Ren Faire, a new three-part series available on streaming service Max, is wilder than your average docuseries. Billed as a real-life mash-up of Succession and Game of Thrones, the show from director Lance Oppenheim follows an epic power struggle at the world’s largest Renaissance fair, the Texas Renaissance Festival.
The annual festival, which takes place over a staggering eight weekends in October and November in the tiny city of Todd Mission, brings together hundreds of thousands of costumed fans keen to immerse themselves in an alternate reality – and drink plenty of mead. The event’s name is something of a misnomer – while Renaissance outfits are certainly on display, there’s no claim to historical accuracy here and you’re also likely to see haphazardly thrown-together elements of medieval Europe, Victorian England, the Scottish Highlands, the Wild West and even fantastical steampunk creations.
The festival was started back in 1974, founded by brothers George and David Coulam, but after David’s death in 2017 his sibling George is now preparing, at the age of 86, to step aside. He’s preparing for the final curtain in his own idiosyncratic way. In the trailer for the series, the octogenarian proudly declares: “The perfect way to go would be to have a woman screw me to death. That’s my goal.”
Before he meets his mortal end, Coulam wants to find somebody to take over the festival. However, that process is far from straightforward as Ren Faire makes clear. The heir apparent to “King George” is Jeff Baldwin, who has worked his way up to the position of general manager during his 43-year association with the festival. Baldwin has proven himself capable of dealing with all the stresses and strains that come with running the sprawling event (500,000 attendees, 400 vendors and 21 stages spread over 55 acres), but there are Kendall Roy-style question marks over whether he’s dynamic enough to take over the reins of the company.
His primary rival is Louie Migliaccio, known as the “Lord of the Corn” because he runs the festival’s lucrative kettle corn franchises. Migliaccio comes from a wealthy family of investors who he believes can be persuaded to buy Coulam out. He dreams of modernizing the festival, bringing in “EDM festivals” and “immersive technology”. He’s an unconventional rebel, but he does seem to have found an ally in the festival’s powerful and hard-working vendor coordinator/elephant trainer Darla Smith, although she could also seek the throne herself.
Much like his Succession counterpart Logan Roy, Coulam seems to enjoy the power he wields capriciously over his subjects more than he’s concerned about actually finding the best person to take power when he’s gone. In the end, however, he will be forced to decide who will wear the plastic crown.
The first episode of Ren Faire is available to stream now on Max. The second and third episodes will stream from June 9
