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.
Fair Highlights
Highlights of Staffordshire include Poppet’s Pastymes area for children for renfaire 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 Circus troupe demonstrates rope-walking, balancing, juggling, and performing rescue dogs. Her Majesty’s Hounds showcases the traditional art of Greyhound coursing. The Pyrates Royale Show, with plenty of singing and pirate jokes, will entertain visitors of all ages.
Themes of the Weekends
Each weekend of the fair is known for having a different theme, and attendees can prepare their costumes in advance to follow the dress code. On May 11-12, visitors are encouraged to explore the theme of Celtic Heritage, while on May 18-19, they can immerse themselves in Romance. On May 25-26, it's all about Military History. You can cosplay your favorite Shakespeare characters during the Shakespeare & Fantasy weekend on June 1-2. And on June 8-9, it's time to say "Ahoy!" because the theme is Pirate Weekend.
Marketplace
The colorful marketplace offers a unique shopping experience. Stroll through the stalls, filled with jewelry, traditional blacksmith wares, swords and knives, vintage silverware, and pottery. You'll also have a chance to grab some local honey, tea, leather goods, apothecary bottles, glass mosaics, drinking horns, blowing horns, and mugs. Fresh flowers, pirate clothing, crochet items, candles, potions, woodwork, kilts, and other unclaimed treasures are also available at the market.
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, hammer strikes, and large wooden handmade arcade games.
Food
Food at the fair includes options from all sorts of vendors, including King’s Kettle Corn and Cotton Candy, MW Hawaiian, and Fabulous Foods. You'll have a chance to taste some pizza, Italian & kielbasa sausage subs, steak, chicken and cheese subs, funnel cake, and ribbon fries. Other festival favorites are turkey legs, foot-long corn dogs, quesadillas, fajitas, tacos, chicken tenders, and pretzels. For dessert, consider treating yourself to ice cream, snow cones, fudge, macarons, cookies, funnel cakes, or fried Oreos. The menu also features New Orleans-inspired food.
Festival's Schedule
The fair runs from 10 am. to 5 pm on Saturday and Sunday. If you want to bring your furry friend along, please refrain from doing so, as the fair is not pet-friendly. Other than that, get ready for revelry and merriment and enjoy all the events of the fest.
Tickets
Tickets are sold online only, so you should purchase them beforehand. In addition, tickets can't be exchanged and are non-refundable. Admission for children over 6 years old costs $10, $12 for seniors and $18 for adults. You can also buy a season pass, which gives you access to all days of the event. Season pass costs $50 for children, $60 for seniors and $90 for adults. Children under 6 have free admission.
