Michiana Renaissance Festival is back for its 14th year

SOUTH BEND, Ind, --The Michiana Renaissance Festival is returning to the St. Joseph County Fairgrounds for the 14th year this weekend. This year the theme is pirate. 

Renaissance festivals feature people dressed up in often handmade medieval garb. Dressing up is not required, but heavily encouraged.  

The patrons and workers interact with one another with live demonstrations, on stage crowd interactions, and sometimes you might even end up in festival jail. There are different area themes such as pirate, fairytale, medieval renaissance, and Norse Viking.  

Board member Lynn Roy let us know about the diverse entertainment we can expect. 

"There are 6 different stages that are running programming all day both days." Roy says.  "There's acrobats, there's firebreathers, there's musicians, there's belly dancers, there's belly dancers with snakes, there's falconers, there's a joust, live steel fighting, there's people that'll teach you how to use a medieval steel pike. Shopping food, our tavern that has water and soda, there's a pub, there's all sorts of things that you can do for all ages." 

Renaissance fairs are meant to be family events. And this one is held by a local non-profit has a "Queen's Quest," where kids visit every activity stage and eventually get an accolade from the queen. Around 650 people volunteer to put the festival on, ranging from vendors to board members, all united around one mission. 

"The mission of Entertaining History is promote the love of history through entertainment." Roys says, "And what better way to do it than to pull a large group of people together and have a lot of entertainment that you can learn from." 

Parking is $2, and all of the parking proceeds will go to a local high school robotics team. The drink booths are run by volunteer groups who get a portion of the proceeds, and med students help the on-site EMTs. All of these show the power community has. 

"We work very hard to promote other nonprofits and not only allow them work here but also donate funds and appearances to other groups." Says fair president and queen Elizabeth Markell. 

Adults are $15, seniors are $12, kids 5-13 are $7, and kids under 5 as well as active and retired military are free. If you bring non-perishable food items for Northern Indiana Food Bank, you can receive 2 dollars off per ticket.