Are you of a mind (and medieval mindset) for a couple of knights (at least) to remember this spring and summer?
If, forsooth, you are, the 2024 West Virginia Renaissance Festival will showcase blasts from the centuries-ago past with a Celtic Crossing opening weekend Saturday and Sunday, June 8 and 9, continuing each weekend in June on the "faire-grounds" near Lewisburg.
From 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day during the initial weekend, Celtic heritage will be celebrated and re-created through music, art and design, depicted vividly through Irish traditional music and dancing, bagpipes piping and even a Best Knees in a Kilt Contest both days at the Royal Pavilion. Opening weekend admission will be free for veterans, active military members and first responders, according to the event website.
The festival will continue from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday in June, also boasting special themes: June 15-16 is Pirates' Landing, June 22-23 is Vikings' Valhalla, and the concluding weekend will embrace a period-appropriate Time Travelers motif.
West Virginia Renaissance Festival Event Coordinator Dawn Kieninger has been involved with Renaissance fairs and festivals since 1979, attending her first a year later in Minnesota. She introduced the yearly gathering to the Mountain State in 2018 with her partner, Taso Stavrakis, a stuntman and actor whose film credits include "Day of the Dead,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Friday the 13th.”
Oh, and by the way -- he's also a professional jouster.
"He and his partner, Kent Shelton, started jousting in 1979 and do it all over the country," Kieninger explained.
She said the first Renaissance Festival in the United States occurred in California in the 1960s. "It was a fundraiser in a school teacher's back yard. It just grew in popularity.
"They're festivals set in the Renaissance, with actors and performers of music from the time period, but they're also a Renaissance of crafts and arts. We want to preserve the leather working, weaving, blacksmithing, and all those traditional art forms and displays," said Kieninger, who makes leather goods.
She and Stavrakis met in 2011 through their festival connections. "We were at a point where we wanted to settle down with the horses he traveled with, retire them into breeding and training them to perform," she said.
They accomplished their goal by purchasing 325 acres of land near Lewisburg and eventually fashioning the farm property into their residence and the Renaissance Festival site.
"As we got things built, we thought it would be OK to invite people to come out to this property. With some hiccups along the way -- our first barn burned down, we were able to open in 2018," Kieninger said.
She said attendance has grown about 25% each year -- between 12,000 and 13,000 festival-goers attended in 2023, she estimated -- as more people learn what a Renaissance festival entails and offers. "Everybody knows what a circus is. We have a lot of circus acts -- jugglers, clowns, trapeze performers, and everybody kind of knows jousting from history class."
The festival's appeal has attracted devotees from Texas, California, Michigan, and other distant points. "They go to Renaissance festivals around the country, like car racing fans who travel," she said. "There are a lot of other Renaissance festivals around, but they're mostly held in the fall."
Kieninger said "cosplaying" is purely optional at the festivals. "People can wear whatever they're comfortable in. Some love to come and dress up, but if you don't feel like doing that, it's perfectly fine.
"There are fantasy elements -- fairies, mermaids and unicorns. There are unicorns in medieval tapestries and Shakespeare wrote plays about fairies, so they're also elements of the folklore of the Renaissance."
The Middle Ages milieu
The Royal Pavilion serves as the Renaissance Festival hub, with the royalty being King Edward and Queen Eleanor there to meet and greet all commoner comers.
More than 50 vendors will attend, sharing their wares and tales, including West Virginia craft beer brewers, glassblowers, jewelers, fairy garb and gear proprietors, and more.
Daily activities will include storytelling at 1:30 p.m., a theme-appropriate costume contest at 4 p.m. and a knighting ceremony that gets underway at 4:30 p.m. Captain Gryphon and the Duchess Francesca teach children about the quality of mercy at three shows daily at the Mermaid Lagoon. Other Renaissance-inspired entertainment will be provided by the Wishing Well Wenches, Hey Nunnie Nunnie, Digger Plotts (putting the "fun" in "funeral," 'tis writ 'pon the Renaissance Festival website), the swordfighting comedy of The Duelists, bells rung by Cast in Bronze, and exploits recounted and re-enacted by Wyld Friends 2, to name just a few.
