Genre Renaissance fair Inaugurated 1973 Location Bristol | Dates July - September Stages 16 Phone +1 847-395-7773 | |
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Attendance 198,000–400,000 (average) Address 12550 120th Ave, Kenosha, WI 53142, USA Similar Pleasant Prairie Premium, Radisson Hotel & Conferen, Holiday Inn Express & Suites Pl, Best Western Executive, Country Inn & Suites By Carlson Profiles | ||
Bristol renaissance faire highlights 2015
Bristol Renaissance Faire ("Bristol") is a Renaissance fair held in a Renaissance-themed park in the Village of Bristol, Wisconsin. It recreates a visit of Queen Elizabeth I to the English port city of "Bristol" in the year 1574. The faire runs for the nine weekends from early July through Labor Day.
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Bristol renaissance faire 2013
History
The Bristol Renaissance Faire was founded in 1972 by Richard Shapiro, and his wife Bonnie, as "King Richard's Faire". The event was a four-weekend fair and drew approximately 10,000 people.
In 1988, the Shapiros sold the fair to Renaissance Entertainment Corporation, having created a second incarnation of the King Richard's Faire in Carver, Massachusetts. The original King Richard's Faire was re-opened that year as the "Bristol Renaissance Faire". . The reigning monarch became Queen Elizabeth I rather than the fictional "King Richard", and the year was set at 1574. At that time, the fair played seven weekends and drew over 200,000 visitors annually, thus placing it among the highest attended in the world. Renaissance faire staples such as jousting tournaments, historical reenactments, and stage shows continue.
Production values
The Bristol Faire's proximity to Chicago enabled the artistic directors to bring improv comedy teachers from The Second City and The Players Workshop, including instructor and director Eric Forsberg, who taught improvised interactive street theater techniques until 1997, and Ron Scot Fry, who was artistic director from 1989 until 2008.
Critical commentary
Journalist Neil Steinberg said of the Bristol Renaissance Faire: "If theme parks, with their pasteboard main streets, reek of a bland, safe, homogenized, whitebread America, the Renaissance Faire is at the other end of the social spectrum, a whiff of the occult, a flash of danger and a hint of the erotic. Here, they let you throw axes. Here are more beer and bosoms than you'll find in all of Disney World."