CARVER (WBSM) -- King Richard's Faire held its official ribbon-cutting ceremony today at its new home, the former Edaville Family Theme Park in Carver, and offered up a tour for dignitaries and the press of its new Carvershire.
The new site takes advantage of most of the existing Edaville structures, including the Dickensian village when visitors first enter the park. Carvershire, which was formerly just in a wooded glen in its original home down Route 58, is now divided into both a Renaissance-era "city" area in addition to its traditional pastoral village. In addition, Edaville's pond has been renamed "Buccaneer's Bay," giving King Richard's Faire a body of water for the first time ever.
"We're filling the entire world of our fantasy world, the cityscape as well as the countryscape," said Ryan Roy, Vice President of Production for King Richard's Faire, who noted that at over 200 acres, the new location is about two to two and a half times the size of the previous location.
About a dozen or so performers welcomed visitors this morning, including King Richard XI and Queen Anne III, who then led the tour throughout the realm. Those in attendance got to see the vision of a larger Faire coming to life; one of the most important aspects, and was stressed frequently by Queen Anne herself, is that the new grounds are ADA-accessible. The previous site, with its dirt pathways and network of roots running throughout, made it hard for those with mobility issues.
Roy said there are 32 new booth structures - many of which were still being constructed, just days before Saturday's official opening - that will be filled with artisans, shops, food and drink, in addition to the existing structures Edaville already had in place.
There will also now be 11 stages for various performances, as well as a new, larger jousting area.
The Faire opens up this Saturday, August 30, and runs weekends and Monday holidays (Labor Day on September 1 and Columbus Day on October 13) through October 30. Gates open at 10:30 a.m. and close at 6 p.m.
Tickets are $46 for adults (ages 12 and up) and $26 for children (ages 4-11). Children age three and under are free. Tickets can be purchased online, with a limited number available at the gate each day.
Back in March, WBSM broke the news that King Richard's Faire would move to the Edaville site after the owner of its former land, Alphonse D'Amico, had opted not to renew the Faire's lease. Lancelot Entertainment Boston, LLC had purchased King Richard's Faire in 2024 from the Shapiro family, which had owned it since Richard Shapiro first created it in 1972 and had run it in Carver for the past 44 seasons.
Roy said the sudden need to move was exciting, because it meant an opportunity for growth.
"(We thought) are we going to be able to do this? Yes, we are," he said. "It was definitely deep breaths along the way, but having this thrust upon us, it was sort of like, where do we go from here? We're going up."
Aimée Shapiro Sedley's parents Richard (the original King Richard) and Bonnie Shapiro started the faire in the Chicago-Milwaukee area back in 1972, and moved it to Carver, Massachusetts in 1982. She grew up "doing everything there is to do, from dancing with the gypsies to selling food or t-shirts."
She's now entering her 30th season working at the Faire and serves as its producer and general manager. She said the new site - which the Faire now owns - is "King Richard's Faire 2.0."
"The previous site, which was beautiful and my parents created from raw woods, had its limitations," Sedley said, noting that this is now the Faire's "permanent" home. "We didn't have a lot of room for growth on the site."
Sedley said the new location allowed for "a much better infrastructure" and that they could "create a brand new realm," and expand to other events as well, "making it bigger and better than it ever has been before."
"The property is bigger, so the nice part is that we can accommodate more people, which is wonderful," she said. "It's not huge crowds like we've had before, where you just feel like you can't move around."
Another major change is how many points of sale there will be around King Richard's Faire; with multiple bars (including The Leaky Toad, an indoor tavern) and food stands, there will no longer be long lines waiting for food or drinks.
In addition, credit and debit cards (which Sedley referred to as "Lady Visa and Master Card") will now be accepted. There will still be the traditional tickets that can be used for purchases as well - King Richard's Faire doesn't use cash - but adding digital payments will be a welcome change for fairegoers.
The mushroom house is one of three structures that were moved from the original Carvershire to the new site, Roy said. He noted that a mushroom is a "symbol of hope and love," and that it would be the same for the new King Richard's Faire.
Parking is free at King Richard's Faire, which ran into some problems at its former site with parking lots filled to capacity on busy weekends, and had worked out a deal to use Edaville's spacious lot as overflow parking with a shuttle between the two.
What will the Faire do now that it only has that Edaville lot?
"The parking we have here is equivalent to the other site," Roy said. "We are working with the town on having a satellite lot."
Many fans of Edaville Family Theme Park were concerned that their beloved train-themed park would cease to exist with the move of King Richard's Faire, and while there are definitely some changes - the rides were auctioned off back in April and the trains moved to Maine - there still are plans for a Festival of Lights once the Faire wraps up.
While we were touring the new King Richard's Faire, Roy gave us some insight into what to expect from the Festival of Lights, which will run November 28 through December 28.
Because some of the permitting took longer than expected, not everything will be fully ready for opening day at King Richard's Faire, and work on some of the artisan booths and other structures will continue in the early weeks of the season.
It's understood that this first year at the new site will be a starting point, and that the Faire will continue to grow in the coming years; for example, Edaville's former screen house-turned-museum building is not being utilized this season, but future plans for it include a Feast Hall and possibly a chapel, where the many weddings that occur at the Faire each season can have a more structured site.
We took plenty of photos during the tour, so check it out for yourself.