Fulton County Georgia Georgia Renaissance Festival

On spring weekends in Fairburn, a permanent recreated village opens its gates for the Georgia Renaissance Festival, a long-running celebration of jousting, artisan crafts and period entertainment in the South Fulton area, twenty miles south of Atlanta. Its own organisation runs the event, and Dave Dorrell is named as general manager in organiser press and news coverage. The same grounds host two seasons in 2026: the main spring festival and an autumn season called Fall Fling. One question follows the festival through every source, left open here on purpose: the organiser states the festival was founded in 1986, while an encyclopedic reference work’s summary box gives an inauguration year of 1985.

About the Georgia Renaissance Festival

Every layer gathered calls the event the Georgia Renaissance Festival, and organiser press releases shorten that to Georgia RenFest. The spring run carries the festival’s own name, while the autumn dates are presented as Fall Fling, a season of this same festival rather than a separate event. Within the gates, the recreated village carries the name Newcastle in the organiser’s press release and in organiser-derived layers. Autumn copy works differently: the organiser’s site and a venue guide invite visitors into a Nottingham of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham for the Fall Fling storyline. Two names doing two different jobs in two layers, never merged here; the village itself is never renamed.

The festival is run by its own organisation, publishing through its own site and press releases, and no separate presenting body is named in any layer gathered. Fairburn, the host town, is not the seat of Fulton County; that distinction belongs to Atlanta. Fairburn sits across the Fulton and Fayette county line, yet each layer gathered places both town and festival on the Fulton side: a city guide puts Fairburn twenty miles south of Atlanta in Fulton County, guide layers describe a South Fulton event, and Dave Dorrell describes the present grounds as technically within the city limits of Fairburn. Nothing gathered assigns the grounds to Fayette County.

Published addresses disagree by a few numbers and are recorded exactly as their layers print them. The organiser’s site, the state destination marketing layer and listing layers give 6905 Virlyn B. Smith Road, Fairburn. A first-timer’s guide and a resale-ticket layer instead print 6732 Virlyn B. Smith Road. The grounds are a permanent thirty-two-acre recreated village set within a property printed as one hundred acres in an organiser-derived layer and as one hundred twenty acres in the organiser’s 2022 press release.

Quick Facts

Fact	Detail
Published name	Georgia Renaissance Festival
Press-release short form	Georgia RenFest
Setting	Fairburn, Fulton County, Georgia; Atlanta is the county seat
Recreated village	Newcastle, a permanent thirty-two-acre village
Published address forms	6905 Virlyn B. Smith Road (organiser, state destination layer, listings); 6732 Virlyn B. Smith Road (a first-timer guide and a resale layer)
Spring season 2026	April 11 to May 31, Saturdays, Sundays and Memorial Day Monday, 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Fall Fling 2026	Saturdays, October 31 to December 5, plus Friday, November 27, 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Spring admission 2026	Date-specific online tickets only; no gate sales; children five and under free
Fall Fling admission 2026	Adults thirty-two dollars and ninety-five cents plus a fee; children six to twelve fifteen dollars and ninety-five cents
General manager	Dave Dorrell

History

The founding year is the festival’s oldest unresolved argument. The organiser’s 2022 press release states its position plainly: founded in 1986, the festival began on sixty-five acres just east of Interstate 85 in Fairburn, drawing a crowd of about thirty-two thousand. Organiser-derived layers repeat the 1986 founding, although one shrinks the original grounds to twenty acres, so even the first site’s size conflicts between organiser-derived accounts. Against that stands the encyclopedic layer, whose summary box gives an inauguration in 1985 and whose photo caption calls 1985 the inaugural year, while its article text says the festival has been in operation since 1986. A city guide calls the event a tradition since 1985. This article records each position in its own layer and settles none of them.

For a useful comparison, see the Fulton County Georgia Atlanta Food and Wine Festival for another county festival.

What the record does fix is the move. In 1997 the festival relocated to its present grounds west of Interstate 85, a change the general manager described in a news layer. The 2020 season was cancelled because of COVID-19, according to the encyclopedic layer. Anniversary language exists, but it is billing, not evidence: the organiser’s press release billed 2022 as the thirty-seventh Anniversary Season, a guide layer billed 2025 as the fortieth anniversary, and a festival-tracking layer billed 2026 as the forty-first season. No arithmetic has been performed on any of those numbers to force a founding year.

