Albert Lea’s Bancroft Bay Park will come alive with history Oct. 1 and 2 at the 30th annual Big Island Rendezvous and Festival.

The Rendezvous, the Midwest’s largest historical re-enactment of early America, will feature 1,200 re-enactors representing the lifestyle of the late 1600s to 1880s.

Organizer Perry Vining said there will be everything from entertainment to arts and crafts for sale, colonial cuisine and colonial craft demos.

Weekend workshops include a shoemaker, Civil War artillery, Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd, a blacksmith and rope maker, to name a few.

Various community groups and people will offer a huge selection of specialty foods, including kettle korn, bread baked on site, fry bread, homemade root beer, stuffed baked potatoes, pork chop on a stick, Indian tacos, funnel cakes, wild rice soup and smoked turkey legs.

Main stage entertainment includes RPR — formerly known as Tanglefoot — Alan Munde Trio, Roe Family Singers, Wild Goose Chase Cloggers, Greenwood Tree, Skalley Line and DD & Roscoe.

“The support of this event has been tremendous,” Vining said, reflecting on the years the event has been in existence.

He said he got started with planning rendezvous events after starting one in South Dakota. The game, fish and parks department there asked him to put on the festival to bring up attendance at a park near Webster, South Dakota.

He did this for a two years before moving to Minnesota in 1984. He planned his first rendezvous in Minnesota at Fort Ridgely State Park. After a few years there, he decided to move it to Albert Lea’s Myre-Big Island State Park, where he has been ever since. Vining said his first year, he had only about 43 participants. The next year, that doubled — possibly even tripled, he said.

The event was transferred from the state park to Bancroft Bay Park after a few years, where it has been ever since.

Doors open at 9 a.m. each day.

Tickets are $10 for adults in advance at area grocery stores and banks, Vining said. Family passes are $25. Otherwise tickets are $12 for adults or $7 for children.

Reduce price tickets are available prior to the event.

Education Days will be the two days prior to the public opening of the festival. Vining said an estimated 2,700 students and parents plan to attend from as far away as St. Paul.

People are asked to park at the Freeborn County Fairgrounds and take a free shuttle to the festival entrance.

If you go

What: Big Island Rendezvous and Festival

When: Oct. 1 and 2

Where: Bancroft Bay Park

Cost: $12 for adults, $7 for children, $25 for family pass

Info.: visit www.bigislandfestivalandbbq.org or call 1-800-658-2526