Renaissance Festival attendance up slightly

Despite an economy choking family budgets and rainy weather that dampened business for its last two weeks, the Maryland Renaissance Festival saw a slight uptick in business in its 24th season in Crownsville.

General Manager Jules Smith reported 18,000 more people attended the Olde English festival than last year's 253,900 customers. On average the festival generates about $18 million.

'We were up 17 percent going into those last two weekends, then it started to rain.' Smith said. 'Traditionally the last two weekends are our busiest.'

Considering the weather, he said the numbers weren't as bad as they might have been in the final two weekends of the annual nine-weekend run, which wrapped up Oct. 25. 'We were up a little bit, yeah,' he said.

The family-run enterprise awash in swashbucklers, Shakespearean characters, royal courtesans and meat-on-a-stick is busting at the seams of its 25-acre encampment on 130 acres mostly used for requisite parking.

The company has been scanning the horizon for a larger site to handle the quarter-million-plus customers who visit each season. It engaged a real estate consultant and bought ads in state newspapers seeking land. About 200 acres would do.

Smith said they had not looked at the possibility of moving since before this year's season started.

'It is something to work on in the off-season,' he said. 'It is not firm that we would leave. We are examining our options.'

The Anne Arundel Economic Development Corp. is working with the festival to help it stay put.

'We are happy to have the festival here in Anne Arundel County,' spokeswoman Alexis Henderson said. 'Anything this office can do to help them, we will. But in the end it comes down to a private business decision.'

The festival brings people from across the area together for some good very, very old-fashioned fun.

Many visitors, including Annapolis resident Erin Higgins, consider the festival comparatively inexpensive.

'It's a cheap thrill,' Higgins said, dressed for the occasion in a black corset and appropriately antiquated pants earlier in the season. 'It's eight bucks more than a movie ticket (for admission to the festival) and you're here all day. And the people-watching is great.'

The festival is a time warp back to the days of King Henry VIII, circa 1543, and offers all manner of escapes from normal life. Wandering through the 27 acres of woodlands, visitors clap along with fiddlers and other traditional musicians, laugh as jesters in big floppy hats perform, and catch passing glances of men dressed as knights and women in bust-heaving dresses. All that fun plus turkey legs and beer.

Smith said turkey legs are one of the most popular food items. To feed the turkey-leg-starved masses, he orders about 58 tons of the popular item in early spring.

The festival also offers a multitude of stick-mounted foods — macaroni and cheese on a stick, steak on a 'stake' and chocolate-covered cheesecake on a stick. All this food on a stick apparently makes people thirsty, as guests consume 250,000 glasses each of beer and soft drinks, along with 200,000 bottles of water during a season.

Unusual food is not the only draw for visitors, as actors, acrobats and magicians perform on stages and in open areas throughout the venue. Many shows require audience participation, and Carolyn Spedden, the artistic director of the festival for more than 20 years, said she thinks this full-on experience is what sets it apart from other forms of entertainment.

'We're trying to involve all the senses (with guests), instead of just sitting and visually watching TV or a movie,' she said. 'I think that is what makes it a little unique.'

Walking through the gates into another time, visitors revel in the huzzah-shouting fun the festival provides, escaping — if only for a moment — the troubling world outside.

In planning for this year's run, Smith and his team were mindful that a constant stream of bad news would make people look for a distraction.

'People are eager to be entertained, looking for a diversion, and that's why our theme (was) ‘Escape to the Maryland Renaissance Festival,'?' Smith said.

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Capital News Service contributed to this story.

pfurgurson@capitalgazette.com