I’ve been to several different Renaissance Festivals in Texas: The Texas Renaissance Festival, Sherwood Forest Faire, and Scarborough Faire and for the most part they all follow the same general format. They’re permanent establishments that open for a period of the year. When I found out about the Norman Medieval Fair it sounded like fun so my Husband and I planned a trip to check it out. What makes this event unique is that the entire thing is only set up for the weekend in a public park.
The Norman Medieval Fair is a one weekend festival usually on the first weekend in April held at Reaves Park in Norman Oklahoma. This year it was April 1-3 and it runs 10am – 7pm each day. This fair is FREE to the public and that was one of it’s major selling points for us to check it out. Originally put on by the english department at the University of Oklahoma the fair was celebrating it’s 40th year!
Since this is not a permanent fair like many of the others I’ve been to it has a more local festival vibe, like an art festival or other community festival. All of the vendors are set up in pop up tents and structures and the food vendors are all in trailers and trucks. Despite that they still manage to keep a pretty good renaissance faire vibe going. There are several performance stages throughout the park with music acts, comedy and a bird show. They also have a Joust. There were a few rides for kids and some other attractions like paying to have the pirates kidnap someone on their ship for $5 or paying to hang out with a gaggle of mermaids. (What is the proper term for a bunch of mermaids anyway?)
The food offerings remind me a lot of state fair offerings like funnel cake, corn dogs, giant plate of fresh fried potato chips, lemonades bigger than your face and more BUT don’t worry if you like traditional ren fair food the staples like turkey legs and sausages are still there. I was personally very excited to see my favorite strudel vendor, Helmut’s strudel, who I’ve enjoyed at local oktoberfests was present. There was also a vendor selling shortbreads and other Scottish baked goods and a root beer vender that were both really cool, and tasty! One thing to note though, this fair does not sell alcohol, so if you need your mead to get your fair on don’t expect to find it.
There was a section in the back near the jousting with demonstrations like blacksmithing, weaving and bow making. A lot of these were set up by the Oklahoma City chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism. They had a lot of information about various renaissance crafts and trades. They also gave the rescue organization that put on the bird shows a space so that the birds could be seen at any time. They all had perches and you could watch them hang out at your leisure.
My favorite part about this fair though, was the huge amount of vendors. Because I’ve only been to Texas fairs with long seasons I end up seeing a lot of the same vendors at all of them, but at the Medieval Fair we found vendors from other states and a lot of really well crafted and unique pieces. Some of my personal highlights were a leather craftsman from Arkansa with some really intricate masks and unique leather fans, an artist that built skeleton terrariums, A chainmail vendor with really nice bikini style tops, A woman selling some really cool brass jewelry and a handmade soap seller with a product called “Bath Tea” I am really excited to try out.
Overall this was an enjoyable fair, even if it wasn’t like most I’ve attended before. If you are within an hour of Norman it’s definitely worth a day trip to check out, especially since it’s a free event. If you’re further out but you really enjoy renaissance festivals and specifically the goods you can buy at them it’s still worth a drive and there are a lot of cheap hotel and motel options that still make this a cheap weekend getaway.
