Hundreds of people welcomed spring with open arms and fairy wings during the Tulip Fairy & Elf Festival on Pearl Street.
The Sunday festival had dozens of activities for kids and live musical performances to welcome the 15,000 tulips along Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall.
Chesalon Piccione, a volunteer at the festival, said that she first came across the festival last year. She was confused why she had run into so many fairy wings that day. But she thought the event was incredibly cute, and she knew she wanted to be involved.
“I think in Boulder there is an acceptance of fantasy without making it illicit. You can just be fun,” Piccione said.
Alongside the festival being unapologetically whimsical, Piccione said, the festival is also unabashedly feminine. She explained that as people grow up and people get evaluated as adults, people learn to become insecure and it becomes easy to let go of things that will provoke others to not take someone seriously.
Rosalie the Rose Fairy, known by her human name Rebekah Woolverton or as Wandering Rabbit Cosplay, said that the Tulip Festival is one of her favorite days of the year as it is a great opportunity to show off her wings.
“The world is so gloomy, and there are so many things to be sad about,” Woolverton said, “sometimes you need to just budget out a day for joy.”
She said that the festival is about embracing whimsy, creativity and not letting people tell you who you aren’t, even if that someone is a fairy.
Jennifer James, dressed as the fairy Meadow, describes herself as always having been “a bit of a goblin,” as she loves snails, butterflies, flowers and greenery. Her fairy persona has the name love of nature.
“I think we lose touch with nature and our connection and being part of it,” James said.
She said that having events such as the Tulip Festival is a great way to reconnect with the same feelings someone may have had as a child when they still believed in magic.
