By: Michael Wayne O’Neill
Sports Editor
Every fall, the Carolina Renaissance Festival has provided a decade-long outlet for Amanda Alling’s fascination with medieval characters and the cheery tricks they play.
Alling, Wingate’s assistant director of campus involvement, calls herself a “RenFestFanatic.” Her first trip to the festival—held since 1994 on 25 acres of woodlands each autumn near Huntersville, N.C.—came when she was 15 years old. She immediately found her new community, thanks to a special guide she had by her side.
“They were Union County locals incredibly used to going to the fair each year,” Alling recalls. “It was old hat to them, but to a 15-year-old like me, it was transformative. My earliest memory of the festival, after having gone for more than a decade at this point, was when I got a Henna tattoo at one of the [exhibition] stands.”
Alling felt acceptance and happiness from everyone she encountered at the six-week festival, which is held annually on weekends from late September to mid-November. She usually goes all out by dressing in theme-related outfits. It has since become another routine to build a wardrobe collection. She has costumes ranging from “Game of Thrones” to steampunk outfits to detachable elf ears that are glued on.
“No outfit or theme idea is off limits for me now,” said Alling, a 2018 Wingate grad who also earned her MBA in project management at the university. “There is something so freeing about being able to wear a huge, elaborate costume on some random Sunday in October.”
The Carolina Renaissance Festival is one of the largest Renaissance fairs in the country and is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year on the pristine site off Poplar Tent Road in northern Mecklenburg County. Visitors can experience such events as jousting by armored knights on horses, falconry demonstrations and an array of live performances by the festival’s traveling troupe of actors, singers and dancers.
Today, as a longtime volunteer performer, Alling enjoys passing on the riches and history of the festival to newcomers and watching them fall in love with the environment. She suggests anyone going this year to check out a new “Witch Trial” act.
“I’d strongly recommend seeing at least one of the bouts of the jousting at least once,” Alling said, “There are three showings a day, and they are always a blast. None of the shows ever disappoint, even seeing them year after year… The family that they have created is so special for me to watch. They never fail to make me feel like I’m a part of the festival family, even if it’s only for a few weekends.”
The medieval theme park is open to visitors each Saturday and Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. through Nov. 18. Tickets are $32 for adults and $20 for children 5-12. Parking is free and no pets are allowed. For more information and details on how to get there, visit the festival’s website at carolina.renfestinfo.com.
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