The Cloisters section houses live music with a wine bar, while Enchanters Grove reveals belly-dancing creations and gyrations by Boom Boom Shake, music and myths from sämäs and magic, mime and comedy by the Theatre of Fools. Other scheduled stage performers include the Puppies of Penzance, Gravity Check, the Bad Beth and Beyond Bawdy Show, the Rambling Sailors, Marco and the Echo Four, and the Knotty Nauticals' "piratical" variety show.
A 90-minute pub crawl, solely for ages 21 and older, will be an option, with Robin Hood and his merry band leading the merry way from the Royal Pavilion to four pubs on the grounds for commemorative beer glass refills. Revelers are forewarned that the humor along the way will be of quite the ribald (R-rated) nature (another reason this is an adults-only event). The pub crawl can be booked for $60 per crawler, offered at 11:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. each day.
Jousting matches will take place at 12:30 p.m. with "Joust a Plaisance," a 3 p.m. "Joust of Competition" and a "Joust to the Death" at 5:30 p.m. "Equestrian Chaos" will feature daring steed deeds at noon, 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., too, along with unicorn, warhorse and camel rides for the bold amongst you.
The food selection encompasses vintage to modern -- from turkey legs and scotch eggs to hot dogs and nachos -- with too many victual options to mention in the allotted print space. Mead, beer, wine and other, softer beverages are also sold.
If you go ...
Leashed pets are welcome at the festival, provided their owners have written proof of pets' up-to-date vaccinations. (A pet pass costs $8.)
The West Virginia Renaissance Festival grounds are located on U.S. 60, eight miles west of Lewisburg in Asbury. Take I-64 Exit 161. The listed address is 23439 Midland Trail, E., in Lewisburg.
Daily admission costs $18 per adult, $8 for children ages 6 to 12 and is free for youngsters under 6. Tickets can be ordered in advance via wvrenaissancefestival.ticketspice.com. More information pertaining to the festival (including a full schedule of events and attractions) is available at wvrenfest.com.
If, forsooth, you are, the 2024 West Virginia Renaissance Festival will showcase blasts from the centuries-ago past with a Celtic Crossing opening weekend Saturday and Sunday, June 8 and 9, continuing each weekend in June on the "faire-grounds" near Lewisburg.
From 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day during the initial weekend, Celtic heritage will be celebrated and re-created through music, art and design, depicted vividly through Irish traditional music and dancing, bagpipes piping and even a Best Knees in a Kilt Contest both days at the Royal Pavilion. Opening weekend admission will be free for veterans, active military members and first responders, according to the event website.
The festival will continue from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday in June, also boasting special themes: June 15-16 is Pirates' Landing, June 22-23 is Vikings' Valhalla, and the concluding weekend will embrace a period-appropriate Time Travelers motif.
West Virginia Renaissance Festival Event Coordinator Dawn Kieninger has been involved with Renaissance fairs and festivals since 1979, attending her first a year later in Minnesota. She introduced the yearly gathering to the Mountain State in 2018 with her partner, Taso Stavrakis, a stuntman and actor whose film credits include "Day of the Dead,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Friday the 13th.”
Oh, and by the way -- he's also a professional jouster.
"He and his partner, Kent Shelton, started jousting in 1979 and do it all over the country," Kieninger explained.
She said the first Renaissance Festival in the United States occurred in California in the 1960s. "It was a fundraiser in a school teacher's back yard. It just grew in popularity.
"They're festivals set in the Renaissance, with actors and performers of music from the time period, but they're also a Renaissance of crafts and arts. We want to preserve the leather working, weaving, blacksmithing, and all those traditional art forms and displays," said Kieninger, who makes leather goods.
She and Stavrakis met in 2011 through their festival connections. "We were at a point where we wanted to settle down with the horses he traveled with, retire them into breeding and training them to perform," she said.
They accomplished their goal by purchasing 325 acres of land near Lewisburg and eventually fashioning the farm property into their residence and the Renaissance Festival site.
