Renaissance faires in West Virginia

West Virginia's renaissance faire scene is small and young, and it centers on the West Virginia Renaissance Festival near Lewisburg, founded in 2018 by Dawn Kieninger and Taso Stavrakis, which Wikipedia describes as the first and only medieval faire in the state. Stavrakis brings an unusual pedigree to the state's scene: he is a film stunt performer known for George A. Romero movies and a founding member of the Hanlon-Lees Action Theater, a company credited with pioneering the art of theatrical jousting, and he has been jousting himself since 1979 — the festival stages jousting tournaments three times a day. The founders built the festival grounds by hand over several years, raising medieval buildings on farmland in the Greenbrier Valley, and Kieninger describes the 13-acre site as a 'giant stage.' The festival runs on Saturdays and Sundays in June and has drawn more than 60 vendors, with entertainment ranging from comedic Shakespeare and blacksmithing demonstrations to the Iron Lions, a troupe that practices the medieval art of armored combat. At the other end of the state, in the Eastern Panhandle, the Morgan Arts Council puts on Bringing in the May, a free fairy-themed celebration of spring at Berkeley Springs State Park where visitors are encouraged to wear wings, horns, or renaissance-faire attire. With just these two events, West Virginia's season is short and concentrated in late spring and early summer, but its flagship festival is notable for being run by veteran performers who built a permanent faire site on their own farm rather than renting a fairground.

Sources: WV Living Magazine · West Virginia Daily News · Wikipedia: Taso N. Stavrakis · Morgan Arts Council · West Virginia Explorer