POCATELLO – A festival, where fans of all kinds of fiction can be themselves, will return to the Gate City once again.
Mystic Realms Fantasy Fair
will take place on the last weekend of June, and will offer a variety of new vendors, food trucks and entertainment. One of the festival’s founders pointed out that because it’s not explicitly a Renaissance Fair, lovers of many genres of fiction can – and have – connected with likeminded people and established lifelong relationships.
“There’s tons of people who are interested in similar things as you, and they are willing to become friends, and they will become great friends … it’s a great way to just interact with new people,” said Deneb Edwards, who co-founded the fair with Michael Collins.
The festival will be held over the course of three days from Friday to Sunday, on June 27, 28, and 29 at the Bannock County Fairgrounds, located at 10588 Fairground Drive.
Tickets
will go for $10 for ages 8 and up, with younger kids getting in free, or $20 for an all-weekend ticket.
Before founding the Mystic Realms, Edwards and Collins were friends who met at a Renaissance Fair. The business partners started the fantasy fair in 2023 and found success filling the hole left in the community after Snake River Fandom Con closed in 2019 after two years.
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The past two fairs both exceeded their expectations, the first bringing in 2,800 attendees in two days and the second bringing in 3,400 people over the course of three days. They didn’t expect to see more than 800 people in their first year.
Edwards attributes a part of this success to people’s attitudes towards being a fan-of-fiction changing overtime, as well as to the boom that Renaissance Fairs saw after COVID-19.
“We just haven’t had any outlets like (Snake River Fandom Con). And then post-COVID, the Renaissance Fair scene itself has exploded. Every Renaissance Fair we do is bigger every year since,” Edwards said.
He later continued, “But I think it’s also the stigma of being yourself, a nerd or a geek … has fallen away so that people are excited to go out and do things like this.”
Edwards said that the fair has a variety of around 10 to 15 new vendors, such as Blondie’s Place, which sells Renaissance Fair clothing, Elwen Cottage, an antique shop in Pocatello and Thee Dragons Hoard, which sells a variety of pendants, crystal wands, as well as Pokemon and Star Wars characters carved into gemstones.
People will also be able to buy food from six different food trucks, including Beixy’s Kitchen, Wild Noodle and TexaSmoke BBQ.
For entertainment, there will be a number of new wandering musicians and illusionists wandering around the fair. People will also be able to hear music from Archer Flynn and The Idaho Rovers, take pictures with mermaids, watch The Comedy Project perform an improvised fantasy story and more.
Edwards said that the fantasy fair is a good way to meet people who have similar interests, because despite the variety of genres, it brings together people who are all fans of fiction. He has even seen people make life-long connections at the fair.
“It’s an environment where we’ve had, over the course of the last two years, some of our volunteers have gotten together and married,” Edwards said. “They meet through channels like this, and it’s a great way to just interact with new people.”
