The Sarasota Medieval Fair Turns 50

The Sarasota Medieval Fair opens its 2026 season Saturday, and Sarasota Magazine is marking this one as the fair's 50th anniversary. The gates open at 9:45 a.m. at the Woods of Mallaranny in Myakka City, every Saturday and Sunday through Dec. 6.

It started in the late 1970s as a scholarly conference. Lee Snyder, a European history professor at New College, dreamed up a campus event with talks, reenactments, and music, and his students ran it. It got popular enough to move next door to The Ringling and take the name Sarasota Medieval Fair, armored jousters and all. Horses tearing up the museum lawn didn't last forever, and the fair went dark in 2001. Three years later, a 17-year-old named Jeremy Croteau brought it back with help from his parents and a crew of volunteers. He still runs it.

That's the part that makes it feel so Sarasota. A college professor's idea, kept going by a teenager, now draws tens of thousands of people a season. It's also the only fair of its kind in Florida that owns its own permanent grounds, and the local volunteers in the cast rehearse every weekend for more than three months before opening day.

Expect full-contact jousting, sword swallowers, birds of prey, the Washing Well Wenches, and a daily Knighting Ceremony, plus a Children's Realm with crafts, dress-up, and storytime. Costumes are welcome, but the organizers have one rule: if you can't wear it to Disney, you can't wear it here.

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