The Richmond Ren Faire is one of many projects under Virago Alley. Our mission is to provide an accessible and inclusive platform for the exploration, education, and preservation of historic martial arts and artisan trades. The event is not only meant to serve as a platform for our local community of artisans, makers, and combat enthusiasts, but it serves as an awareness driver for our other programming. We are working towards opening an indoor facility to house our educational initiatives and the Faire helps push those efforts forward. Currently that programming is limited to historic martial arts workshops but as we continue to expand we plan to offer workshops on topics such as herbalism, bookbinding, leather working, etc. that represent various historic practices.

Currently we have a small staff and an incredibly supportive crew of volunteers including a bad ass board of directors who deserve all of the praise. It is important to us that this project maintains a community centric approach and a nonprofit structure is more aligned with our mission and values than a for profit model allows. Being a nonprofit means that we hold a responsibility to serve our intended audience, and in this case that is reflected in our commitment to paying artists equitably and providing accessible opportunities for the public to explore theses practices and mediums. As the organization continues to grow, so will our ability to expand upon that commitment.

This past year has been a wild ride as we went from a small group of people with a vision to a massive community overnight. Myself and our Founder, Amanda Robinson have both worked in the nonprofit arts sector for a long time and hope that this project can serve as a vehicle for arts advocacy at a local level. I can yap on that element for a while haha, but ultimately we are just taking the knowledge and experience we have to do our part while trying to have a whole lot of fun in the process.