If you’ve been following my website recently, you know we’ve expanded our coverage of live events beyond music. Included in that expansion are Renaissance Faires or Festivals. If you’ve never been to one, it is a wonderful experience of stepping back in time of kings, queens, knights, and fun and unique entertainment from magicians to music and more. This past Saturday, March 11th, I had the opportunity to attend for the very first time the Florida Renaissance Festival and it was an amazing experience.
The Florida Renaissance Festival runs 8 weeks out of Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach, FL. The festival in its 31st year kicked off on the weekend of February 4th and wraps up on the weekend of March 25th and 26th. The festival is for all ages promising a fun time for one and all. Parking is free unless you pay for VIP Parking which will drop you right by the front gate. I decided to go VIP (it’s worth it) and arrived before opening (the sooner you arrive the closer you park). I waited by the entrance after getting my ticket for the festivities to begin!
The day starts off with Princess Snow appearing to speak to the crowd about the wonderful day they’ll have at the festival. And soon enough King Robert and Queen Beatrice appear to speak to the crowd. Both pump up the crowd getting ready for the festivities to start and when 10 AM struck, King Robert officially declared the festival opened and declared the canon to be fired. It took no time to hear that loud boom that made a number of us jump and then cheer as the crowd moved forward through the entrance that looks like the entrance to a castle.
Once inside you do step into a whole different world with vendors in tents, cast members dressed in appropriate time-period clothing, people advertising vocally their events for the day, and musicians right in the middle of the town square playing for the crowd. The festival is laid out in such a way you have two paths you can start walking through which will lead you to crossroads to take other paths. I truly recommend planning your day in advance and using the festival’s map located at https://www.ren-fest.com/plan-your-day/interactive-map/ so you know where you need to go. I found myself turned around at least once because this is a big festival.
The path I started on to the right led me to the Ottoman Encampment (#5 on the map). This was something very unique I had never seen at a Renaissance Festival before. The encampment is a representation of the Turkish empire that controlled Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa. This encampment is also set in the 16th Century and those who ran the area were more than happy to answer all of my questions and let me take photos. It was quite beautiful and educationally very enlightening. I truly recommend those visiting to stop by their encampment.
I backtracked my way to the town square to see Cast in Bronze. Charlie is a musician who performs on an instrument known as the Carillon. It is played with a keyboard and each key chimes a bell. Charlie is uniquely talented and performs on it to various songs such as “Teenage Wasteland”, “Game of Thrones Theme Song”, and “Hedwig’s Theme”. His performance is absolutely incredible and needs to be heard for yourself.
From there, I continued along the path passing multiple vendors until I came across the Kelly Irish Dancers. The group of young girls are very talented dancers and impressed the crowd with their speed, nimbleness, and grace. Continuing on I came across the end performance of Once Improv a Time. The troupe asks the audience to fill in a story much like a Mad Lib and then they perform the story based on those audience choices and ask the audience to make decisions during the show too. From the parts I did catch, I was laughing and very entertained. Continuing along I came across The Glassblowers. They were doing a live demonstration of their work, which is very educational.
I made my way towards the jousting field, which is all the way towards the back of the festival. Sadly, when I arrived I had just missed Knightwings – Birds of Prey. The group rescues the birds and raises awareness about the importance of birds of prey. They have a beautiful group of birds they own.
And then it was time for the first joust of the day. The jousts are performed by Debracey Productions. The troupe consists of 4 jousters who participate in an ongoing story throughout the day. The first showing sets up the story, the second escalates the plot, and the third involves a joust to the death. The Royal Court is placed high on a building balcony as they introduce the field marshal. She in turn introduces the four knights who will perform tricks for that session. This includes lancing aerial targets, speed racing, trick riding, and eventually a joust. These knights were very light armor during their jousts which gives them flexibility during their fight scenes. The knights all have their own personalities and charms that make each of them very likable. Their performance is very entertaining.
