G6Adventures
Calling all knights, elves, pirates, Vikings, and even regular folk just like G6Adventures to the Ohio Renaissance Festival. If you’ve never been, let us help you with some tips as you embark upon the Ohio Renaissance Festival for the first time! Despite having lived in the Cincinnati area essentially our entire lives, we had never attended the Ohio Renaissance Festival previously. We fixed our mistake this year. We went on a whim. It just so happened that we had a weekend day with no travels, no sports games, no birthday parties, nothing. That is an unusual circumstance for us, and, for a few moments, we didn’t even know what to do with the sense of having nowhere we needed to be. So, I started looking up local events.
We’ve obviously heard about the Ohio Renaissance Festival for years, and we’ve always been intrigued by it, but we just never seemed to make it there. We took advantage of our day off, and loaded the kids up in the van. We drove just under an hour to get from our house to the festival grounds. Given the impulsivity of this adventure and our early afternoon arrival, I was a little concerned about parking. But, when we arrived, this concern quickly alleviated. There seemed to be more than enough parking in the fields surrounding the festival grounds. To be clear, it is unpaved parking, but it is free, and they are very organized. We parked and make the short, easy walk to the entry gates in no time.
And, as soon as get close to the gates, you immediately feel like you’ve walked into a time machine. Here are our observations and tips for first timers to the Ohio Renaissance Festival!
Tickets. This is more informational rather than any tips for the Ohio Renaissance Festival. Nonetheless, we’re including it anyway! You can purchase your tickets online or at the gate. You do not get a discount for purchasing online. Because we hurried out the door to get there at a reasonable time, we bought them at the gate. They had multiple windows open, and the line moved quickly. In 2022, tickets are $28 for adults (13+), $10 for children (ages 5-12), and free for kids under 5. Tickets are discounted to $25 for seniors (65+) and military, police, fire and EMS personnel, but the discounted tickets must be purchased at the gate.
Ticket prices include general admission, but you can also purchase special event tickets as well. The special events include the Royal Feast, the Naughty Bawdy Pub Show, the Whiskey Witches of Willy-Nilly Tasting, and the Pub Crawl. We did not partake in the special events, so we can’t speak to those. For our family, we just stuck to general admission!
Themed Weekends. We did not realize that the Ohio Renaissance Festival hosts themed weekends every weekend of its annual run. This year, the themes included Fantasy Weekend, Pirates Weekend, Highland Weekend, Time Travelers Weekend, Viking Weekend, Romance Weekend, Feast of Fools, and Tricks or Treats. Whether you intend to participate in the themed weekend or not, you should check the schedule of events. Some of the themed weekends are overwhelmingly popular and significantly impact the festival crowds.
We attended on the Highland Weekend, which is a high traffic themed weekend. It was a lot of fun to see all of the costumes, but I imagine we probably would’ve seen a lot of costumes regardless of the weekend. In the future, I will check the event schedule and attend a different themed weekend. Particularly, with several kids, including a couple younger ones, it got a little difficult to navigate at times. If it were just the adults, I wouldn’t think twice. But I might not choose one of their busiest weekends again to take the littles. Before you head to the Ohio Renaissance Festival, definitely research the theme.
Cash. Another of our tips for the Ohio Renaissance Festival is to take cash! This one surprised me a bit. In reality, it probably shouldn’t have, but it did. You can buy your tickets with card. Once inside, it’s a bit of a toss-up. Some vendors take cards. Others do not. We were able to buy pizza and bread bowls with card. But, we saw quite a few food vendors that did not accept card. I was incredibly disappointed that I could not enjoy the roasted corn on the cob, because it was cash only.
Several of the product vendors accepted only cash as well. Eric and Mayson wanted to buy a game at one booth, but they didn’t accept card. This one especially surprised me, because some of the games sold for a few hundred dollars, depending on their size. Even if I had brought cash, I would not have brought hundreds of dollars. Many of the activities, such as the maze, required cash as well, much to the disappointment of the littles.
Thankfully, there are ATMs located throughout the festival grounds. We actually had to get $20 out at one point, just to buy water. But, of course, the ATM charges an additional fee, so it wasn’t ideal. I would suggest taking at least a little bit of cash when you go.
