Six miles south of Waxahachie, the Scarborough Renaissance Festival has been running every spring weekend since 1981 — eight Saturdays and Sundays plus Memorial Day from early April into late May. The 35-acre permanent site is built out as a sixteenth-century English market town, with several hundred costumed performers, two jousting fields, a falconry mews, and dozens of artisans demonstrating glassblowing, blacksmithing, leatherwork, and the kind of crafts that thrive in this format.
It is one of the largest Renaissance fairs in the country and pulls heavily from across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Buy tickets online to avoid the gate queue, dress for sun (there is limited shade), and budget for food and drink: turkey legs, mead, and similar fare are the point. The festival is closed outside its spring season.