On September 5th 2016, I attended my 13th Renaissance Festival and 9th Ohio Renaissance Festival. The Ohio Renaissance Festival is located in Waynesville, Ohio and this year, it ran from September 3rd to October 23rd. Since my friends and I dress up, we usually wait until October when the weather has cooled to attend. This year, the festival offered a buy one get one free ticket promotion for the opening weekend and the deal was too good to pass up.
The first thing I noticed was that, despite the almost 90-degree heat, just as many people were dressed up. Though my friends and I usually wear what are effectively Halloween costumes, many attendees choose a more authentic route. Before entering the festival itself, I saw several men in chainmail or leather armor and women in multi-layered Medieval and Renaissance-styled dresses. Once inside, there were even more guests dressed in clothes ranging from jeans and t-shirts to full plate armor. It was clear that the heat did not deter any of the attendees from making the most of the festival.
At last year’s festival, I found myself thinking a lot about the love of the Middle Ages and Renaissance that attendees of the festival share. This year, I found myself thinking about how that same love permeates other aspects of our society, especially popular culture. My costume was pieced together from various generic Halloween clearance finds, but my friend had created a costume based off of a video game that takes place in a Middle Ages/Renaissance inspired setting. Plenty of other attendees were also dressed as characters from TV shows, movies, and video games with similar settings. Many booths sold merchandise based off of these same pop culture phenomena. From jewelry to replica swords to art prints, staples of popular culture that borrowed their settings from Medieval and Renaissance history were present. To me, this served as a reminder that the cultural impact of these time periods is not just limited to a festival that runs for two months of the year: It’s constantly around us.
For the artists who created handmade jewelry, soaps, candles, clothing, etc., I imagine the festival represents a sort of sanctuary from the mass-produced goods of today. Attendees expect to buy imperfect handmade goods and pay the higher prices necessary to help the makers of these goods so they can continue to do their work. Though there are certainly goods that are mass-produced, it is also a place attendees come to find unique hand-crafted items more similar to the ones that would have been available in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
As someone who has studied these time periods, the Renaissance Festival never fails to fascinate me. Since it is dedicated to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the many ways in which these time periods affect us today can be seen in one place. There are those who love history and dress in historically accurate clothing, those who love pop culture influenced by these time periods and use the festival as a place to celebrate that love, and those who love the chance to return to a time of handcrafted goods. If you haven’t attended a Renaissance Festival, go. Share your love of the Middle Ages and Renaissance with all of the attendees that are just as in love with it as you are.
