Renaissance faires in Colorado

Colorado's faire scene has unusually deep Celtic roots: the St Andrew Society of Colorado has staged its Highland Games since 1963, bringing Scottish heavy athletics, piping and drumming, and Highland dancing to the state, along with historical re-enactment by a group called the Renaissance Scots. The Colorado Renaissance Festival began in the 1970s as a tear-down event in Morrison with 60 artisan booths, founded by Jim Paradise, and moved through Castle Rock before settling on permanent grounds in Larkspur, where his son Jim Paradise Jr. now directs it. That festival has grown to more than 200 artisan shops across eight themed weekends running June through August, with reported average attendance of 250,000, and its organizers recently announced the festival's first sellout in almost five decades. Up in the Rockies, the Longs Peak Scottish-Irish Highland Festival in Estes Park marked its 50th anniversary in 2026: founded by Dr. James Durward and now led by his daughter, President and CEO Peggy Sue Young, it has grown from a family celebration into a three-day gathering that draws performers, competitors, clans, and spectators from around the world, with organizers anticipating roughly 20,000 attendees a day. Northern Colorado adds a woodland venue of its own — the Colorado Medieval Festival runs for three days each spring in The Savage Woods just west of Loveland, organized by The Savage Woods, LLC. Taken together, the state pairs a decades-old summer renaissance festival on the Front Range with long-running Scottish games on both the plains and in the mountains, giving Colorado's season a distinctly Celtic accent from early summer into September.

Sources: Colorado Renaissance Festival — Wikipedia · Colorado Highland Games — About · Estes Valley Voice — Longs Peak Scottish-Irish Highland Festival celebrates 50 years · Colorado Renaissance Festival — official site · FestivalNet — Colorado Medieval Festival