Plymouth Massachusetts King Richard’s Faire Festival
For eight weekends each autumn, a stretch of woodland in Carver fills with armoured knights, wandering minstrels and the thunder of a jousting field, as the event published as King Richard’s Faire recreates a sixteenth-century English village in the Massachusetts countryside. The full sheet title is worth a word of honesty at the outset: no layer read prints that exact word order as the event’s name. Sources print “King Richard’s Faire”, print the longer form “King Richard’s Faire: THE New England Renaissance Festival”, and use “New England Renaissance Festival” as a billing form, so the word Festival belongs to the billing rather than to any name built the way the sheet builds it. The Plymouth in the title is likewise the county and not the town: the faire stands in Carver, and Plymouth itself is one of the county’s two seats.
The season documented most fully in the layers read is the 2026 season, billed as the forty-fifth annual running of the faire. It occupies Saturdays and Sundays from 5 September to 25 October 2026, together with the Labor Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day Monday holidays, with gates open from mid-morning to early evening and the programme running rain or shine. That billing is carried through this article as billing only; the faire’s beginnings rest on the layers’ own accounts of them, which do not entirely agree.
About the Faire
Carver hosts the faire within Plymouth County, and a state reference layer places Carver among the county’s towns while marking Plymouth and Brockton as the seats, which leaves Carver as a host town rather than a seat of county government. Visitors who read the sheet title as pointing to the town of Plymouth will therefore aim at the wrong community; the faire’s ground is Carver’s, out among the pine woods and cranberry country of the county’s interior.
The grounds themselves are described differently by different layers, and the descriptions belong to different moments in the faire’s life. The organiser’s own layer describes a spread of two hundred acres laid out as eight named regions that together form the fictional village of Carvershire, the invented English settlement through which the whole day is staged. An encyclopaedia layer, describing the older ground, puts the site at eighty acres of pine forest. Layers print the faire under two Carver street addresses: a long-standing wooded site, and, from 2025, the nearby former Edaville site. Street names attach to those printings in the layers, but no street number is carried into this article, and the two acreage pictures are left standing side by side rather than blended into one.
Responsibility for the faire has likewise changed hands across the years, and the layers keep the eras apart. A festival-guide layer records that the Carver faire was produced by its founding family in its earlier years. An encyclopaedia layer records new owners taking over from March 2025, under a company name form printed in that layer. Neither form is treated here as the other’s replacement spelling; they are era-specific accounts of who stood behind the event.
For a useful comparison, see the Plymouth Massachusetts America’s Hometown Thanksgiving Celebration Festival for another county festival.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Published name | King Richard’s Faire |
| Billing form | New England Renaissance Festival |
| Host town | Carver, Massachusetts |
| County | Plymouth County |
| County seat status | Carver is not a county seat; Plymouth and Brockton hold that role |
| Setting | The fictional village of Carvershire, per the organiser’s own layer |
| 2026 season | Saturdays and Sundays, 5 September to 25 October 2026, plus two Monday holidays |
| Season billing | Forty-fifth annual season |
| Programme centrepiece | Three jousting tournaments daily |
| Admission position | Ticketed in 2026, with tiered prices rising across the season in a listing layer |
History
Two accounts of the faire’s origins circulate in the layers read, and this article keeps them separate because the layers themselves never reconcile them. An encyclopaedia layer states that the faire was inaugurated and founded in 1982 by its creators, the founders named in that layer, and it treats the faire’s earliest history in another state as belonging to a predecessor event. A performing-arts layer tells the story differently, holding that the faire began outside Chicago in 1972 and moved to Carver ten years later. Both versions agree on a Carver home from the early nineteen eighties onward; beyond that shared ground, each is reported as its layer gives it, and no founding year is squeezed out of the forty-fifth-season billing for 2026.
The encyclopaedia layer also supplies the faire’s recent chronology. There was no faire in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic stopped the season, and the thirty-ninth faire was deferred into the following year, so the fortieth anniversary season ran across weekends and Monday holidays from 4 September to 24 October 2021. The move recorded for the middle of this decade is the other large change in that chronology: new owners from March 2025, in the encyclopaedia layer’s account, and a shift of the grounds to the nearby former Edaville site from 2025, replacing the long-standing wooded address under which the faire had appeared for years.
