All's Faire in Texas

Texas Renaissance Festival on track for first season since founder's death

Diners at the King's Feast, one of several signature activities at this year's festival.

Photo courtesy of Texas Renaissance Festival

The country's largest Renaissance fair is gearing up for another year in Todd Mission, Texas, about an hour northwest of Houston. The Texas Renaissance Festival (TRF) has shared its lineup for 2025: aside from classics like turkey legs, jousting, and markets, fans can look forward to a variety of one-of-a-kind signature experiences like a royal feast and blacksmithing. The season will run from October 11 through November 30.

Fifty years ago, TRF began with just three stages and 15 acres of land. The first few years were made up of small improv troupes and a bevvy of merchants selling their wares. Cut to present day, and TRF covers more than 70 acres with a 16th-century English village, camping areas, and rides, and hosts more than half a million visitors each year.

Since 2024, it's become even more famous (or infamous) on HBO thanks to a dramatized docuseries, followed by a lawsuit determining the festival had to be sold and the founder's 2025 death.

"All of the vendor contracts are in place for 2025," attorney Hanszen Laporte told CultureMap Houston in May. "Everyone who was already there will be there this year. Maybe one Dippin' Dots guy here and there will be swapped out with another, but we're sticking with what works."

Suffice it to say, TRF has all the basics and more in its robust daily schedule; the signature activities are good option for those who want to dive a little deeper into the Renaissance world. Here are some notable signature activities for this year's festival season.

All ages:

Escape Room Adventures: Guests can solve puzzles, unlock secrets, and outwit pirates, wizards, and dwarves in these immersive and themed escape rooms. Prices range from $19.99-$29.99 per person, depending on the game. Private bookings are available (and encouraged!) with a four-ticket minimum.

Dragon Forge Experience: Here, festival-goers can forge their own keepsake, guided by a master blacksmith. Prices range from $35-$600, depending on what sort of "armament" guests select.

Tea and Strumpets: Those who have been to the Renaissance Festival before know it can be a cacophony of noises and activity. To create an escape from the chaos for a while, TRF offers a tucked-away tea room above the revelry. Guests can choose between high tea (with snacks) or a Sunday-only Renaissance Tea. The price is $65 per person.

21 and up:

Odin’s Table Wine Tasting: This interactive journey will guide guests through five distinct Haak wines, where each sip is paired with bard-like storytelling and finished off with a chocolate and Madeira dessert. The price is $34.50 per person and includes a commemorative TRF wine glass.

The King's Feast: For this special feast, guests are invited to join the King and Queen of the Renaissance Festival themselves for a two-hour interactive dinner theater. Expect bawdy songs and a six-course feast with plenty of libations. The price varies depending on where you want to be in the King's court; general seating is $130 per person, while VIP seating is $250 per person.

Wyrmwood Public House: Imagine a Renaissance-style speakeasy with craft cocktails, vaudeville curiosities, absinthe tastings, burlesque, circus performers, and magic acts all under one lavish roof. This multi-story building includes different (adult-only) delights on each floor. Prices range depending on your chosen level of debauchery. Green Hour Shows (including vaudeville acts) range from $93.50 to $325.40, and absinthe tastings cost $55 per person.

There are plenty more all ages and adult-only activities at this year's festival, and details, including how and when to book, can be viewed on the Family and Lords and Ladies pages of the TRF website. According to a press release, advanced reservations for these activities are highly encouraged, as "these exclusive experiences sell out each season."

renaissance faire crafts tea wine cocktails festivals

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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