Renaissance faires in Ohio

Ohio's anchor event is the Ohio Renaissance Festival near Harveysburg in Warren County, founded in 1990 by Peter Carroll and acquired in 2015 by Brimstone and Fire LLC; it has grown into a 30-acre permanent village with over 166 shops and 17 outdoor stages portraying the fictional Elizabethan town of Willy Nilly-on-the-Wash, and it averages 165,000 visitors over a season that runs each weekend from Labor Day through the end of October. Its home grounds, Renaissance Park in Waynesville, span 260 acres and also stage Celtic Fest Ohio and the Brimstone Haunt, making the property a multi-event venue rather than a one-festival site. In the state's northeast corner, the Great Lakes Medieval Faire and Marketplace in Rock Creek was founded in 1992 and portrays the fictional 13th-century shire of Avaloch, drawing over 45,000 attendees across a summer run from early July through mid-August. The scene also has a strong volunteer, community-run side: the Ashville Viking Festival, started around 2003 by locals Nancy and Ed Vallette after the town asked them to devise a festival, charges no admission — visitors are asked to donate to a local food pantry instead — and draws roughly 12,000 people from at least 14 states, earning a reputation as one of the highlights of the American Midwest reenactment circuit. In Dayton, the United Irish of Dayton, a heritage organization founded in 1973, has organized the free Dayton Celtic Festival since 2002 with the help of Five Rivers MetroParks; it is supported by more than 500 volunteers and attracts over 90,000 attendees to RiverScape MetroPark the last weekend of July each year. Together these events give Ohio a calendar that stretches from a spring Viking festival through summer medieval and Celtic celebrations to an autumn Renaissance season, mixing large permanent-site commercial faires with free, charity-minded community festivals.

Sources: Wikipedia — Ohio Renaissance Festival · Renaissance Park Event Center · AnydayGuide — Great Lakes Medieval Faire and Marketplace · The Viking Herald — Ashville Viking Festival · United Irish of Dayton — Dayton Celtic Festival