clearly old men paired to young girls not just a bunch of professional aged adults.
BUT as I was looking up things while typing this I found the wiki page for the "Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben" which states it's own ceremony inspired the Veiled Prophet celebration so there's some link there worth looking deeper into.
The "royal" ceremony I'm thinking of almost certainly must be related to these ones as well since it's hard to believe that a bunch of different states would all just randomly adopt a royal coronation ritual for their obscure social clubs impromptu.
Boys I think we've got the recipe for a proper old fashioned conspiracy here.