Knights to shine at Utah Renaissance Festival and Fantasy Faire

Forget traveling back in time.

For two weekends in May, a lady-in-waiting only has to go as far as Weber County to find her knight in shining armor at the annual Utah Renaissance Festival and Fantasy Faire.

This year the festival is set to run May 7-9 and 14-16 at the town of Marriott-Slaterville. There will be professional jousting groups, medieval food booths and dozens of old English characters putting on a show.

"Some of the neighboring states have these really nice festivals where you can go and escape the modern world and take a break from real life," said Sue Bodily, executive producer of the festival, "and I thought it would be nice if we had one in northern Utah."

Although Utah is also home to the Utah Midsummer Renaissance Faire in Cedar City, performer Elias Caress said both are worth visiting, for different reasons.

"Every state almost has their own Renaissance fair, and in Utah there are two of them, but they're both different," he said. "They have their own character and their own style, so I would recommend visiting all of them. Just check it out for a day."

Bodily said the Utah Renaissance Festival and Fantasy Faire is more open for interpretation while still staying true to the spirit of the Renaissance period.

"This one, we're a little bit more concerned about Renaissance period without getting too into the Shakespearean end of things," Bodily said. "I would love to get some Moorish tents, for example."

As a longtime history buff, Bodily said her main focus when creating the festival was bringing the past to life. To encourage learning in a fun setting, Bodily said the festival offers student discounts on Friday for school field trips.

"History is interesting, and a lot of times (people) say it's boring, but if they get to see it up-close, it's interesting," she said.

Although history is an integral part of the festival, Bodily said she added the fantasy aspect to encourage creativity.

"The fantasy we try to limit to Celtic or Shakespearean lore," Bodily said, "but we do have fairies. We also stray a little outside of the period because we do have pirates."

Caress said festivalgoers range from hard-core medieval role players to casual observers, but emphasizes people are there to just have fun with the Renaissance theme.