Carolina Renaissance Festival

The Carolina Renaissance Festival is a Renaissance Fair held annually in October and November in the town of Huntersville, North Carolina. Its setting is the invented village of "Fairhaven." As of 2008, the faire is in its fourteenth season, and brings in an average of 150,000 visitors. [cite news | url = http://archives.thepilot.com/September2005/09-30-05/093005renaissance.html | title = Renaissance Festival Scheduled Near Charlotte | publisher = The Pilot | date = 2005-09-30 | accessdate = 2008-06-19]

Attractions and activities

Major attractions include the thrice-daily jousting tournament, which for the past several years has featured the Hanlon-Lees Action Theater. Other attractions include live stage shows by a number of groups. Roaming the "lanes" of the festival are a variety of street performers who engage in more direct interaction with visitors. There are a number of musicians who perform at various venues throughout the site playing music on instruments such as the harp or bagpipes, or other more obscure "period" instruments. The Performance Company at the CRF is a series of costumed characters who interact directly with visitors to the fair, in an attempt to create a more authentic feel of a renaissance-era town. These include juggles, hawker-criers, a singing milkmaid trio, a town mayor, and the fictional royal family that has come to visit. Another famous character is the greenman (a large walking tree) and Twig (a faerie). The company is primarily composed of people from surrounding communities, including Concord, Greensboro, and Charlotte.

There are numerous shopping opportunities, with many vendors selling a variety of goods. Such items include handmade jewelry, artisan leather goods, blown glass made at live demonstrations, candles, and custom chain mail. The fair vends an assortment of vaguely medieval foods, including giant turkey legs, various soups, stews, and chowders served in "bread bowls", "Steak on a Stake", fish and chips, corn on the cob, and Scotch eggs.

Alongside the shops one can find games from archery target-shooting, crossbow shooting, axe and star throwing, to frog catapults and a gold coin hunt.

References

External links

* [http://www.royalfaires.com/carolina/ Official website]