"As we got things built, we thought it would be OK to invite people to come out to this property. With some hiccups along the way -- our first barn burned down, we were able to open in 2018," Kieninger said.
She said attendance has grown about 25% each year -- between 12,000 and 13,000 festival-goers attended in 2023, she estimated -- as more people learn what a Renaissance festival entails and offers. "Everybody knows what a circus is. We have a lot of circus acts -- jugglers, clowns, trapeze performers, and everybody kind of knows jousting from history class."
The festival's appeal has attracted devotees from Texas, California, Michigan, and other distant points. "They go to Renaissance festivals around the country, like car racing fans who travel," she said. "There are a lot of other Renaissance festivals around, but they're mostly held in the fall."
Kieninger said "cosplaying" is purely optional at the festivals. "People can wear whatever they're comfortable in. Some love to come and dress up, but if you don't feel like doing that, it's perfectly fine.
"There are fantasy elements -- fairies, mermaids and unicorns. There are unicorns in medieval tapestries and Shakespeare wrote plays about fairies, so they're also elements of the folklore of the Renaissance."
The Middle Ages milieu
The Royal Pavilion serves as the Renaissance Festival hub, with the royalty being King Edward and Queen Eleanor there to meet and greet all commoner comers.
More than 50 vendors will attend, sharing their wares and tales, including West Virginia craft beer brewers, glassblowers, jewelers, fairy garb and gear proprietors, and more.
Daily activities will include storytelling at 1:30 p.m., a theme-appropriate costume contest at 4 p.m. and a knighting ceremony that gets underway at 4:30 p.m. Captain Gryphon and the Duchess Francesca teach children about the quality of mercy at three shows daily at the Mermaid Lagoon. Other Renaissance-inspired entertainment will be provided by the Wishing Well Wenches, Hey Nunnie Nunnie, Digger Plotts (putting the "fun" in "funeral," 'tis writ 'pon the Renaissance Festival website), the swordfighting comedy of The Duelists, bells rung by Cast in Bronze, and exploits recounted and re-enacted by Wyld Friends 2, to name just a few.
The Cloisters section houses live music with a wine bar, while Enchanters Grove reveals belly-dancing creations and gyrations by Boom Boom Shake, music and myths from sämäs and magic, mime and comedy by the Theatre of Fools. Other scheduled stage performers include the Puppies of Penzance, Gravity Check, the Bad Beth and Beyond Bawdy Show, the Rambling Sailors, Marco and the Echo Four, and the Knotty Nauticals' "piratical" variety show.
A 90-minute pub crawl, solely for ages 21 and older, will be an option, with Robin Hood and his merry band leading the merry way from the Royal Pavilion to four pubs on the grounds for commemorative beer glass refills. Revelers are forewarned that the humor along the way will be of quite the ribald (R-rated) nature (another reason this is an adults-only event). The pub crawl can be booked for $60 per crawler, offered at 11:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. each day.
Jousting matches will take place at 12:30 p.m. with "Joust a Plaisance," a 3 p.m. "Joust of Competition" and a "Joust to the Death" at 5:30 p.m. "Equestrian Chaos" will feature daring steed deeds at noon, 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., too, along with unicorn, warhorse and camel rides for the bold amongst you.
The food selection encompasses vintage to modern -- from turkey legs and scotch eggs to hot dogs and nachos -- with too many victual options to mention in the allotted print space. Mead, beer, wine and other, softer beverages are also sold.
If you go ...
Leashed pets are welcome at the festival, provided their owners have written proof of pets' up-to-date vaccinations. (A pet pass costs $8.)
The West Virginia Renaissance Festival grounds are located on U.S. 60, eight miles west of Lewisburg in Asbury. Take I-64 Exit 161. The listed address is 23439 Midland Trail, E., in Lewisburg.
Daily admission costs $18 per adult, $8 for children ages 6 to 12 and is free for youngsters under 6. Tickets can be ordered in advance via wvrenaissancefestival.ticketspice.com. More information pertaining to the festival (including a full schedule of events and attractions) is available at wvrenfest.com.
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