It’s the first weekend in May! What better way to mark the occasion than with a bit of “faer” fun in the form of a Faery Festival? That’s just what you can do all weekend long at Spoutwood Farm’s Annual May Day Faerie Festival.
The weekend promises to be one of whimsy and magic, featuring live music, dancing, storytelling, various vendors, and so much more. And just as you’d expect, a host of magical beings in attendance, from magicians to goblins, and all those fairies of honor. Then all that exciting ongoing activity that will take place on both Saturday, May 3, and Sunday, May 4.
A springtime tradition dating back to 1991, the Annual May Day Faerie Festival was first initiated by Rob and Lucy Wood at Spoutwood Farm in York, Pennsylvania. Having recently established their 26-acre farm operation a few years earlier in 1983, the Woods created the festival at the suggestion of a friend from the International Herb Growers and Marketers Association. While the festival is first and foremost all about fantasy and fun, the real celebration and driving motivation is to celebrate the natural world by demonstrating a shared connection with the environment.
Through the years, the festival has continued to grow in size and popularity. It’s now renowned for being the largest faerie/fairy festival in the world. It boasts a peak of around 16,000 visitors and an average of 12,000 on the first full weekend in May.
For the first 27 years of the festival’s run, all follies and events were held directly on the grounds of Spoutwood Farms. In 2019, to compensate for the extra space needed to accommodate so many attendees, the event relocated to Marshy Point Nature Center in Middle River, Maryland. As of 2023, the event has found yet another new home at Rocky Point Park—its current location. They operate in partnership with the Baltimore County Department of Recreation and Parks.
The new location is both excellent and ideal for maintaining the festival’s mission, both on the grounds of its fairy motif and its sustainability advocacy initiative. The preexisting backstory established for the festival back when it was held at Spoutwood Farms has even been modified and expanded to explain the move. You can read about it all right here.
Spoutwood Farms operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, educational farm. In addition to hosting this annual festival, they’ve long been known for their 10-year Fall Harvest Festival and have worked several acres of land on their site to be the first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in Baltimore and York County, PA areas (1996-2019). In 2009, they were even recognized for their CSA by the York County AgriBusiness Council and given the Outstanding Ag Industry Award.
The 2025 installment of Spoutwood’s Annual May Day Faerie Festival will be ongoing today and tomorrow at Rocky Point Park, 2200 Rocky Point Road, Essex, Maryland 21221. Festival hours on both days are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The theme is Wings, Wonder, and Whimsy. For more information about the festival, to purchase tickets, or to learn more about Spoutwood Farms, visit the website at www.spoutwood.org.