Show dates

Booth layouts

Weathering the storms

Commemorative puzzles

Artist's statement

After having to be cancelled in 2020, the 2021 season of the Maryland Renaissance Festival ran on weekends from August 28 to October 24, 2021, in Crownsville, MD. Organizer: Maryland Renaissance Festival. It was a most welcome and enthusiastically supported refuge from worldly miseries. Folks did bring their masks, as most booths in Revel Grove required it to step inside; others, including Ye Olde Gamery, recommended it. We provided handwipes before play. All workers had to be vaccinated, though that was not required of visitors. A wonderfully good time was had by all. Filmmaker Michele Schultz recorded an hour and a half of making the rounds of the festival, with visits to several booths and impromptu interviews with festivalgoers. See her visit to Ye Olde Gamery starting around 37:00.

More good news:

You can have a virtual visit to Revel Grove all year round—online—to see all your favorite artisans and entertainers on the Festival's website and in the Festival's Facebook Marketplace! Find your favorite artists' website addresses for an online visit and order directly. No need to wait a whole year to treat yourself to wonderful things. And that includes our entire website (you are here).

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2022

January 22-23, 2022....Saturday, Sunday...Hotworks 16th Boca Raton Fine Art Show, daily 10am-5pm. Outdoors, Sanborn Square Park, downtown Boca Raton, FL. Organizer: Hot Works.

February 5-6, 2022....Saturday, Sunday...Longboat Key Festival of the Arts, 500 Bay Isles Rd., Longboat Key, Sarasota County, FL, daily 10am-5pm. Organizer: Howard Alan Events.

February 12-13, 2022....Saturday, Sunday...16th Annual Coconut Point Art Festival, outdoors at Coconut Point Mall, Estero, FL, daily 10am-5pm. Organizer: Howard Alan Events.

February 19-20, 2022....Saturday, Sunday...34th Annual Downtown Sarasota Festival of the Arts, Sarasota, FL, daily 10am-5pm. Organizer: Howard Alan Events.

February 26-27, 2022....Saturday, Sunday...32nd Annual Downtown Stuart Art Festival, Stuart, FL, daily 10am-5pm. Organizer: Howard Alan Events.

March 5-6, 2022....Saturday, Sunday...34th Annual Las Olas Art Fair Part II, Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, FL, daily 10am-5pm. Organizer: Howard Alan Events.

March 12-13, 2022....Saturday, Sunday...31st Annual ArtFest by the Sea, Juno Beach, FL, daily 10am-5pm. Organizer: Howard Alan Events.

April 2-3, 2022....Saturday, Sunday...2th Annual Downtown West Palm Beach Art Festival, West Palm Beach, FL, daily 10am-5pm. Organizer: Howard Alan Events.

August 27-October 23, 2022....Maryland Renaissance Festival 2022. August 27, 28; September 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, 25; October 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, 16, 22 & 23, 2022. Organizer: Maryland Renaissance Festival.

New shows will be added here as they are confirmed.

Our versatile booth layouts

Indoors or out, in large or tiny spaces, on asphalt, grass or boardwalks, with obstructions of lampposts, trees and parking signs, flat or hilly terrain, our booth set-ups are another whole puzzle to solve. Here's a look at our many different looks:

The gamepuzzles booth attracts all ages—scene from our Colorado 2013 tour.
Photo by Dick Jones.

 
The "Don't Know" tavern in downtown Baltimore invited our display for a day in
September 2020, large space, with front open to the street.
Kate in costume, of course, with Covid-19 precautions throughout.
Photos by Dick Jones.

This is our standard indoor display, most recently in Richmond, VA,
well stocked with all the puzzles that can fit.
There's a rug inside so Kate can work barefoot all day.
Photo by Dick Jones.

Our most compact display—a single counter top—at Fairfax High School, 2018.
Photo by Dick Jones.

Our tiny little stall at the Baltimore Christmas Village
(month-long) market, 2014, and the expanded
2015-2019 version, below. Photos by Eric Bare.

Our tiniest ever yet quite impressive display—a single 6-foot table—at the Joint Mathematics Meetings, Atlanta, 2017.   Photo by Alex Streif.

Our well-stuffed display stretching across two hotel tables at the Marriott in Paris, France—at the 37th Annual International Puzzle Party in August 2017.   Photo by Dick Jones.

Our magnificent pavilion, Ye Olde Gamery,
at the Maryland Renaissance Festival
(see interior shot below). Photo by R. H. Grainger.

Weathering the storms

• The Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh in June 2004 had the stormiest weather in memory and inspired this little poem about the plight of outdoor art exhibits.
• The Boca Raton Arts Festival in Boca Raton, Florida, in January 2010 had the coldest weather in decades, with icy rain and nasty winds. It inspired this little verse.
• Coconut Point, Florida, in 2010 greeted us with gale-force winds during set-up. It went like this: Battling the Wind.
• Amish Acres in Nappanee, Indiana, in June 2012 went from idyllic to their worst storm in 40 years within an hour. Here are some photos.
• Wayzata, Minnesota, in June 2013 had a horrendous string of storms starting Friday evening, with the town totally blacked out from power failures. The show was canceled. Here are some verses recounting the event.
• Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Arts Festival in June 2015 set a new world record for take-down: 13 hours. A fourth river—vertical—arrived and kept on for all but 5 minutes every hour. It took us from 8pm to 9am to finish. Read it in verse.
  
