Every year, more than 300,000 people slip through the gates of King Henry’s village in Shakopee for the Minnesota Renaissance Festival — seven weekends of jousting, turkey legs, artisan stalls, and unapologetic “huzzah!”-ing. The 2026 season is a milestone: 55 years of the country’s most beloved 16th-century village, running weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) August 22 through October 4, plus Labor Day Monday, September 7, and Festival Friday, October 2, from 9 AM to 7 PM, rain or shine.
Here’s the thing about spending a day pretending it’s 1560: it makes sleeping somewhere with actual history feel exactly right. At 300 Clifton, the Eugene J. Carpenter Mansion in Minneapolis’s Loring Park neighborhood, you can trade the village dust for hand-carved fireplaces, hand-painted murals, and a garden hot tub under the stars — a mansion on the National Register of Historic Places, about 25 miles from the festival grounds.
The 55th Season: What’s Happening at the Festival
The village packs 16 stages of live entertainment, more than 250 artisans, over 500 food and beverage selections, and 50-plus games and rides into every festival day — anchored, as always, by full-combat jousting. Each weekend carries its own theme: the season opens with Once Upon a Time (August 22–23), a storybook weekend where kids 5–12 get in free with an adult ticket purchased at the box office, and licensed K-12 teachers and school staff get free admission with a school ID. Later weekends bring Highland Fling, Woofstock, Bold North Adventure, Wine Chocolate & Romance, Art Affair, and Oktoberfest.
Tickets are cheaper in advance: adults $26.95 online versus $29.95 at the gate, with a $48 weekend pass if one day of huzzah simply isn’t enough. One practical note — on-site parking now requires a date-specific parking pass, so either reserve one ahead or use the festival’s free Park & Ride lots.
A Day in the Village, a Night in a Mansion
The festival is gloriously exhausting. You will walk miles of village lanes, cheer a joust, eat something enormous served on a stick, and possibly be knighted. What you need afterward is not a highway-side hotel room — it’s a soak in a four-season garden hot tub under the night sky, surrounded by English gardens.
300 Clifton is the finest example of Georgian architecture in Minnesota, built for lumber baron Eugene J. Carpenter — a man who entertained the artists and industrialists of his day in rooms that still look the part. Book the Grand Edwardian or one of the Estate rooms and your festival weekend gets a second act: carved fireplaces, crystal chandeliers, and morning light through leaded glass.
And because a Renaissance festival crowd appreciates a good secret: ask about Gertrude’s Cistern, our speakeasy and haunted video lounge with heated reclining seats. It’s the closest thing Minneapolis has to a castle dungeon — if dungeons came with cocktails.
Make It a Full Minneapolis Weekend
The festival runs 9 to 7, which leaves your evenings — and Loring Park is a very good place to spend them. Stroll across the park to the Walker Art Center and Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, or explore downtown aboard Minneapolis Trolley Tours. Dinner calls for either the Pillsbury Club — dining inside a Gilded Age mansion, in the spirit of the age you just spent the day in — or a nightcap near Oakland’s on 9th downtown. Loring Park itself, with its lake and gardens, is right outside the mansion’s door.
Timing bonus: the festival’s opening weekends overlap the Minnesota State Fair (August 27 – September 7) and Tame Impala at Target Center on August 28 — so one late-August stay can cover a Renaissance Saturday, a Fair Sunday, and a concert in between.
Book Your Royal Quarters
Seven festival weekends means seven chances — but the best mansion rooms go first, especially where the season overlaps the State Fair. Check our specials and packages (a romantic add-on pairs nicely with Wine, Chocolate & Romance weekend), pick your room, and come home from the 16th century to the 20th — the 1906 version, anyway. Huzzah, and welcome to the mansion.
Keep reading: Where to Stay for Josh Johnson’s Comedy Band Camp at the Orpheum Theatre (August 14–16, 2026)