High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Texas Renaissance Festival, in Plantersville, Texas, is the world's largest renaissance fair. The Texas Renaissance Festival started in 1974 on the location of an old strip mining site. A Renaissance fair, Renaissance faire, or Renaissance festival is an outdoor weekend gathering, usually held in the United States, open to the public and typically commercial in nature, which emulates a historic period for the amusement of its guests. Some are permanent theme parks, others are short-term events in fairgrounds or other large public or private spaces.