Michigan Renaissance Festival

About Michigan Renaissance Festival

The Michigan Renaissance Festival (MRF) is a Renaissance fair, an interactive outdoor event that focuses on recreating the look and feel of a fictional English village during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in the latter half of the 16th Century. The festival has a sizeable Resident Cast, which includes Queen Elizabeth and Her Court as well as the Lord Mayor, his family, residents of the village, and others. A large number of patrons also regularly attend the festival in costume further fleshing out the streets with nobles, pirates, vikings, wizards, rogues, wenches, and an assortment of fantasy characters. The festival also includes many nationally known Renaissance Festival stage acts, several swordfighting shows performed by the MRF Guild of Grunt Fight Team, and three full contact joust shows performed daily by a professional stunt team.

The festival began operation in 1979 on grounds adjacent to the Colombiere Center in Clarkston, near the junction of I-75 and Dixie Highway. In 1985, organizers moved the festival to 100 acres (0.40 km²) of property between I-75 and Dixie Highway, one mile north of the Mount Holly Ski Resort. Roughly 30 acres have been developed so far for the actual festival site with 15 acres of that within the "village" walls and accessable to patrons. The remaining property contains the main office on Dixie Highway, two large parking areas, two lakes (Horton Lake and Walton Lake), and wetlands. The property is part in Holly Township, Michigan, part in Groveland Township, Michigan, and to honor this the fictional village's name was changed to "Hollygrove". Permanent structures and stages have been built over the years and the festival has grown steadily to a current annual attendance approaching 250,000 people.

The 2008 season of the Michigan Renaissance Festival opens August 16th and continues all weekends through September 28th, and includes International Talk Like a Pirate Day on Friday, September 19th and Labor Day. The festival is open 10am to 7pm, rain or shine.