Old-fashioned fun
Festival at balloon museum focuses on Renaissance inspired activities
Come hither to the Albuquerque Renaissance Faire for great people watching and Renaissance-themed fun. The fair, which takes place on Saturday, April 29, at the AndersonAbruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum, will feature about 56 village vendors who will be selling items including pottery, jewelry, soaps, herbal goods, local honey, bread, Renaissance inspired costumes for adults and children and more, according to Bree Ortiz, events and operations manager for the city of Albuquerque. People can show off their four-legged friends during a pet fashion show, in which people dress up their dogs in Renaissance Faire outfits for prizes. Children’s activities include Fight a Knight, in which kids are given a plastic sword and can fight a knight in full armor.
Ten food trucks will be at the fair, along with local breweries, including Bosque Brewing Co., Boxing Bear Co. and Quarter Celtic Brewpub. Broken Arrow Distillery and Brewery, St. Clair Winery and Santa Fe’s Falcon Meadery`, also will be at the event. Attendees ages 21 and older can get a drink and some food and enjoy entertainment in the Tilted Tankard Tavern, upstairs in the museum.
There will be three stages throughout the fair featuring Celtic singers, belly dancers, magicians, jugglers and harp players, as well as Colorado’s Devil’s Dram, which performs Renaissancetype music. A group will wander the fair doing “guerrilla Shakespeare,” performing short scenes.
“The SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) that we partnered with, they do a couple of the areas, and that’s where it is very themed and that is where a lot of authenticity comes in,” Ortiz said. “They have a whole village outside, and they set up displays and a lot of tents and things of how it really was. They do it more historically accurate. And then they also host the battles, so they have different battles throughout the day with full armor and
outfits. They do whole demonstrations of battles.”
Equestrian jousting also returns to this year’s fair.
“Every year, more and more people come, so we just keep adding more and more activities, more entertainers, more stages, more battles, and this year we’re bringing back the Order of Epona, which is the equestrian jousting,” Ortiz said. “We did not have them last year, so they’re coming back. Everyone loves the horses and the horse shows.”