Renaissance faires in Vermont

Vermont's renaissance faire scene is anchored by Vermont Gatherings, a company founded and owned by Jeff Folb that produces eight festivals a year, including both a summer Renaissance Faire and a Winter Renaissance Faire. The Vermont Renaissance Faire started in Stowe, where Folb expected about 1,500 attendees in its first year and instead drew more than 4,000; after growing to roughly 10,000 visitors per weekend day, it relocated to the Champlain Valley Expo in Essex Junction, where it has featured over 150 vendors. Its indoor midwinter counterpart, the Winter Renaissance Faire at the Champlain Valley Exposition, gathers over 95 artisans and craft vendors along with performance troupes and medieval living-history and fight demonstrations. Much of the rest of the state's scene is run by small nonprofits as fundraisers: the Open Fields Medieval Festival on Thetford Hill dates to the late 1990s and raises money for Open Fields School, a non-graded school founded in 1971 by Jean Aull — for years it ran every other year, alternating with the school's decorated Goose Egg Auction, and organizers now aim to hold it annually. In Grafton, The Nature Museum stages its Fairy House Festival, the museum's largest event, annually on the last weekend of September, with volunteer-built fairy houses lining a woodland trail and proceeds supporting the museum. The Vermont Fairy Tale Festival in Killington takes a distinctly Vermont approach, bringing together twenty of the state's public libraries, each hosting a booth devoted to a specific fairy tale, alongside Viking reenactors and professional storytellers. Together these events stretch the state's season from indoor winter faires at the Expo to outdoor village-green festivals in late September.

Sources: SBA Success Story: Vermont Man Gathers Thousands · WCAX: Vermont Summer Renaissance Faire has a new home in Essex Junction · Vermont Gatherings — Winter Faire · Sidenote: Thetford Hill turns Medieval for a day · The Nature Museum — Fairy House Festival FAQ · Seven Days: Vermont Fairy Tale Festival Brings Stories to Life