Just a three-hour drive south, you can step back in time 500 years to the village of Larkspurshire and the Colorado Renaissance Festival.
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LARKSPURSHIRE, Colo. – Just a three-hour drive south, you can step back in time 500 years to the village of Larkspurshire and the Colorado Renaissance Festival.
Renaissance festivals are offered all around the country at various times of the year. But they all grew out of the Pleasure Faires of the early 1960s in California, said Jim Paradise Jr., vice-president and director of marketing for the Colorado Renaissance Festival.
The festivals grew both in size and popularity, eventually expanding into Minnesota, with Paradise’s father involved in those early ventures. The expansion continued around the country, with more festivals springing up from coast to coast, until, in 1976 CRF was born.
Renaissance festivals did experience a few dark years, with a more bawdy, risqué atmosphere around both the entertainment and the people who attended. A few years ago, though, the organizers of festivals and faires around the country realized they were alienating a vast audience for their particular type of entertainment and significant changes were made.
“We’ve evolved, not only in expansion of our property, but in the type of patron we attract,” Paradise said. “We’ve become much more family-oriented than what we used to be.