You don’t have to travel to a faraway kingdom (or even a big city) to have a fantasy-inspired experience. Next week, you’ll only need to travel to Holyoke.
Fox and Ember Fantasy Ball, an event for fans of the “romantasy” (a portmanteau of “romantic fantasy”) book genre, will debut at The Log Cabin in Holyoke on Friday, Oct. 23. The new ball, which is exclusively for guests 21 and older, is inspired by the Sarah J. Maas book series “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” also known to romantasy fans as “ACOTAR.” In fact, the event was timed to take place before the next book in the series, “A Court of Splintered Harmony,” releases on Tuesday, Oct. 27.
Still, co-founder Michael Henderson said, guests “don’t need to have a background in Sarah J. Maas’s work in order to have fun” at Fox and Ember. The event is “a fancy ball where you can dress up and drink, dance, interact with people of like mind in a safe space, and have a night that you walk away [from] with memories,” he said.
“Think ren faire, but more specific and fancier,” said co-founder Kitty Holfield.
The event will have craft vendors; local authors; live performances; a large buffet with options for guests with dietary restrictions; ACOTAR trivia; boards on which guests can share “unhinged theories” and headcanons, a fandom term that refers to beliefs (serious or otherwise) about characters or plots in a work that may not agree with the work’s canon material; “baddie-goodie bags”; a fashion show; trinket trading; a professional photographer; and more.
There will also be local cosplayers roaming the event as ACOTAR-inspired characters to add to the immersive atmosphere and “ensure that our guests have a good time, but also have kind of a release valve for, ‘I really love this character in the book. Now they’re here in person, I can take a picture with them, I can send that to my friends; I can talk to them, they will be in character.’ It is kind of like a force multiplier in that way. It is something memorable that you can latch onto,” Henderson said.
That’s not to say, however, that the event will be a “ball” in the strict sense of waltzes and gowns — the plan is for the first third of the night to feature music like the “Lord of the Rings” soundtrack or “bardcore” songs, which are covers of modern songs on instruments like the lute; the middle third will “start moving toward dance” with music that’s “more funky,” like David Bowie or James Brown, Henderson said; and the final third will be “nostalgic, explosive, modern,” with plenty of throwback songs familiar to Millennial and Gen Z guests, according to Henderson.
“It’s not a Victorian ball,” he said. “It’s a party.”
“You don’t have to be a character or be in character,” Holfield said. “This is the part that, I think, reminds me of ren faires — you can dress up and just do stuff.”
Henderson and Holfield, who are also partners, got the idea to create Fox and Ember because there weren’t other fantasy balls in the area. “We couldn’t find one, so we decided to throw one,” Holfield said. They’d had a great time at a similar event in 2025, but they’d heard it wouldn’t be continuing this year, so they wanted to fill the void.
Even so, they said, the process of putting the event together has come with a learning curve: This is the first big event they’ve ever produced, so they’ve had to refine their approaches to things like marketing and pricing along the way. They’re also creating many of the event’s decorations themselves rather than renting them from someone else.
“We’re just people doing this for fun, and it kind of started as, ‘Let’s see if this is plausible. Let’s see how far we can get.’ And then we kept going, and we’re like, ‘I think we can make this go.’ We’re just people wanting to have a good time and build community,” Holfield said.
Henderson and Holfield, who live in Springfield, also run a fantasy-themed online candle shop called Quest & Candle. Henderson, a Navy veteran with experience in the video game industry, designs tabletop roleplaying games. Holfield has a day job outside of fantasy, but she’s the romantasy reader between the two of them: She likes to listen to romantasy audiobooks on speaker at home, and every so often, Henderson will pop in: “He’ll have opinions and be like, ‘Why did that character do that?’” she said.
The two recently celebrated their fifth anniversary. They first met on a dating app, where they started chatting about their Dungeons & Dragons characters.
“It was a fantasy from the beginning,” Holfield said with a giggle. “We are big old nerds, and we love it.”
When asked what he was most looking forward to about Fox and Ember, Henderson said, “Dancing. Sorry, the proper answer should be, ‘The people, the energy,’ that sort of thing — no, I just want to dance!”
Holfield said “dancing” was her answer, too — “Dancing begets more dancing. It’s infectious!”
She’s excited to finally connect in real life with the partygoers who have been active in the Fox and Ember Discord server leading up to the event and with other locals who like fantasy and romantasy, like she does.
“I want to meet the people,” she said. “I want to make sure they’re having fun, and I want to see them smiling and excited about their first fantasy ball.”
The Fox and Ember Fantasy Ball runs from 6 to 11 p.m. Tickets are $220, but readers can enter the code “BELLADONNA” at checkout for $25 off their ticket. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit foxandemberfantasyball.com.