The spring season documented in the organiser’s own press release ran April 9 to May 30, 2022, on Saturdays, Sundays and Memorial Day Monday, 10:30 in the morning to 6 in the evening.

What to Expect

Three jousts anchor each festival day, and a festival-tracking layer times the Fall Fling 2026 jousts at 2, 5 and 7:30 in the afternoon. Entertainment spreads across a stage count the layers cannot agree on: the organiser’s site counts roughly fifteen stages, while older organiser-derived layers say ten, and both figures stand here unmerged. The organiser’s site counts more than one hundred sixty artisan shoppes, with demonstrating artisans working among them. People-powered rides and games of skill fill the lanes, alongside pubs and taverns, an archery competition, pub crawls, a Juggling School and a Reptile Farm. Spring visitors walk Newcastle; in autumn the grounds take on the Nottingham storyline, and Fall Fling weekends carry themes named Hallowtide, Harvest of the Old Gods, Feast of Fools, Tournament of Champions, Royal Market Days and Yuletide.

Planning Your Visit

Tickets come first, because in spring there is no gate sale to fall back on. The spring 2026 season ran from April 11 to May 31 on Saturdays, Sundays and Memorial Day Monday, from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., per guide and listing layers citing the organiser. Spring admission is date-specific online tickets only, tiered by day, and the two published schedules disagree. A cheap-events listing layer citing the organiser puts adult prices from twenty-five dollars and ninety-five cents to thirty-two dollars and ninety-five cents. A guide layer instead prints adult prices from twenty-six dollars and eighty-six cents to thirty-five dollars and nine cents, with child prices from thirteen dollars and forty cents to nineteen dollars and fifty-six cents. Neither schedule is settled here. Children five and under enter free.

Fall Fling runs on a different shape: seven festival days, the Saturdays from October 31 to December 5, 2026, plus Black Friday, November 27, from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. Its tickets are also sold online only, for a chosen date, per the state destination marketing layer and a festival-tracking layer: adults pay thirty-two dollars and ninety-five cents plus a fee, children six to twelve pay fifteen dollars and ninety-five cents, and children five and under are free. Around those dated prices sit the extras a guide layer lists: Any Day admission at forty-seven dollars and fifty-one cents, season passes, VIP parking and pub-crawl add-ons. Those are components and passes, never the standard dated gate price, and resale prices are never the organiser’s prices. General parking is free, per an organiser-derived layer, and parking has never been the admission. Check the address your source prints: the organiser and the state destination layer give 6905 Virlyn B. Smith Road, while a guide and a resale layer print 6732 on the same road.

A Sample Festival Day

A Fall Fling Saturday follows the shape the state destination marketing layer and the organiser’s site publish for 2026. Gates open at 1 in the afternoon, later and cooler than a spring visit. The first of the three daily jousts runs at 2, leaving the opening hour for the artisan shoppes and demonstrating craftspeople. Between the jousts at 5 and 7:30, the grounds offer the archery competition, games of skill and the pubs and taverns; the evening closes at 9 under the themed weekend’s banner, whether Hallowtide, Feast of Fools or Yuletide.

How It Compares

Two near-namesakes cause most of the confusion around this festival, and both are kept apart here. The Fairburn Fall Festival is a City of Fairburn event held downtown in October, named in a city-guide layer; despite the similar name and season, it is not the Renaissance Festival’s Fall Fling, held on the festival grounds by the festival’s own organisation. Renaissance fairs in other states are likewise separate events run by separate organisations, sharing only the genre. The festival’s Field Trip Day, by contrast, is not a separate event at all: it is an education component of this festival.

Visitor Checklist

• Buy dated tickets online before travelling; spring has no gate sales.
• Check which published spring price schedule applies to your day; the layers print different ranges.
• Note the address your source prints: the organiser gives 6905 Virlyn B. Smith Road, while a guide and a resale layer print 6732.
• Remember that children five and under enter free in both seasons.
• Plan the day around three jousts; the Fall Fling times them at 2, 5 and 7:30 p.m.
• Treat Any Day tickets, season passes and VIP parking as add-ons, not the standard dated price.
• Never take prices from resale listings; those figures are not the organiser’s.
• Take free general parking for what it is: parking, not admission.

