ren fest returns

Texas Renaissance Festival calls Houston lords and ladies to mead up for ale, performances, and more

Barbarian Bombshells Texas Renaissance Festival

The Barbarian Bombshells perform four times each day.

Photo by Caleb Pickens via The Barbarian Bombshells/Facebook

Lords and ladies — and fans of mead: guess what’s back?

The Texas Renaissance Festival has officially opened its doors for the 49th season, welcoming people of all ages to come experience the magic of the nation’s largest and most acclaimed festival of food, fun, and immersive Renaissance experiences. Located one hour north of Houston, the festival takes place over eight themed weekends, running now through Sunday, November 26.

More than 51,000 people attended last week’s opening weekend celebration of The Queen’s Birthday — that’s 33 percent higher attendance than last year’s opening weekend and 43 percent higher than 2021. TRF expects to welcome more than half a million visitors to this year’s event.

The festival’s 55-acre Renaissance village transports visitors to a fantasy world of jugglers, bards, acrobats, games, rides, restaurants, pub crawls, and more than 400 shoppes and artisans. With 21 stages, The King’s Feast, contests and themed celebrations each weekend, there is something for everyone. Parents get free admission for children five and under every Saturday and kids 12 and under every Sunday.

This year’s festival will also host two Deaf Awareness Weekends: this Saturday and Sunday (aka the Weekend of 1001 Dreams) and November 18-19 (for Highland Fling Weekend). These weekends will feature American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters at dozens of shows and events taking place.

“It has been our honor to host Deaf Awareness events every year since 2015, to celebrate diversity and create more inclusive and accessible festival experiences for our deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing patrons,” said Todd Wold, marketing director for the Texas Renaissance Festival.

Here is a full list of Ren Fest's themed weekends, per the lords at Ren Fest.

Oct. 14-15: 1001 Dreams
This weekend is devoted to fairies, elves, and other fanciful. Attendees may participate in the fantasy costume contest or show off their skills in the fiery dragon-wing eating contest. As noted above, this weekend is also a Deaf Awareness weekend featuring American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters for Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing patrons.

Oct. 21-22: Pirate Adventure
This weekend features a Best Dressed Pirate costume contest and a Fish-N-Chips eating contest.

Oct. 28-29: All Hallows Eve
Extra ghouls and ghosts will appear throughout the grounds. Attendees may participate in a Halloween costume contest and Kettle Korn eating contest — both for “spook-tacular” prizes.

Nov. 4-5: Heroes and Villains
Indulge in creative anachronisms at this weekend devoted to heroes and villains both real and fictional from across time. Does that mean Hercules versus Thanos in this weekend's costume content? Maybe. Or they'll square off in the gyro eating contest.

Nov. 11-12: Barbarian Invasion
Feasting and plundering will be featured as attendees compete in the worst dressed barbarian and a turkey leg eating contest.

Nov. 18-19: Highland Fling
If it's not Scottish, it's crap at this weekend that features Highland games, a Bonnie Knees costume contest, and a haggis eating contest (recitation of Robert Burns strongly encouraged). This is also a Deaf Awareness weekend featuring American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters for Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing patrons.

Nov. 24-26: Celtic Christmas
As always, the event wraps up with a three-day celebration of the coming Yule-tide season. The entire village is decorated for the holiday with festive music, a costume contest, a pumpkin pie eating contest, and a chance to shop the vendors at a discount.

Stay and Play:
More than 200 acres of camping facilities offer a great value for patrons and families who spend the weekend. New Stay and Play packages that offer a great value for patrons and families who stay for the weekend. They include:

Festival admission for both Saturday and Sunday
Weekend camping pass (Thursday to Monday) at the Fields of New Market
Access to special Fields of New Market events, including fun activities for kids at the Apprentice Gazebo
Excitement for adults with admission to The Knight’s Club after hours party (age 21+).

The Texas Renaissance Festival has established daily capacity limits to ensure that every patron experiences the festival at its best, so advance ticket purchases are advised.

For more info and tickets, go here.

Movie Review

Billie Eilish takes fans behind the scenes in immersive 3D tour film

Photo by Henry Hwu/courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Billie Eilish in Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D.

In 2021, at the tender age of 19, singer Billie Eilish was already the subject of a documentary, The World’s a Little Blurry. At that point, she had only released one album, so the film threatened to feel too early for such treatment. The ensuing five years have only made her a bigger star, though, so in many ways that movie now feels prescient for the person on display in the new concert documentary with the unwieldy title of Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D.

Directed by Eilish and blockbuster filmmaker James Cameron, the film takes viewers inside Eilish’s 2024-2025 tour in support of her latest album, 2023’s Hit Me Hard and Soft. Filmed mostly at her series of shows in Manchester, England, the movie is a showcase for Eilish’s music, but it also serves as a smaller exploration of the type of person she is, as well as the impact she has had on her legion of fans.

The draw of the film is the use of Cameron’s beloved 3D technology, which he has employed in each of the three Avatar films. Unlike in those films, where the 3D has the odd effect of making the visuals too realistic for their own good, the technique brings an intimacy to the large-scale show that underscores the unique bond the singer has with her supporters.

Eilish and Cameron go back and forth between performances at the concert to behind-the-scenes sequences, detailing the enormous effort it takes to put on a show like that and how Eilish spends her time getting ready for it. As in The World’s a Little Blurry, this film continues to portray the singer as down-to-Earth, someone who yearns to maintain the connection to her fans that she’s had since she released her first single, “Ocean Eyes,” 10 years ago.

And as the many emotional songs in Eilish’s concert playlist prove, the feeling from the crowd is mutual. While Eilish has multiple bangers like “Bad Guy,” “Therefore I Am,” and the Charli XCX collaboration “Guess,” it’s the sad songs like “Everything I Wanted,” “Happier Than Ever,” and the Oscar-winning Barbie anthem, “What Was I Made For?” that hit the hardest. The depth of feeling emanating from her many sobbing fans singing along to crushing songs cannot be understated.

For audiences of the film, though, it’s the breadth of camera angles and shot choices that make it truly dynamic. There are cameras everywhere, including in the crowd, inside a cube at the center of the stage that rises and descends, following Eilish as she traipses every inch of the long, rectangular stage, and even a small one Eilish uses to bring an extra personal touch to the in-arena screen. Combined, they capture the complete energy of the concert, something that is not always the case in a film of this type.

Eilish has almost as many movies — two — as she does albums — three — which borders on overkill for a singer of her age. But both her music and the movies show her to be a person who knows the responsibility of being a celebrity, someone who understands that her fans are the reason she’s famous at all. Her career may go up or down from here, but it’s clear she’s already made a huge impact on those who love her most.

---

Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D opens in theaters on May 8.

movies film