Glengarry Renaissance Festival is May 31 and June 1

Would you like to spend a weekend in the 15th and 16th centuries? Unfortunately, time travel is not available, but the second Glengarry Renaissance Festival is. The 2025 festival is taking place Saturday, May 31 and Sunday, June 1 at the fairgrounds in Maxville.

The weekend of jousting, traditional music, vendors, and thirsts quenched with mead drew 9,000 people at its first event in 2024. Presented by Faires.ca, the Glengarry Renaissance Festival is the seventh such event added to a series that take place in communities across Ontario each year. The first one was the Oxford Renaissance Festival near London, 10 years ago.

“We started with our festival and now we’ve grown to seven festivals,” said promoter Greg Schurman.

Due to its Glengarry location, the event in Maxville has a heightened Scottish element.

Schurman said the festival is not about reenacting life during the Renaissance. There is a strongly humourous component.

“If anything, we’re way more on the Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail side,” he commented.

“We have a lot of comedy.”

The Renaissance is often most associated with England and Scotland, and Canada as we know it did not exist at that time, but with some irony, 100 per cent of the performers and vendors at the Glengarry Renaissance Festival are Canadian. Of the items for sale at the event, 70 per cent of them must be handmade.

The festival offers what Schurman described as an immersive experience. He said the jousting and fighting in full armour by the group Knights of Valor is as authentic as possible.

“It’s the real thing, and not theatrical at all,” he said.

Visitors can also expect birds of prey displays, mermaids, and lots of mead (honey liquor) to try.

For more information on the Glengarry Renaissance Festival and to purchase tickets, go to https://faires.ca/glengarry/.

Posted by James Morgan, TheReview.ca