Through those changes the shape of the event has stayed recognisably itself: a full season of autumn weekends rather than a single weekend, a permanent-feeling village rather than a fairground layout, and entertainment running all day on multiple stages and on the tournament field. The layers for 2026 describe a faire that has come through a cancelled year, an anniversary season and a change of both ownership and ground with its basic formula intact.
What to Expect
A faire day turns on spectacle, and the largest of it happens on the tournament field, where three jousting tournaments are staged daily in front of the crowds. Around that centrepiece, the current layers count more than seventy live shows a day spread across eleven stages, while an older encyclopaedia layer describes eight stages; the two counts are fenced to their layers rather than averaged. The entertainment named in that older description gives the flavour of the programming: musicians, dancers, jugglers, magicians, acrobats and puppeteers, with a royal court presiding over the village in character.
Shopping and participation fill the ground between performances. More than one hundred and ten artisans sell their work in the village lanes, and the amusements are deliberately old-fashioned in power and motion: hand-powered rides and games, axe throwing and pony rides among them. Each of the season’s eight weekends carries its own theme in the news and listing layers, with an opening and Labor Day weekend, a pirate invasion, a fandom weekend, a Highland weekend and a Halloween finale among the themes named, and themed weekends bring costume parades and contests for visitors who arrive dressed for the part. Adults should note the separately ticketed pub crawl held on Sundays, recorded in a festival-guide layer as an adults-only element with its own ticket rather than part of general admission.
Planning Your Visit
Choosing a weekend is the first decision, because the themed calendar changes what the village emphasises from one pair of days to the next: pirates one weekend, Highland colour another, and the Halloween finale closing the season in late October. The season’s documented shape for 2026 is Saturdays and Sundays from 5 September to 25 October, with the Labor Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day Mondays added, gates from mid-morning to early evening, and no rain cancellations in the layers read, which describe the faire as running rain or shine.
Admission is ticketed, and a listing layer prints tiered prices for 2026 that rise across the season for adults and for children aged four to eleven, with children under four admitted free; a news layer prints the same opening range, so the cheapest documented point of the season sits at its start. Two free-entry provisions appear in the organiser’s own layer: Carver residents enter free on opening day on showing identification, and military, police, fire and emergency personnel enter free on the Salute to Safety Sunday, likewise on showing identification. Neither provision extends beyond its named day, and the Sunday pub crawl’s separate ticket is not the gate price. Listing layers also carry a venue telephone number and the organiser’s website name; both exist as contact routes, and neither is reproduced here.
A Sample Day at the Faire
Arrive as the gates open in mid-morning and give the first hour to the lanes of Carvershire, walking the village’s regions while the crowds are still thin and the artisans’ stalls are easy to browse. Take a seat at the tournament field for the first of the day’s three jousts late in the morning, then build the middle of the day around the stages, dropping in on jugglers, musicians and acrobats as the programme turns over. Families can fit the hand-powered rides, games and pony rides into the early afternoon, and themed-weekend visitors should time their costume parade or contest before the light goes. End with the last joust of the day and a final circuit of the village before the gates close in the early evening, and adults staying on a Sunday can weigh the separately ticketed pub crawl as an alternative close.
How It Compares
The comparison that matters most is with the faire’s own predecessor. The Bristol Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin is the renamed continuation of the original faire whose earlier history the encyclopaedia layer assigns to another state; it is a separate event in a separate place, and it is not the Carver title covered here, however much ancestry the two may share. Other renaissance fairs elsewhere in New England are likewise their own events, generally built around a single weekend or a short run, where the Carver faire occupies a season of eight weekends on its own ground. The former Edaville site now hosting the faire also carries Edaville’s own festivals, and those events belong to Edaville rather than to King Richard’s Faire, even when they share a fence line.
