The Third Annual Maryland Faerie Festival in Upper Marlboro was saturated with art, music and fairy family fun!
Faerie Festivals
There are a number of ways to spell faerie, but the Maryland Faerie Festival uses the spelling most popular in the faerie culture. It’s the spelling Edmund Spenser used in The Faerie Queene, which is considered to be a metaphorical tale of Queen Elizabeth I. Other festivals and faerie lovers use various ways of referring to the world of fae.
A riot of colors encompased the festivities, from the May Pole ribbons to the sizes and styles of fairy wings.
Both festival visitors and vendors wore costumes of limitless imagination. Vendors and performers came from as far away as North Carolina and Pennsylvania to sell their faerie finery.
Economically speaking, faerie festivals are as valid an economic engine as other festivals. In fact, the culture crosses several genre boarders and draws enthusiasts from the science fiction and science fantasy lovers’ population as well as from Renaissance Festival enthusiasts.
The largest festival on the East Coast and is the Spoutwood Fairie Festival in Glen Rock, PA which drew about 12,000 visitors last year. And, possibly the most extensive and widely attended faerie festival in the United States is the FaerieWorlds festival in Vental, Oregon.
This fantasy culture has inspired the publication of Faerie Magazine which, in addition to wonderful graphics, stories and information, compiles an annual list of faerie festivals, including links and the number of years the festival has been running. There are several large U.S. festivals in California, Indiana and Arizona, and more in Canada and the U.K.
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ilyAIMY on stage |
Faerie festivals have become so popular that the first annual faerie convention FaerieCon International is taking place this October at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. Widely attended conventions such as this are a good source of revenue for host cities and the establishments that serve convention attendees.
Performers & Vendors
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