Carolina Renaissance Festival

Carolina Renaissance Festival
Genre Renaissance fair
Dates October – November
Location(s) Huntersville, North Carolina
Inaugurated 1993
Attendance 180,000 (average)
Stages 12
Website
www.carolina.renfestinfo.com

The Carolina Renaissance Festival is a Renaissance fair held annually on Saturdays and Sundays in October and November. The festival is located just north of Charlotte, North Carolina between the towns of Huntersville, North Carolina and Concord, North Carolina near the intersection of 73 and Poplar Tent Road.

Set in the fictional village of "Fairhaven," it is one of the largest Renaissance festivals in the country. The festival brings in an average of 180,000 visitors during its fall season,[1] and had 190,000 for the 2013 season, during which it celebrated its 20th anniversary.[2]

Attractions

Major attractions include the three daily jousting tournaments featuring the stunt group Aventail Productions (cite). Other attractions include professional entertainment acts on 12 stages. Stage shows feature live music, dance, comedy shows, and performers with circus variety skills such as juggling, sword swallowing, acrobatics, and sideshow antics. Musicians perform with traditional instruments such as the harp, bagpipes, or other, more obscure, "period" instruments. Roaming the "lanes" of the festival are a variety of nationally traveling professional street performers who engage visitors to help create an interactive performance experience.

The Carolina Renaissance Festival also operates an in-house performance company featuring over 100 costumed characters who also interact directly with visitors at the fair, in an attempt to create a more authentic feel of a renaissance-era town and to help bring the "village" to life. Individuals in the company develop characters such as "The Village Baker," "Tavern Keeper," etc. A "Singing Milkmaid" trio, a Town Mayor, and the fictional Royal Family that has come to visit the shire are other examples. Other notable characters are the Greenman (a large walking tree) and Twig (a faerie). The company is primarily composed of people from surrounding communities, including Concord, Greensboro, and Charlotte. Auditions are held June of each year and to recruit the local performers.

Activities

Vendors sell a variety of handmade arts and craft goods such as handmade jewelry, artisan leather goods, blown glass made at live demonstrations, candles, and custom chain mail. The festival vends an assortment of medieval themed foods, including giant turkey legs, various soups, stews, and chowders served in "bread bowls", "Steak on a Stake", fish and chips, corn on the cob, and Scotch eggs.

Alongside the shops one can find games such as archery target-shooting, crossbow shooting, axe throwing, frog catapults and a gold coin hunt.

Weddings and vow renewal ceremonies are also held on site, with ceremonies attended by the cast of the Royal Court and a covered pavilion reserved for the couple.

In addition to the above, the festival has several themed weekends throughout the course of the season such as a science fiction/fantasy literary or Pirates’ Christmas.[3]

History

The Carolina Renaissance Festival was introduced in 1993 by Jeff Siegel, owner of parent company Royal Faires which also owns and operates the Arizona Renaissance Festival.[4] The site was originally just six acres dedicated to entertainment but has expanded to a twenty-five acre theme park.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Renaissance Festival Scheduled Near Charlotte". The Pilot. 2005-09-30. Archived from the original on 2007-08-16. Retrieved 2008-06-19.
  2. ↑ "Carolina Renaissance Festival celebrates 20 years of cheers". wsoctv. 2013-09-26. Retrieved 2013-10-01.
  3. ↑ "2013 Carolina Renaissance Festival". about. Retrieved 2013-10-01.
  4. ↑ "Behind the scenes at the Carolina Renaissance Festival". theheraldweekly. 2013-09-26. Retrieved 2013-10-01.
  5. ↑ http://www.carolina.renfestinfo.com. Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

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