A Visitor Checklist
- Pick a themed weekend that suits your party, from pirate invasion to the Halloween finale
- Budget for the tiered gate price of your chosen date, since 2026 prices rise across the season
- Bring identification if you are a Carver resident attending on opening day
- Bring service identification if you qualify for the Salute to Safety Sunday provision
- Dress for weather, because the faire runs rain or shine
- Plan the day around three jousting tournaments rather than a single show
- Allow browsing time for more than one hundred and ten artisans
- Treat the Sunday pub crawl as a separate adults-only ticket, not part of admission
- Check the organiser’s published season calendar before travelling
Beyond the Faire
A faire weekend can stretch into a wider Plymouth County stay. Carver sits inland among the county’s pine barrens and cranberry bogs, and the county’s two seats, Plymouth and Brockton, anchor its opposite ends, Plymouth on the coast with its own deep colonial history and Brockton to the northwest. The town of Plymouth, a short drive from the faire grounds, holds the waterfront and historic sites that draw visitors to the county in every season, and combining a Saturday at the faire with a Sunday on the coast gives a weekend both its theatre and its sea air.
Why the Faire Matters
Few seasonal entertainments in the region can match the run this one has assembled: a season that its own billing counts as the forty-fifth, a village large enough in the organiser’s description to hold eight distinct regions, and a programme counted in dozens of daily shows. Its survival carries some weight as well. The faire has absorbed a cancelled pandemic year, staged its deferred anniversary season, changed owners and changed grounds inside a few years, and still returned with the same essential offer of jousts, stages and lanes of artisans. For Carver, it brings eight weekends of visitors into a small town each autumn; for its audience, it keeps a form of participatory, costume-friendly theatre alive at a scale that smaller fairs cannot attempt.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which town actually hosts King Richard’s Faire?
Carver hosts the faire, on grounds printed under Carver addresses in the layers read. Plymouth, the first word of the sheet title, names the county rather than the town; Plymouth the town is one of the county’s two seats, alongside Brockton, while Carver holds no seat status in the state reference layer used for this article.
Which weekends carry special themes during the season?
The 2026 season is built from eight themed weekends, according to the news and listing layers. The themes named in those layers include the opening and Labor Day weekend, a pirate invasion, a fandom weekend, a Highland weekend and a Halloween finale at the season’s end, and themed weekends add costume parades and contests to the usual programme.
Do young children pay to get in?
A listing layer’s 2026 prices set no charge for children under four, while children aged four to eleven fall under the tiered child prices that rise across the season alongside the adult tiers. Those figures belong to 2026 and to that layer; they are not a promise about any later season’s arrangements.
What happens when it rains on a faire day?
The layers describing the 2026 season state that the faire runs rain or shine, with gates from mid-morning to early evening on its scheduled Saturdays, Sundays and two Monday holidays. Wet weather is therefore part of the planning rather than a reason to expect a cancelled day, and footwear and outer layers chosen for a wooded site will serve visitors best.
What to Expect From the Next Plymouth Massachusetts King Richard’s Faire Festival
How often is Plymouth Massachusetts King Richard’s Faire Festival held?
The faire returns each autumn as a season rather than a single date, filling Saturdays and Sundays across roughly eight weekends together with the Labor Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day Monday holidays. Both fully documented seasons in the layers read, 2021 and 2026, follow that same weekend pattern.
When is the next Plymouth Massachusetts King Richard’s Faire Festival?
The layers gathered for this article close with the 2026 season, which runs from 5 September to 25 October 2026. Nothing in those layers reaches past that season, so the calendar for any following year will rest on the organiser’s own announcements when they appear.
Will the dates change?
The broad window has proven steady: the 2021 season opened on 4 September and the 2026 season on 5 September, each closing in late October. Exact Saturdays, Sundays and holiday Mondays are fixed season by season, so the pattern is dependable even though individual dates shift by a day or so between years.
What endures about the Carver faire is the completeness of its illusion: a village with regions to wander, a court to hold it together, artisans in the lanes and knights on the field, all of it rebuilt every autumn in the pine woods. However the ownership and the address have changed, that offer has held, and it is the offer the next season will be judged by.
