Maryland Renaissance Festival
Crowds watch a Shakespearean play at the festival
GenreRenaissance fair
DatesAugust – October
Location(s)Crownsville, Maryland
Inaugurated1977
Attendance15,800 daily, 300,000 season (average)
Area25 acres (100,000 m2)
Stages10
Websitewww.marylandrenaissancefestival.com

The Maryland Renaissance Festival is a Renaissance fair located in Crownsville, Maryland. Set in a fictional 16th-century English village named Revel Grove, the festival is spread over 27 acres (110,000 m2).[1] It is open from the last weekend of August and runs for nine weekends.[2]

History

In the early 1970s, Minnesota lawyer Jules Smith Sr. (1930–2018) invested in George Coulam's Minnesota Renaissance Festival. A few years later, Coulam left the Minnesota festival and started the Texas Renaissance Festival, and Smith sold his shares in the Minnesota festival and organized a similar festival in Maryland, near Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia. The fair was first held for four weekends in 1977 and drew 17,000 people to see performances by Penn and Teller and The Flying Karamazov Brothers among others.[3] In 1985, the fair was moved to its current location in Crownsville and in 1986 Smith turned over the management of the fair to his son Jules Smith Jr., who still runs the festival with three siblings.[3][4] The festival was originally an Elizabethan fair, but in 1989 switched to being focused on Henry VIII of England.[3] King Henry is played by actor Fred Nelson, replacing Bill Huttel, after Huttel's death in 2001.[5]

On July 22, 2020, the Maryland Renaissance Festival announced that it would not operate in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[6]

Fair

Jousting at the Renaissance Festival

The English Tudor village is 27 acres (110,000 m2)[1] of woods and fields. There are more than 130 craft shops and 42 food outlets.

More than 1,300 participants populate the village, 400 work directly for the company, 700 for the other vendors and 200 as performers[7] on stages or as characters throughout the village. The Maryland Renaissance Festival utilizes eight major theaters, four smaller stages in taverns, a children's area, and a jousting tiltyard with seating for 3,000.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Britto, Brittany (2018). "15 things you're bound to see at the Maryland Renaissance Festival". baltimoresun.com. Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  2. ↑ Greenwood, Arin (2012-09-25). "Maryland Renaissance Festival 2012: Cheesecake On A Stick, Costumes, Catapult Demonstrations". Huffington Post. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 Korol-Evans, Kimberly Tony (2009). Renaissance Festivals: Merrying the Past and Present. McFarland. pp. 25–26. ISBN 9780786454693.
  4. ↑ San Felice, Selene (10 September 2018). "Renaissance Festival co-founder Jules Smith Sr. dies at 88". capitalgazette.com. Capital Gazette. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  5. ↑ Long, Amanda (19 October 2003). "Fred Nelson - King Henry VIII at Maryland Renaissance Festival, Crownsville". Washington Post. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
  6. ↑ San Felice, Selene (22 July 2020). "'We've never lost a season': Maryland Renaissance Festival joins growing list of fall events canceled by coronavirus". capitalgazette.com. Capital Gazette. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  7. ↑ Newman, Meredith (21 August 2018). "Maryland Renaissance Festival: Setting the historical record straight". capitalgazette.com. Capital Gazette. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
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