Get your wings and wands ready. There’s a new fairy festival coming to Easthampton.
The inaugural Fairy & Arts Festival will take place at Nonotuck Park’s Daley Field in Easthampton on Saturday, Sept. 12, from noon to 6 p.m. The festival will have live entertainment; artisans; food vendors selling fairy-themed dishes; a “divination den” with tarot readers, mediums and the like; a trail of “fairy houses”; installations for photo opportunities; storytimes for kids; and more. The event kicks off with a butterfly release in its opening ceremony, courtesy of Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory.
Naturally, guests are encouraged to come in costume — not just because of the spirit of the festival, but to take part in a world record attempt, too. Festival organizers are looking to beat the Guinness World Record for “largest gathering of people dressed as fairies,” last claimed by the British children’s brain tumor charity Anna’s Hope with 878 people in 2018.
“That’s been the main call to action, [that] everyone wants to be a part of making history here,” said Aunyx Burrell, festival founder and president of the nonprofit Enchanted Arts.
To participate, guests need to wear a tutu, wings and a wand, but the festival will have some for guests to borrow if they don’t have their own. Guests participating in the world record attempt also don’t have to be dressed like a fairy the entire day.
“If you wanted to come as Sailor Moon, for example, or you wanted to come as a dragon, throw on the missing elements to complete that look, even just for the photo,” Burrell said. Her own costume will be that of a fairy queen, with wings, a ballgown and a crown.
Burrell is also the owner of Nyxie’s Whimsies, a fairy- and fantasy-themed aromatherapy store that previously had a brick-and-mortar location in Indian Orchard but is now online only while Burrell is in the process of relocating it. She’s been a fan of fairies since she was a child.
She also has a background in theater, but as a younger performer, she found that there were very few roles for Black women, and far fewer, if any, in the fantasy genre. Instead, she said, “I’ve always kind of fantasized and imagined what that looks like, being an African American woman. What does it look like if I am a fairy? What does it look like if I’m a goddess? What does it look like if I’m an elf on an adventure?”
Burrell recalled a time when she took her stepdaughter, who is now 19, to a park when the girl was a toddler. Burrell let her wear her fairy costume, even though it was “nowhere near October, and other little kids were like, ‘Hey, it’s not Halloween!’” she recalled.
“They were so rigid in thinking you only wear your costume at Halloween. And a lot of times, that’s because parents are like, ‘No, we’re not wearing the costume out to the grocery store.’ [I’m] not that kind of mom!” Burrell said with a laugh. “She handled herself, but it’s also always stuck with me to be like, ‘You can wear whatever you want, whenever you want. You’re not hurting anyone by doing that. And if you feel magical today and you feel like you want to be a fairy today, that’s perfectly OK.’”
“We don’t have to wait for Halloween to dress up,” she added. “We can be whimsical any day we want.”
In fact, she considers it an extra bonus that the festival is in Easthampton because of a local belief that the town may have inspired Dr. Seuss’s Whoville.
The theme for this year’s festival is “Believe,” which Burrell said is “at the heart of everything we do.”
“This was a very ambitious project. … This was a huge undertaking, and the fact now that everyone has become a believer, everyone is like, ‘Oh, this is a real thing. This is happening’ — we’re hoping that that spreads so that others can also start believing in themselves,” she said.
Next year, she plans to expand the Fairy & Arts Festival: it’ll be three days instead of one, with more activities, more food, and a new addition: mead. She’s also working on setting up a ball.
“[Guests] have something to look forward to for next year, for sure,” she said.
This year’s festival is still looking for about 15 more volunteers, as of this writing, in various capacities, including performing and handling logistical concerns like registration.
“I want people to leave a little lighter than how they arrive. I want the kids to be inspired to create. I want the artists to feel seen and feel validated in their career choice,” Burrell said. “And I want, especially the adults, but everyone, to remember that imagination is not something that you’re supposed to grow out of.”
Tickets to the Fairy & Arts Festival, not including fees, are $20 for adults, $15 for children ages 3 to 17, or $60 for a “fae circle” of up to four guests. Pay-what-you-can tickets are available exclusively on the festival’s Eventbrite. The first 50 people to arrive will receive festival swag. To purchase regular admission tickets or for more information about the Fairy & Arts Festival, visit fairyandartsfestival.com. The festival is rain or shine.