After the joust I made my way to find some food and along the way found two wonderful music performers in The Foxy Bard and Celtic Mayhem. Both groups were very talented performers and had their crowds engaged and entertained. I found one grouping of food tents, which are spread throughout the festival grounds. There were so many options including turkey legs, hamburgers, hot dogs, kebobs, and so much more. It was nice to see a wide variety of food options available. And right as I started to eat my lunch, the Festival Parade was coming through. The parade takes place at 12:30 PM and follows down the main path. The parade is compromised of vendors, entertainers, and the Royal Court to help promote the experiences and shops you can see throughout the festival.
It was then to the Mud Pit to see the performance of the Splattertime Players. Two men who call themselves brothers telling tales with a little bit of raunchiness to them. The stories are fine for young kids as they probably won’t get the jokes anyway. But, what they are best known for are their massive splashes into the mud pit and yes, it is a mud pit. They even state they won’t stop any kids who want to run in and jump in the mud, but I’m pretty sure parents won’t want to have those mud-covered kids in their cars on the way home. Fair warning, if you’re sitting in the front row, you will get splashed with mud. The Splattertime Players is a fun show with lots of attendee interaction. You’ll enjoy them a lot.
The Festival has an entire area of rides for kids as well. Swings, rocking horses, rock towers for climbing and such. It’s a really nice area to take a break and let the kids enjoy some rides. Also, the adults can have fun with axe throwing and archery. Though one of the fun parts of the Festival I truly enjoy is getting to see people all decked out in costumes.
One of the main attractions of the Festival, to me, is the entertainer known as Jacques ze Whipper. The French (ish) man is an expert with a whip and is very well-known on the Ren Faire circuit. He’s probably one of the most requested acts for people to see at Ren Faires and I completely understand why. His skills with a whip, his improv ability, and humor had the crowd laughing and cheering for him. He starts out his shows cracking whips to the beat of a song provided by the audience before he gets into his whipping tricks. Just don’t request “Freebird”. His tricks are quite impressive and he requests volunteers from the audience to assist him, especially to honk his horn. But, it’s the flaming whip that made everyone break out their cameras for video and pictures and yes, it was very impressive. If anything you do at this Festival, definitely see Jacques. You won’t regret it.
Immediately following Jacques was Rota Temporis. I would best describe them as a Celtic metal band that is heavy on the drums and bagpipes. Their energy is high and they’re all about playing loud, playing hard, and ensuring their fans are having fun. It didn’t take long for them to have people literally up and dancing in front of the stage as they performed. It was a very entertaining performance and I can see why they too are fan favorites of the Festival.
On my way back to the jousting field I encountered a group known as Guru Garjana at the crossroads of the Festival. There are an Indian musical group focusing on dance and playing the dhol (a drum) and cymbals. The group was very energetic and immediately drew a crowd around them as they performed. Soon enough, attendees were dancing around them too. Everyone was smiling dancing and having a great time. They were an unexpected surprise.
Another unexpected surprise was coming across the Brandr Forge. The group there not only sell items they make there at their forge, they also educate people on blacksmithing and put on a demonstration on the spot. It was very enlightening watching the entire process of their intern crafting a wand from steel.
Finally, reaching the jousting field I encountered a massive crowd who arrived early. If you plan on seeing any of the jousts, arrive early to get a good seat. This storyline involved a joust to the death due to two knights turning on one of their own during the afternoon joust. After giving the knights the opportunity to test the field, it was nothing but non-stop action between jousting between the four knights and hand-to-hand combat. I loved that one of the knights was using martial arts (looked like Brazilian capoeira) during the combat. The host promised there would be blood spilt, and oh yes, there was blood (fake blood of course) left on that field. Debracey Productions provided a captivating and fun storyline that day.
As I was ready to exit the park, Cast in Bronze was playing a surprise performance right at 6 PM including a number of the songs he did before. But, this time he had his assistant Erin get up on their mini stage to sing “Bring Me To Life” by Evanescence. Its was really cool performance with Erin’s beautiful voice, Charlie performing the male vocals, and playing the song on the Carillon. A nice way to close out the evening.
The Florida Renaissance Festival is truly a wonderful experience. If you’ve never been to a Renaissance Festival before, this is definitely one to attend. Take your friends, take your family, step back in time, and have fun. For more information about the Festival, visit their website at https://www.ren-fest.com/.
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