Renaissance faires in Hawaii

Hawaii's faire scene pairs one long-running Celtic gathering with a wave of very young renaissance faires on the Big Island. The Hawaiian Scottish Festival & Highland Games in Honolulu, organized by the nonprofit Hawaiian Scottish Association in partnership with the Saint Andrew Society of Hawaii and the Celtic Pipes and Drums of Hawai'i, marked its 40th annual edition in 2020 and typically draws about 5,000 people over two days; organizers say it celebrates the bond forged when Scottish businessman Archibald Scott Cleghorn married Princess Miriam Likelike, whose daughter Princess Victoria Ka'iulani was born in 1875. Renaissance faires proper arrived only recently: the Honoka'a Renaissance Faire, which bills itself as 'Hawaii's Original Renaissance Faire,' held its first edition in 2022 and drew an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people to Honoka'a town. That faire is hosted by the Honoka'a Business Association, and the idea came from co-chairwoman Krista Graves' 15-year-old son, whose homeschool study of the Renaissance sparked the event. A newer Big Island event, the Volcano Renaissance Faire at Pa'ani Ranch in Mountain View, sold out both days of its 2025 debut with more than 2,500 attendees. It gives the genre a distinctly Hawaiian shape, setting an 1800s Makahiki village — Hawaiian warriors throwing spears, hula dancers, chiefs and chiefesses, with cultural advisor Kumu Kauila Kawelo counseling on the islands' living traditions — alongside its medieval 'Kingdom of the Dilly Dally.'

Sources: Big Island Now · Honoka'a Renaissance Faire · Honolulu Magazine · Hawaiian Scottish Association · Puna Rising