Enter the Magical Realm of the Fairie Festival
We are veterans of renaissance fairs, but on Saturday we attended our first Fairie Festival. It was a little bit like a RenFaire. But, instead of jousting, a lady asked us if we wanted “to receive seven minutes of free energy.” And, instead of turkey legs, we ate some delicious hemp pretzels.
The Fairie Festival takes place every spring as close as possible to May Day. The Festival is on the side of a hill on Sproutwood Farm in rural southeastern Pennsylvania, just over the Mason-Dixon Line from Maryland. Over 11,000 people apparently come over the course of a long weekend every year. There isn’t alcohol, but there is a lot of cosplay and cute dogs wearing wings. It’s a great event for families. Both younglings and adults can pass through the “Dark Fairie Realm” on their way to a free tea party or to dance around the maypole.
A Magical Realm
Several stages feature music ranging from flowy dress ladies with harps to Gaelic rock. The dozens of vendors feature handmade jewelry, homemade walking sticks, extremely elaborate nature-themed cupcakes, whistles designed to sound like birdsong, and even Faerie Magazine. One great feature of the Fairie Festival is that there is an area dedicated to nature and helping animals. The booths in that area feature various local animal shelters and rescue groups. We met a very chill chihuahua and a rescued pot-bellied pig. The entire festival is very animal-friendly. If you always wanted to dress up your dog and bring them to RenFaire, now is your chance.
While everyone involved with the Fairie Festival was wonderful and friendly, if I had anything negative to say it would be about the organization. The parking is in a completely unmowed field on the side of a hill. To leave the parking lot, we were supposed to drive up the hill, but our Sentra just refused. It was the closest I’ve had to a near-death experience in a while. This was also the first place I’ve ever been where I would advise people not to buy tickets online ahead of time, because for some inexplicable reason the line for online tickets was much, much longer than the cash line.
If you’ve been to a few festivals, though, these things are fairly par for the course. And if you have, I would definitely suggest the Fairie Festival. It pushes a lot of the same buttons, but it’s definitely a breath of fresh air. You can bring your kids to a tea party, and put some fairy wings on your dog. Go for it. Then you can put up your pictures with the black unicorn furry on the internet too.
