Renaissance faires in Arizona

Arizona's flagship event, the Arizona Renaissance Festival in Gold Canyon east of the Phoenix metro area, began in 1989 and has grown into a roughly 50-acre production with 16 stages, daily jousting tournaments, and average attendance of about 250,000, with a season that runs from mid-winter to early spring. It is owned and operated by Royal Faires, Ltd., the company of Jeff Siegel, who also founded the Carolina Renaissance Festival in 1994; the Arizona show is staged in what the festival calls the Village of Fairhaven and is open only nine weekends a year. Two of the state's smaller faires share a single producer: Havashire Festivals Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit established in 2017 to share the love of history through reenactment of 16th-century events, sponsors both the London Bridge Renaissance Faire in Lake Havasu City and the Two Rivers Renaissance Faire in Yuma, with proceeds supporting education through scholarships and teacher support. Celtic heritage groups are a distinctive part of Arizona's scene alongside the renaissance faires: the Arizona Highland Celtic Festival at Fort Tuthill County Park in Flagstaff includes a Highland dance competition presented by the Northern Arizona Celtic Heritage Society, a group founded in 1997 to educate the public about the heritage, language, traditions, art and history of the Celtic people. In southern Arizona, the Tucson Celtic Festival Association's Tucson Celtic Festival & Scottish Highland Games, held at Rillito Park Race Track, reaches its 40th annual edition in 2026.

Sources: Wikipedia: Arizona Renaissance Festival · Wikipedia: Carolina Renaissance Festival · Arizona Renaissance Festival (official site) · Havashire Festivals Inc. · Northern Arizona Celtic Heritage Society · Discover Flagstaff — Celtic Festival · Tucson Celtic Festival Association