You’ll hear the festival before you see it, mostly through the excited shouts of even more excited children. You’ll feel your footsteps fastening almost of their own accord, driven by the anticipation that hangs like a spell over the town of Staunton. And as the buildings of Beverley Street envelop you, some centuries old, you’ll realize you’ve been transported to another realm entirely—one where magic is, at least momentarily, as real as the dreamers who made it so.
All Aboard!
“The train is coming!” cries a young girl near me, urgency in her voice. She’s decked out in Hogwarts-style wizarding robes (a Slytherin, like me, I note). Taking cue from her and her now-rushing family, I hustle up the slope of Augusta Street, heading straight for the Virginia Scenic Railway’s depot.
It’s still 30 minutes until the first train of the day arrives, but the scene is already teeming with costumed festivalgoers. I shouldn’t be surprised—Staunton’s Queen City Mischief & Magic Festival regularly draws nearly 20,000 people to this small mountain town—but it’s another thing altogether to witness it in person.
“Sorry about that,” says a man as the winged costume of the chihuahua in his arms brushes my arm. All around me, children are perched on their parents’ shoulders, eagerly awaiting the train. There’s an instantaneous sense of community between all of us—me with my $10 thrifted wand, the little girl in Luna Lovegood’s Spectrespecs, the grinning grandmother being tugged along by a tiny Ravenclaw. The family beside me is from Blackstone—more than 100 miles away—and they’re not the most distant travelers I’ll meet today.
A whistle blows. The chugging grows louder. We all lean in. Breath catches.
Then, through the fog, Hagrid steps out.
It’s all part of the show—actors portraying beloved characters from the Harry Potter universe, or “magic makers,” as the festival calls them. And this arrival is just the opening act.
Making Mischief
Long before Queen City Mischief & Magic took over Staunton’s streets, festival founder and lead organizer Sarah Lynch was a reluctant Harry Potter convert.
“Everyone tried to get me to read it,” she says. “But I was like, ‘I like real fiction,’ you know? I liked not magic.”
She gave in to reading it for her now-grown son—and quickly changed her tune. The books felt like home. The local toy store, the train, the old brick buildings: “Staunton has everything in these books.”
The first event, a one-off celebration for J.K. Rowling’s The Cursed Child in 2016, drew 8,000 people. Weeks later, the city manager asked, “Do you think lightning will strike twice?”
Lynch knew it could.
Now, she spends the entire year planning the festival, which takes over the town each September’s final weekend. Beverley Street’s boutique shops and landmark buildings become Diagon Alley, recreated—wandmakers’ workshops, dragon-dwelling banks, potion lairs—while vendors flood the Wharf parking lot with mermaid tanks, magical artifacts, owl and snake shows, house-sorting rituals, and Quidditch matches. While it began with Harry Potter, QCMM now celebrates magic in all its forms—just count the vampires, Marvel heroes, and other witchy types wandering the streets.
The Cast of Characters
The spellwork behind the lightning lies not just in make-believe, but in the very real power of community. Behind the scenes, “easily 300” helpers make it happen, Lynch says, including city officials, volunteers, a 30-person steering committee, and dozens of character actors.
Among them are “character wranglers” Craig and Melanie Brimhall, who portray professors Dumbledore and McGonagall, but that’s the least of it. They’re also prop masters, storing everything from a British phone box to banners to a Weasley car replica in their affectionately dubbed “Garage Mahal.” They direct the festival’s roughly 100-person cast of magic makers—casting from the local theater scene and beyond. (Their Viktor Krum? Discovered while waiting tables at Mill Street Grill.) They coach and costume adult and child actors, help them prep vignettes to perform on the street, and coordinate rotating schedules.
“They are tireless,” Lynch says. “They’re in their 70s, and they work.”
But from the Brimhalls’ side, the payoff is always worth it.
“Coming in on the train—it’s really something,” Craig says. “No matter how many times I’ve done it.” In 2024, Craig shared the Dumbledore role with a rotating double. After that first ride, his fellow Dumbledore reported back, breathless: “This is absolutely crazy.”
It’s far from smooth sailing, but it comes together—well, like magic. Someone’s always there to lumos the way.
“We run out of charms, food, wardrobe—whatever it is, we scramble,” Melanie says. “But the community is amazing. People always ask, ‘How can I help?’”
And help, they do.
A Town Enchanted
“I like that it brings our community together,” says local vendor Nelle Zimmerman of Zimmersong Ceramics. “It seems like all the businesses are encouraging one another—just wanting the entire city to celebrate one thing and join in together.”
In return for the work they put in—decorating their shops, hauling wares out bedecked in witch hats, souping up menus with specialty wizarding items, and lending a hand—Staunton’s small business owners get paid back in a once-a-year surge of tourism revenue, sure, but also in something deeper.
“Anyone who attends quickly realizes: this is more than just tourism,” Lynch says. “This is something real, something cool, that couldn’t happen anywhere else.”
Everyone I meet at QCMM echoes the same sentiment: Staunton itself is the magic.
At the junction of Central Avenue and Beverley Street, a mural shows two cardinals carrying a banner that reads You Belong Here—the town’s unofficial motto, one that emerged after the festival began and now feels like its perfect pair. It’s a message for book lovers, magic enthusiasts (no matter which variety), oddballs, and really anyone who shows up.
It’s something I feel, too: chatting with strangers over a “Butterbrew,” hearing the crowd roar for a preteen Quidditch team like it’s the NFL, watching a child’s awe as an owl spreads its wings. With every step, the enthusiasm of the guests is matched by the charm of the town.
This year’s QCMM, Sept. 27–28, marks 10 years with new surprises: a massive, terrifying three-headed prop, a Weasley-themed area, a greenhouse classroom sprouting enchanted plants, a rubber duck race, after-dark adult events—and, Lynch promises, “a level of kindness and communitas that is hard to believe .… unless you believe in magic.”
And for one weekend in Staunton, I do. QueenCityMagic.com
The magic maker portraying Dolores Umbridge (far right) fits the role perfectly—staring down even the smallest witches and wizards, scolding them for misbehavior as if they are Mr. Potter themselves. When one child protests, “But I’m a girl!” Umbridge replies, “Well, you must be polyjuicing.”
From left: magic makers portraying Neville Longbottom, Sirius Black, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Luna Lovegood. These child actors can be heard throughout the weekend shouting, “We’re late to Herbology!” and “Not again!” as they race across the festival grounds.
Click here for where to eat, drink, and stay in Staunton.
This article originally appeared in the October 2025 issue.
