Renaissance faires in Wisconsin

Wisconsin's renaissance faire scene is anchored by the Bristol Renaissance Faire in Kenosha County, which began in 1972 when Richard and Bonnie Shapiro founded King Richard's Faire, moved onto its current site just north of the Illinois state line in 1977, and took its present name after Renaissance Entertainment Corporation bought it in 1988. Bristol recreates Queen Elizabeth I's 1574 visit to the English port city of Bristol on a 30-acre grounds with 16 stages, with reported annual attendance ranging from roughly 198,000 to 400,000 across a season of summer Saturdays, Sundays and Labor Day. The state's other faires are largely community efforts: the Janesville Renaissance Faire at Traxler Park, organized by Chris and Heather Last with Shelly Kakouris and Kyle Cook, reached its 15th edition after a two-year COVID-19 pause, and has given about $40,000 in scholarship money to Rock County seniors while also collecting for the local non-profit ECHO, Inc., with around 45 merchants and five stages. In Menomonee Falls, renaissance faire events are staged at Old Falls Village Park, an 18-acre historical park operated by the Menomonee Falls Historical Society, and proceeds from the faire there support the park's preservation and programming. The newest addition is the Central Sands Renaissance Faire in Amherst, founded in 2024 as a student-driven event of Central Sands Community High School in which everything guests see is created or sourced by students, with proceeds reinvested to keep the faire running for future classes. This mix — one of the country's high-attendance destination faires alongside faires run for scholarships, a historical park and a high school — gives Wisconsin a scene that spans the commercial and the homegrown.

Renaissance faires in Wisconsin

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16 upcoming faires