Minnesota Renaissance Festival

1971 CE.

Shown on the map at 44.746°, -93.599°.

The Minnesota Renaissance Festival is a Renaissance fair, an interactive outdoor event which focuses on recreating the look and feel of a fictional 16th Century "England-like" fantasy kingdom. It operates during seven consecutive weekends, from mid-August until the final week in September (or sometimes the first weekend in October) on a site near the Minnesota River in Shakopee, a suburb of the Twin Cities. The Minnesota Renaissance Festival began on September 11, 1971, with Tovah Feldshuh as the Queen, in Jonathan, Minnesota. More than 25,000 people visited the two-weekend grand opening of the festival, at which time it was called Minnesota Renaissance Fair (changed to Minnesota Renaissance Festival later on) and promoted as “A Celebration of Nature, Art and Life!” It was at the Jonathan site in 1971 and 1972. In 1973, it moved to a farm on highway 41 up the hill [north] from Chaska, according to info on page 17 of the book "The History of the American Renaissance Festival" by Al Olson, published in 2021. In 1974, it moved to its current site in Shakopee, where it continues as one of the oldest and largest Renaissance festivals in the United States.

Text from the Wikipedia article Minnesota Renaissance Festival, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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