Caylee Chua: Singapore’s First Renaissance Fair, Creative Grit and How a 24-Year-Old Built a New Festival Culture – E652

Dec 15

"I'm really excited to introduce this concept to Singapore as an immersive outdoor festival. It is an outdoor event rooted in historical elements, typically from the English Renaissance. You will see people dressed as Queen Elizabeth or Shakespeare, alongside buskers playing period-appropriate instruments like the violin and harp. In recent years, Renaissance fairs have become more fantasy-focused, with people dressing as wizards, fairies, goblins, and rats. These fairs are usually held outdoors, with the most elaborate and established versions found in the United States." - Caylee Chua, Founder of Strawberry Champagne Sparkles

"Compared to other Renaissance Faires, our branding leans more toward fairytale because we wanted something more intuitive and closer to medieval fantasy. The obvious references are Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, but those worlds are very dark, with a lot of death and violence. I tried to think of something adjacent that everyone in Singapore would understand. Many kids grew up with American and Western fairytales like Disney, which also makes the experience more family-friendly." - Caylee Chua, Founder of Strawberry Champagne Sparkles

"I was lucky with my strategy because I started my socials around April or May and used them as a landing page to build an early audience. I did not post on Instagram until August 3rd, and I made that launch a big moment. For the first few posts, every time I published something, I also sent an email asking people to reshare the content. That helped a lot. The early posts got many views because the initial audience really pushed them out, and that momentum helped us unlock more opportunities." - Caylee Chua, Founder of Strawberry Champagne Sparkles

Caylee Chua, multidisciplinary artist and founder of Strawberry Champagne Sparkles, joins Jeremy Au to share how she built Ren Faire SG: The Origin from a niche idea into Singapore’s first Renaissance Fair. She traces her journey from crafting fairycore jewelry to designing an immersive festival that blends artistry, performance, and community play. Caylee explains how early inspiration from overseas fairs sparked her vision, how months of quiet TikTok posts built the first wave of support, and how strict venue rules forced her to redesign logistics with precision. They discuss why Singaporeans crave spaces for imagination, how grassroots creativity grows when subcultures meet, and why young founders can move fast even without industry backing. Their conversation explores the mix of cosplay, crafts, DnD, book culture, and youth communities that shaped the fair, the emotional work behind cold outreach and rejections, and the courage required to keep building when early metrics stay small.

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