But behind the revelry, King Richard’s Faire, or at least the company that bought it last year, is embroiled in a battle more befitting Westeros than Merrie Olde England.
In a lawsuit filed in Plymouth County Superior Court, fair owner Lancelot Entertainment Boston has accused its former landlord, 98-year-old Alphonse D’Amico, of a secretive plot to evict King Richard’s Faire and supplant it with his own rival kingdom.
Or, as the lawsuit has it, D’Amico pretended to negotiate a lease renewal while “secretly orchestrating a competing enterprise and trying to handicap Lancelot’s ability to stop him.” The enterprise in question: a “knock-off version of the Faire at the Faire’s old site.”
“The scheme culminated,” King Richard’s attorneys argue in the suit, with D’Amico applying for permits and telling Carver officials “he would be running King Richard’s Faire in the coming years.”
“‘Don’t worry, there WILL be a Faire on the property,’” Lancelot alleges he told one builder, adding the festival ”would ‘continue for the next 100 years.’”
D’Amico has denied many of the claims.
It “was not our goal to try to open a competing event,” he said in a statement to the Globe. It “saddens me that the King Richard’s Faire has been relocated.”
What D’Amico does not dispute, however, is that his associates pursued festival-related licenses, registered a limited partnership named “Camelot Renaissance Village,” and met with town officials about “hosting a Renaissance Faire.”
Meanwhile, the landlord has leveled his own allegations against the fair’s new owners. He claims Lancelot misrepresented its intentions when it sought his approval of the sale, then underpaid him his share of the proceeds. The company later tried to ram through a cheaper lease, he adds, all while negotiating behind his back to buy a new property.
“Lancelot Entities resorted to misrepresentations, intimidation and threats,” D’Amico argues in court filings, calling the lawsuit “a clear attempt to continue the intimidation.”
Lancelot attorney Aaron Rosenberg said the company “strongly disputes Mr. D’Amico’s allegations,” adding that it “looks forward to proving them false in the ongoing litigation.”
Now in its 44th season, King Richard’s Faire began renting from D’Amico in 2000. Over the next quarter century, the fair’s original owners transformed the wooded expanse into a LARPer’s 16th-century delight, with multiple stages, permanent structures, even a jousting field.
Billing itself as “The New England Renaissance Festival,” King Richard’s today attracts visitors from across the region, who this season pay about $52 with fees for a day of Tudor-era revels, albeit with wireless mics, bottled water, and Bloomin’ Onions.
But in 2024, with the fair’s 25-year lease set to expire, King Richard’s original owners began negotiating to sell the festival to Lancelot, an investment group that has recently bought festival companies in other states.
D’Amico says he began negotiating a lease extension with the Lancelot group in the spring of 2024, months before it bought the fair in August. The buyers needed his “contractually required” approval of the sale, D’Amico says, adding he was entitled to a “sale participation payment” worth 25 percent of the transaction’s proceeds.
The parties signed a memorandum of understanding in June that included a base annual rent of $1.5 million.
With that assurance in hand, D’Amico says, he approved the sale in August, at which point Lancelot paid him $850,000 — his 25 percent “participation payment.”
The landlord now believes the six-figure payment was “far below” what it should have been, arguing the sale price was “artificially lowered” to reduce his payment.
But the relationship really began to sour last October.
That’s when, D’Amico says, Lancelot submitted a “redlined version” of the lease with a “rent reduction of more than 73 percent — from $1,500,000 agreed to in the MOU to $400,000.”
“[S]hockingly,” he adds, Lancelot said it was “prepared to relocate” if they couldn’t reach an agreement on the revised lease.
“Lancelot Entities took advantage of D’Amico,” his attorneys argue. Had he known the fair owners ”were going to obtain his approval and then wholly disregard their prior representations . . . he never would have consented” to the sale.
Meanwhile, the fair’s new owners say they were also caught off guard in October when they discovered D’Amico had been telling people he planned “to replace the Faire with a new, competing renaissance festival” and “soliciting the Faire’s employees and vendors to help him with this new venture.”
D’Amico says Lancelot told him to steer clear of the property and “not to speak to anyone in our business, period.”
It soon followed up with a cease-and-desist letter, which he says accused him of “attempting to sabotage” Lancelot’s business and “preparing to directly compete” on the very grounds “Lancelot has established as a renowned destination.”
Nevertheless, the tense negotiations continued, and both parties say they sought an extension even as the lease expired at the end of last year.
Lancelot says it was “blindsided,” then, on Feb. 20, when D’Amico “abruptly terminated lease negotiations — revealing the full extent of his calculated deception.”
The company says D’Amico’s outreach to former employees and others was far broader than was previously known. In January, “while Lease negotiations were still underway,” D’Amico’s niece was named registered agent of “Camelot Renaissance Village.” Then, “just three days after abruptly cutting off negotiations,” one of D’Amico’s associates submitted applications for entertainment and liquor licenses for Camelot Village. Meanwhile, his niece emailed Carver’s police chief to request a meeting, describing D’Amico’s earlier discussion with town officials about “hosting a Renaissance Faire.”
“D’Amico had never negotiated in good faith,” fair owners say. “His true objective” was to stall for time so Lancelot couldn’t mount a fair “that would serve as a viable competitor to D’Amico’s planned festival.”
In his statement to the Globe, D’Amico said they registered the Camelot venture for an unrelated estate matter and pursued permits to clear the way once Lancelot became a tenant.
Meanwhile, property records indicate that on Feb. 19, one day before D’Amico purportedly ended negotiations, a Lancelot-related entity purchased the old Edaville Family Theme Park, a railroad-centric spread a short distance from the fair’s old home.
D’Amico now alleges Lancelot had been angling for its own property as far back as 2024, something it did not disclose until it owned King Richard’s. He adds that when Lancelot countered with a reduced rent offer, it knew it could “move operations to the Edaville property” if D’Amico didn’t agree.
D’Amico changed the locks at the old fair site in late February, cutting off Lancelot (and many fair vendors) from equipment stored on the property.
Lancelot sued in federal court. The case was later dismissed, but not before the parties agreed to a move-out schedule and D’Amico promised not to run a competing Renaissance festival this year.
In the state suit, Lancelot says the entire episode has cost it dearly. The prolonged negotiations meant move-out costs skyrocketed, and that the fair’s owners wouldn’t have time to build structures at the new site, The result: This year’s fair would be a “subpar ‘tent show.’”
Nevertheless, the new site seemed to have several new buildings on a recent visit, everything from an archery range to a shop selling tiaras, garlands, and crowns.
Lounging on a grass mound, Annie Chan said that between the legal drama and the new festival site she’d been a little trepidatious about attending this year’s fair.
“The way it was presented online was that this spot is going to be completely modernized,” said Chan, who dressed in a black ensemble that channeled “a dark, gothic queen kind of vibe.”
But after walking around, she said, she was pleasantly surprised: “It’s still a magical spot.”