The Virginia Renaissance Faire takes place during five weekends, starting from the Saturday of the Mother's Day Weekend in May, at Lake Anna Winery in Spotsylvania, Virginia. The fair features plenty of entertainment like live music and performances, jousting, hound coursing, historical reenactments, and many other things. The fictional village of Staffordshire has a vast marketplace with dozens of shops offering crafts, jewelry, apparel, decor, and art.
Faire highlights
Highlights of Staffordshire include Poppet’s Pastimes area for children for Renaissance-themed fun, games, dress-up, and a puppet show. Daily jousts are performed by the Blue Run Jousting Troupe, demonstrating their impressive knightly skills. Also, Medieval Armored Combat performs historical combat by Order of the Marshall, while Vixens en Garde, a female fight troupe, demonstrates their own style of sword-fighting.
The Village Blacksmith offers demonstrations of their traditional craft. In addition, guests can see daily demonstrations of archery and bow-making, as well as a daily archery tournament. In addition, Living History Kitchen showcases cooking techniques from 400 years ago, and how meals were made during the Tudor period of the history of England.
The Renaissance Man is all about magic, comedy, and juggling. The Circus troupe demonstrates rope-walking, balancing, juggling, and performing rescue dogs. Her Majesty’s Hounds showcases the traditional art of Greyhound coursing. The Jackdaws music performance features classical Irish Rock. The Pyrates Royale Show, with plenty of singing and pirate jokes, will entertain visitors of all ages.
Marketplace
The colorful Marketplace offers a unique shopping experience. Stroll through the stalls, filled with jewelry, traditional blacksmith wares, swords and knives, vintage silverware, pottery, local honey, tea, leather goods, apothecary bottles, glass mosaics, drinking horns, blowing horns, mugs, furs, sheepskins, pirate clothing, crochet, candles, potions, woodworks, kilts, and other unclaimed treasures. Activities at the marketplace include tarot counseling, reading from runes, tea leaves, numerology, caricatures, and portraits studio. Fun games include dart throwing, axe throwing, rat throwing in a basket, hummer strikes, and large wooden handmade arcade games.
Food
Food at the fair includes pizza, gyros, Italian & kielbasa sausage subs, steak, chicken and cheese subs, funnel cake, ribbon fries, lemonade, turkey legs, foot-long corn dogs, quesadillas, fajita, tacos, chicken tenders, pretzels, ice cream, snow cones, pickles on a stick, fudge, macarons, cookies, street corn, chips & guac. funnel cakes, fried Oreos, deep-fried candy bars, and New Orleans-inspired street food.
The fair runs from 10 am. to 5 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are sold online only, so you should follow the event's official website to stay tuned until they start selling. In addition, tickets can't be exchanged and are non-refundable. If you want to bring your furry friend along, please restrain yourself from doing so as the faire is not pet-friendly. Other than that, book your accommodation in advance, and get ready for revelry and merriment,