  

Special commemorative puzzles (Links open in new window)

• Maryland Renaissance Festival's 25th Anniversary, 2001—This was the first use of our Poly-5 puzzle as an anniversary design. We presented the puzzle, with silver-like frame and numbers, to Jules Smith, general manager of the Festival.
  
  
• SIAM 50th Anniversary puzzle, — designed by Kate with 70 uniquely filigreed square tiles that fill both the SIAM (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics) logo and the number 50.
  
  
• Three Rivers Arts Festival's 50th Anniversary, 2009— Kate designed a special version of our popular Poly-5 puzzle as a golden anniversary commemorative for Pittsburgh's biggest show and presented it as a gift to the organizers.
  
  
• Syracuse Arts & Crafts Festival's 40th Anniversary, 2010 — Our versatile Poly-5 set got a pearlized "40" in a special matching frame. One copy was presented as a gift to the organizers. The rest of this very limited edition sold out to local fans of the show.
  
  
• OHIO 4x4 Puzzle — designed for our Cleveland shows in 2010, the letters O-H-I-O make for a sudoku-like challenge in four colors, plus a sliding block puzzle. It's cool that all four letters are symmetrical and the same upside-down, too. Print it and play.
  
  
• Maryland Renaissance Festival's 35th Anniversary, 2011—Our 35-ball Giant Pyramid was the perfect gift, with a special base and Award of Appreciation for Jules Smith and the Festival staff.
  
  
• Berkshire 9x9 Puzzle — was designed for the 10th Annual Berkshires Art Festival in July 2011. The largest of our sudoku/sliding puzzles, it has 9 colors and 9 letters to print out, cut out and solve.
  
  
• Chicago 7x7 Puzzle — was printed for the North Michigan Avenue's great 20th annual art festival in 2011. You're invited to print it out for yourself and solve its sudoku/sliding block puzzles.
  
  
• Wyandotte 50th Street Art Fair — in 2011 inspired the design of a special 5x5 "50" puzzle that combines a sudoku-like arrangement with a sliding action. Print it, cut out the numbers, and play.
  
  
• Greensboro Craftsmen's Christmas Classic Crafts Festival's 40th Anniversary, 2013 — Our popular Poly-5 set has a frosted metallic blue "40" in a special matching frame and was presented as a token of appreciation to the organizers, Clyde and Tami Gilmore. We've been in their shows since 1984. See also their logo, the little toy soldier, we designed into a puzzle for their Richmond show's 2004 anniversary.
  
  
• Akron Arts Expo —in 2014 shared our own 35th anniversary, and we were happy to present them with a special commemorative edition of our Poly-5 set with embedded numbers 35 and frame in luminous green. Akron has been one of our most beloved shows for over 20 years.
  
  
• Verona, NJ, 30th Annual Fine Art and Crafts—in 2015 was our first time in this show, and we presented the hard-working organizers, Howard and Janet Rose, with a special edition of our Poly-5 puzzle with a "30" embedded and the event name inscribed. Their company is Rose Squared Productions, Inc., so of course the main color was a pearlized pink.
  
  
• The CHAP Convention for homeschoolers in Pennsylvania celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2016, another first for us, and we presented the organization with a special edition of our Poly-5 puzzle with a "30" embedded and the event name inscribed.
  
  
• The Maryland Renaissance Festival celebrated its 40th season in 2016, and we designed and presented to the management a special award honoring the family Smith, five brothers and their father whose incredibly hard work through the decades has made the Festival an enduring success. We've been with them since 1984 and look forward to many more.
  
  
• 50th Annual Artsfest of Greater Harrisburg, 2017—We returned to this nice show in the riverfront park on the banks of the Susquehanna after many years' absence and presented the organizers, Jump Street, with a special version of our Poly-5 puzzle with "50" embedded and the event name inscribed.
  
  
• Brookdale Park, NJ, 30th Annual Fine Art and Crafts—in 2018 we presented the organizers, Howard and Janet Rose, with a special edition of our Kite-Mosaik puzzle suitably inscribed. Their company is Rose Squared Productions, Inc., so we arranged the puzzle pieces in the tray to resemble flower petals.
  
  
• Greensboro Craftsmen's Christmas Classic Crafts Festival's 45th Anniversary, 2018 — Our 45-piece Kite Mosaik set is inscribed with a big "45" on two of the pieces, and "Greensboro Christmas Classic" and "1974-2018 Celebrate!" on the frame. We presented it as a token of appreciation to the organizer, Clyde Gilmore. We've been in their excellent shows since 1984.
  
  

Artist's Statement
Art shows like to have an artist's mission statement posted somewhere in the booth. Here is a one-page statement by Kate about her work that you can print out and share, if you wish:

The playable art of Kate Jones