Sonya does all she can to convince me to write something for the website at least once a Faire season. Sometimes she succeeds, but more often then not, the Faire comes and goes before I have time to sit down and collect my thoughts. This year I was able to co-host the opening tour of the Fairelands on FFR with Zander Greene. I love the audio introduction to the regions which has become the traditional opening of Fantasy Faire. To be part of welcoming Fairelanders home after months away is a gift I feel very fortunate to share with Zander. The soundtrack sets the stage for the adventures awaiting Faire visitors in the coming days as they start off on their explorations of the assembled worlds.

It also gave me a chance to say something that I felt needed to be said. I didn’t want to simply welcome people to the 2025 Fantasy Faire. I wanted to welcome Fairelanders home. I wanted to embrace each of you and thank you for returning. For bringing your light back to the Fairelands. For contributing to the magic that fuels the Faire and flows through our community, illuminating our time together and creating enough residual energy that we continue to glow with the warmth and brilliance of the Faire for months to come. No darkness can survive the light of our community.

We came to a Faire full of darkness, but not hopelessness. We found the hope in every shadowed corner and embraced it. Arriving from a physical world full of increasing challenges, we came together in the Fairelands reaffirming our friendships and our shared desire to make a world where the Unweaver’s influence shrinks every day. Where every action, large or small, monetary or emotional, brightens the strength of our heart lights and makes the darkness across realms retreat.

I knew coming into this year that my goal was not to reach some number on a RFL kiosk. I knew whatever we raised during the course of the Faire would be life changing to people around the globe. But I also knew that the act of being a community of Fairelanders together would also change our lives for the better. I look at the RFL kiosk in front of me as we prepare for the regions to fade back into the Mists and I am shocked at what we were able to do in a year as turbulent as 2025. I am even more shocked when I realize that in the rush of all the things, there was no good time for me to add additional funds to our total, including the store and sponsorship donations, the website donations, and the wootable and memorial candle sales. All told the final total for this year’s Faire is 31,980,309L (still going up) or 127,921usd.

Take a moment for that to sink in.

In 2025 we not only raised a bit more than we did last year BUT we also crossed the point where Fantasy Faire has now raised over 1 million USD lifetime total. All I wanted was for us to be together. To be happy and remember that we each carry the light of the Fairelands in our hearts throughout the year, but during the Faire, we are a bonfire! Then you went and raised an unprecedented amount of money for the global cancer programs that the American Cancer Society supports on top of that. What more is there to say? Unweaver, go away! There is no place for you to play today. Faire on!

Oh and there WILL be a party Relay Weekend, June 6-7. Don’t think there won’t be. We are going to rock Relay to it’s foundations as only Fairelanders can!

With Love and Appreciation,

Elizabeth aka Fantasy