Show Schedules. This was probably our biggest fail of the day. The Ohio Renaissance Festival boasts 132 daily performances in 49 shows and on 17 different stages. At any given time, there could be upwards of 13 shows performing simultaneously throughout the festival. You simply cannot see everything. Our non-plan included watching shows as we stumbled upon them. I strongly advise that you do not use this method. We would finish one show only to walk up on the end of a show we would have preferred. Definitely not a strong tactic.
Fortunately, we got lucky a few times, such as when we happened upon the Wheel of Death show. The show is pretty entertaining on its own, but the performer is hilarious. Try to catch him while you’re there. But we truly missed quite a few that we would’ve liked to see. All in all, you should check the show schedule and read the description for each of the performances so that you have an idea where you need to be when.
Bread Bowls. Here, with the bread bowls, we succeeded. We hadn’t been inside the festival gates 10 minutes before the “I’m hungry” chants started. The first food vendor we walked up to had pizza, which is usually a safe bet for our family, so I got in line. A minute or so later, a man holding a massive bread bowl joined the woman in front of us. Mayson and Eric immediately started to whisper and look around trying to figure out where the gooey deliciousness in that bowl might’ve come from.
While they unsuccessfully speculated as to its origins, I simply asked the man what it was and where he got it. He replied, “The macaroni and cheese bread bowl with everything on it from the booth just down from here with the incredibly long line!” That’s all they needed to hear. They immediately jumped ship from the pizza line to join the throngs of others salivating at the opportunity to devour the festival’s apparently incredibly famous bread bowls. Though long, the line moved quite quickly.
Mayson chose to follow the helpful gentleman’s suggestion of the mac-n-cheese with everything bread bowl. Eric opted for the beef stew bread bowl. Both received rave reviews from these two. Mayson failed in her attempt to eat her bowl in its entirety. Eric succeeded in doing so, suffered for the next hour or so in making the regrettable decision to do so. These bowls are suitable to feed more than one person. Whether you decide to share with your family or savor it all by yourself, definitely treat yourself to a festival bread bowl!
Walking Shoes. The festival grounds are quite large. Much larger than I had anticipated. Expect to walk a lot. The permanent village making up the festival grounds is built on 30 acres. Between the shows, the food, and the shops, you cover a LOT of ground over the course of the day. Dress comfortably and make sure to wear comfortable walking shoes. Also, keep in mind that the vast majority of the festival takes place outdoors, so take that into account as well.
“Free” Family Fun. When I say free, I actually mean “included in general admission.” The only free part of the festival is the parking. But I digress. We actually did not know about these activities until after we had already left. I wish we known earlier, especially for our younger ones. One is the Viking Trade. You child can bring to the festival a little bag of “trinkets” they can trade. They just make their trade rune visible, and keep on the lookout for other runes, and they can trade all day. I think this is such a fun idea. I kind of reminds me of Disney pin trading. My kids would get such a kick out of this.
Another family activity I learned about after-the-fact is the Order of the Rose & Skull. With this, you participate in a festival-wide game to protect England. Certain villagers within the festival wear little pink/purple rosebuds on their clothing. If you see one, you can tell them that you are a new recruit and ask for a mission. The villager will then give you a secret code you must take to another agent to complete the mission.
You can also participate in the ORF Finders Keepers activity. Each day of the festival, there are prizes hidden around the festival grounds. The organizers post hints as to their whereabouts on their social media accounts using the hashtag #orfinderskeepers. If you find the prize, you get to keep it. Again, something my kids would’ve loved. Now that we know, we will participate in these fun activities next year.
Embrace It. The final of our tips is to embrace the Ohio Renaissance Festival. As soon as you enter those gates, you feel as though you’ve entered another world or time period, or maybe both. Many people that attend go all out with extensive costumes. Immerse yourself in the fun of exploring a fantastical village. From the people to the performers to the ware you can buy to the food, take it all in. It truly is quite an escape from reality to an adventurous land and time. And, as with most things in life, it is mostly what you make of it. So, go all in and have a blast with it!
As recent first-timers ourselves to the Ohio Renaissance Festival, these are the things I wish I would’ve known before going. Don’t get me wrong. We still had a blast. We left talking about what we want to do the next time we go. So, you can have fun going into as blind about it as we were. But, especially given the cost of entry, these tips should make your day even more fun and adventure-filled. Have you been to the festival? Leave a comment if you have any additional tips for first timers to the Ohio Renaissance Festival. To read more of our adventures, click here.
