MELBOURNE, Fla. – After nine years, one of Brevard County’s biggest annual events will celebrate its tenth anniversary a new location.
The Brevard Renaissance Fair was nearly without a home after a dispute last December when the county didn’t give the fair grant money it relies on to advertise the six-week festival.
Founder and president Pete Moolhuizen said he was also at odds with the county over using Wickham Park, but now there appears to be a resolution that makes both sides happy.
80,000 people who come to the Brevard Renaissance Fair each year will now be putting on their knights’ or peasants’ costumes at a large vacant lot off of Wickham and Sarno roads just a couple miles away from where the fair was.
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Moolhuizen was previously feeling uncertain about the fair’s future in Brevard County, but now he says he’s looking forward to transforming the new 53-acre site.
“This is a huge piece of property,” he said. “It gives us a lots of possibilities of things that we can do that we’ve never been able to do before.”
Moolhuizen told News 6 Reporter James Sparvero he’s already getting prepared.
“We already have teams of volunteers working on different projects for the fair, but we’ll be moving on site Oct. 1 and it will be a full, all-out work schedule until opening day in the middle of January to try to get this site ready,” he said.
Moolhuizen also addressed criticism of the new location.
The site is close to the county landfill.
Moolhuizen playfully called the landfill, “The hills of Melbourne.”
“If there is a little odor coming from ‘The hills of Melbourne,’ it’ll just make it that much more realistic, that much more like the Renaissance period,” he said. “But we haven’t noticed that at all. We’ve been out here a lot.”
The fair will run for six weekends starting in January, as usual.
Moolhuizen said the new site will have new attractions like new performances on new stages.
“Things that people haven’t seen before, and we’re gonna work a lot with local businesses and help them get into the show,” he said.
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