Photos by Dylan Simmons
The Renaissance Pleasure Faire is the perfect way to spend a weekend in LA!
Opening in 1963 as America’s first modern Renaissance fair, the event has occurred annually, though its location has varied slightly within Southern California. Since 2006, the fair has been held at the Santa Fe Dam, transforming the recreation area into an Elizabethan era English town every spring.
The fair is a perfectly curated escape from the stressors of the modern age (e.g. my physics homework, dumb TikTok beauty trends). The location itself is a beautiful outdoor park overlooking a manmade lake, far enough away from urban Los Angeles with not a highway in sight, so it feels like you’re truly transported back to a simpler time. The fair’s hard-working employees also lend to this experience; their elaborate, historically accurate costumes and rigid determination to not break character truly immerse you into their world.
My friend, Ariana, and I arrived at the fair around noon, just in time to see the Queen’s Arrival parade. We felt almost overwhelmed by how much there was to see and do; from food stands to taste, shows to see, and shops to peruse, there’s more than enough to warrant a multi-day trip to the fair. This brings me to my first piece of advice if you, too, want to visit the Ren Fair: get there early. If not only to avoid parking traffic, arriving early gives you as much time as possible to experience as much of the fair as you can. On a similar note, be sure to have an itinerary. Available on their website and the fairgrounds is a map and schedule of the day’s activities, from parades to jousting tournaments to musical performances you won’t want to miss.
Ariana and I had been eagerly awaiting our trip to the fair, if only because it’s an excuse to dress up, which leads us to my third piece of advice: don’t be afraid to come in costume. If anything, you’ll stick out more if you come in jean shorts and a t-shirt than in a full-length ball gown. While employees were mostly dressed according to historical accuracy, patrons filled the market in all sorts of costumes, from 1500s English attire to pirates to mythical creatures (i.e. elves, mushrooms). They even host a variety of themed weekends (unfortunately, we missed cottagecore weekend), clearly welcoming a variety of cosplay. If you, like us, are lacking a sixteenth century wardrobe, don’t fret; there are more than enough shops filled with skirts, corsets, vests, and anything you could possibly need for your costume—they even offer daily rentals.
We ended up staying up until the fair closed at 7:00 pm (time flies when you’re having fun), and we still felt like there was more we wanted to do. Overall, our shared highlight was the jousting tournaments. À la Medieval Times, the fair hosts three jousting matches throughout the day, and Ariana and I got way too competitive in rooting for our team. The fights were action-packed, cinematic, and quite literally bloody; after seeing the afternoon joust, we had to come back for the final Joust to the Death (our team’s knight, unfortunately, died).
Overall, it was an exciting day full of family-friendly fun, which culminated in us planning our trip for next spring when the fair returns in April.
