Hocking Hills Gears up for Medieval Festival

HOCKING HILLS, OH – Hocking Hills is getting ready to travel back in time to the Medieval Times.

On August 23rd and 24th at the Hocking County Fairgrounds will be the Hocking Hills Medieval Festival.

Kevin Knight, the Founder of the Medieval Festival, says the idea for an event like this came to him and his wife about three years ago and now it’s bigger than they could’ve imagined.

“My family always been really big into medieval history, we always frequent the really big Ohio Renaissance Festival every year but with as busy as our lives have gotten with children and jobs and careers we just, we were hoping to get something started closer to home so about three years ago we went to a local brewery and asked is there any way we can possibly use your brewery space to start a festival.” Knight said. “They weren’t quite sure, they thought it would be interesting so they thought they’d give it a shot and well basically 3 years ago we started in the back yard and this year we’re going to be at the Hocking County Fairgrounds with hopefully 15,000 to 20,000 people.” (8:41- 9:08)

Ryan Wesney and Justin Cordle are two participants that will be showing what it was like to battle another knight during Medieval times at the festival.

They took some time to provide some details about the gear they wear and how it protects them during their battles.

“For safety issues, it’s a little bit different then what they would’ve used in medieval times. It’s still fairly close, it’s just got a few more things to keep us from, where they weren’t as quiet as concerned with breaking bones in real combat, we don’t want broken fingers because we’re going to be doing this again next weekend too.” Wesney said. “That’s how a lot of our armor works. This one in particular this one is particularly made out of plate, underneath the fabric has overlapping plates so it’s got a lot of mobility.”

“Our helmets are probably the most overbuilt things, of course to protect your head, 3 to 4 millimeters thick around the top.” Wesney said.

“3 millimeters on the top.” Cordle said. “So your helmet’s basically built at 3 millimeters thick because of head concussions and all that. The armor is 2 millimeters thick but helmets are all 3 millimeters thick. You can get to 2 millimeters but it dents easier, it might get stuck on your head.”

If you are interested in heading to the Hocking Hills Medieval Festival, you can visit their Facebook page for more information.