For one weekend in October, experience life as they did in the renaissance at the Central Missouri Renaissance Festival in Kingdom City.
The Central Missouri Renaissance Festival is a weekend-long event that takes place annually in October, as well as two weekends in the spring. The festival takes place in Kingdom City, Missouri, and includes food vendors, artisan booths, events and live music for all ages to enjoy. The festival takes place in the town of ‘Carlingford,’ with renaissance residents, police officers and guests.
A sign on the front gates welcomes guests to ‘Carlingford’ for the Central Missouri Renaissance Festival on Oct. 22, in Kingdom City, Missouri. Portia Bowers sits at the front gate greeting patrons and handing out maps. “The community in any Renaissance Faire is always so open, but especially here,” Bowers said. “I mean, everyone takes care of everyone.”From left to right, James Patterson, Regan Slaughter, Pat Patterson, Nicole Graeler and Abby Gordon sit around a table talking. Slaughter, Graeler and Gordon each do their own craft, weaving, knitting and sewing. The group are all part of a bigger organization, the Luxemburger Company.Two patrons play a game of Gluckhaus, a gambling game, in a tent. The game board was handcrafted by one of fair-goer Nicole Graeler’s friends for her wedding at the Renaissance Faire last year. “We did an encampment over on the other side where there’s a bunch of vendors now,” Graeler said. “And we had a parade, and the king and queen married us.”Woolworker Chris Durrill checks on wool she is dyeing to be later sold to patrons at the festival. Durrill uses authentic techniques to dye her material. “When you’re the dyer, you also may stink,” Durrill said. “Some of my processes are fairly clean, but when I do some of the true traditional ones, you know it [stinks], believe me. But if you want to do period stuff, stink is part of it.” Two members of the Shamrock Irish Dancers perform an Irish dance on the Tower Stage. The dancers also performed at the Central Missouri Renaissance Festival last year. Patrons also enjoyed different performances involving swords and fire on the Tower Stage closest to the entrance to Carlingford.Lucas Johnson, playing his character ‘Dietrich,’ forces his dagger onto his opponent’s face mask during combat. Dietrich also fought another opponent before this match and won.Papers displaying the different quests patrons can take part in lay on the ground in front of Rhett Hartman, the ‘Carlingford Storyteller.’ Hartman was initially brought on to simply tell stories but adapted his position into creating and facilitating quests for patrons. “I noticed that there were lots of vendors that were not getting the kids engaged, so we came up with a kids quest,” Hartman said.Rhett Hartman sits in front of three patrons, telling them a story as part of the quest they accepted from him earlier in the day. “The prize, I try not to make material,” Hartman said. “The prize becomes this embodied experience.”
Edited by Hannah Schuh | hschuh@themaneater.com
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Copy edited by Emma Short and Sterling Sewell | ssewell@themaneater.com