Beyond the Festival Grounds

Fairburn rewards a slower look once the gates close. The town sits twenty miles south of Atlanta in Fulton County, and its downtown hosts the city’s own Fairburn Fall Festival in October, a separate municipal event sharing nothing with the Renaissance grounds beyond the town itself. Atlanta, the county seat, lies to the north, and guide layers frame the festival within the South Fulton area’s calendar rather than the capital’s. Keep Fairburn’s two autumn occasions distinct: one belongs to the city downtown, the other to the recreated village on Virlyn B. Smith Road.

Why the Festival Matters

The scale, by the organiser’s telling, is considerable, but every crowd figure in the record arrives as a claim from a layer rather than a count. The 2022 press release puts the first festival’s crowd at about thirty-two thousand and claims over one hundred twenty thousand visitors across eight spring weekends. The general manager told a news layer in 2022 to expect one hundred thousand to one hundred twenty thousand people with good weather. An organiser-derived family listing raises the claim to over two hundred thousand people each year, and an encyclopedic list layer records two hundred fifty thousand for the 2004 season. None of those numbers is independently counted, and none is adopted here. What can be said without borrowing anyone’s arithmetic is narrower: a festival documented since the mid-1980s on any reading of its disputed founding, across two Fairburn homes and two seasons in a single year, has plainly become a fixture of the region’s calendar.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was the Georgia Renaissance Festival founded in 1985 or 1986?

The sources disagree, and this article does not decide between them. The organiser’s 2022 press release and organiser-derived layers say the festival was founded in 1986. The encyclopedic layer’s summary box gives an inauguration in 1985 and its photo caption calls that the inaugural year, yet its own article text says the festival has been in operation since 1986. A city guide calls it a tradition since 1985. The anniversary billings, the thirty-seventh Anniversary Season in 2022, the fortieth anniversary in 2025 and the forty-first season in 2026, are printed here as billings only; counting backwards from them is exactly what this record does not support.

Is Fall Fling a separate festival from the spring event?

No. Fall Fling is the autumn season of this same festival, presented by the organiser’s site and the state destination marketing layer as part of the Georgia Renaissance Festival, not a rival event. The village keeps the name Newcastle from the organiser’s layers; the Nottingham wording belongs to the autumn storyline of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, not to a renamed village.

Can tickets be bought at the gate?

Not in spring. Spring admission is date-specific and sold online only, with no gate sales, and even the published price ranges conflict between a listing layer citing the organiser and a guide layer, so confirm the dated price for a chosen day at purchase. Fall Fling tickets are likewise online only, for a chosen date. Any Day admission, season passes and parking upgrades are separate components, and resale listings never set the organiser’s prices.

How many people does the festival draw each year?

No settled figure exists. The claims, each in its own layer, are about thirty-two thousand for the first festival and over one hundred twenty thousand across eight spring weekends, both from the organiser’s 2022 press release; one hundred thousand to one hundred twenty thousand with good weather, from the general manager in a 2022 news layer; over two hundred thousand each year, from an organiser-derived family listing; and two hundred fifty thousand for the 2004 season, from an encyclopedic list layer. None rests on an independent count.

What to Expect From the Next Fulton County Georgia Georgia Renaissance Festival

How often is Fulton County Georgia Georgia Renaissance Festival held?

The documented 2026 pattern runs in two seasons rather than one: a spring run across Saturdays, Sundays and Memorial Day Monday, followed by an autumn Fall Fling of seven festival days. Both seasons belong to the single festival and share the same grounds.

When is the next Fulton County Georgia Georgia Renaissance Festival?

The latest season in the record is Fall Fling 2026, whose Saturdays run through December 5, 2026, per the state destination marketing layer and the organiser’s site. Beyond those dates, no organiser-announced dates for a coming spring season appear in the layers gathered, so no future date is stated here as confirmed.

Will the dates change?

They have moved before within the record itself: the documented spring run opened on April 9 in 2022 and on April 11 in 2026, and the autumn season is a more recent addition. Until the organiser publishes new dates, any future weekend should be treated as unannounced rather than assumed.

Closing

The Georgia Renaissance Festival asks more of its readers than most events: two founding years, two street numbers, two acreages and two price schedules, none of which the sources reconcile. What survives every disagreement is the festival itself, a recreated village in Fairburn that fills its lanes in spring and again in autumn, whichever year its first crowd walked through the gate.