Concepts to Festivalize Your Event: The Medieval Fair

Festivalization is one of the most powerful ways to add a storyline to your event in Portugal – a theme built to entertain, educate, train, or simply bond and fascinate your crew.

Medieval fairs are a beloved tradition across Europe, and especially on the Iberian Peninsula, where they celebrate our shared history and reconnect people with local culture and traditions in a genuinely entertaining setting. Activity, food, performance, and role play all combine into one strong, immersive storyline.

These fairs are so popular many will spend their summers traveling from one to the next, dressed up and role playing all the way.

Go Discover Portugal now brings a version of this activity to the corporate group as a way to create an immersive experience that fascinates and creates lasting memories dedicated to your group and built around your objectives.

Corporate groups respond to festivalization for a simple reason: it replaces passive attendance with active participation. A single-format event, however well run, asks the same thing of everyone in the room – watch, listen, applaud. A festivalized one gives each person a role to step into, whether that’s haggling at a market stall, watching a joust unfold, or taking a turn in a period costume. That variety means the day works for the whole group at once, not just the people who happen to enjoy whatever the one activity on offer happens to be. And because the format is built around a real story rather than a loose schedule, it becomes something people actually remember and talk about afterward, not just another offsite that blurs into the last one.

The Medieval Fair

In medieval times, the medieval fair would be the highlight of any season. A place to socialise, trade, present local produce, be amazed by a multitude of entertainers and play typical medieval games, some which have been close to forgotten and now reinvented. Our fair uses aspects of each, running the visitors through Portugal’s rich history, entertaining with typical bobos da corte (jesters), fire breathers, and traditional gaita-de-foles bagpipers, feeding with stands that introduce local produce and drinks.

How Do We Corporatise Our Event?

For a bonding team building event, the event by itself can be enough. Your group will be introduced to the fair on the grounds of your hotel or location of choice. A Ceremony Master in medieval custom will provide an introduction and your teams can then rotate through the games, the food stands, and watch our entertainers as they provide performances throughout the event.

For a more bespoke experience built around your objectives, we design a fitted solution that replaces a standard corporate presentation with active, immersive storytelling. Here is how we can integrate a specific corporate objective into the fair: