Atlanta academy launches SERFO 2026, three-day HEMA tournament weekend

Atlanta Historical Fencing Academy used SERFO 2026 to plant a flag in the Southeast HEMA calendar, turning Clayton State University in Morrow into a three-day proving ground for longsword, rapier and sword and buckler. The tournament ran from Friday, June 5 at 5:30 p.m. through Sunday, June 7 at 6:30 p.m. at 2000 Clayton State Boulevard, with competitors and spectators invited to come fence across the weekend.

The event package was built to encourage a full tournament trip rather than a one-off appearance. Weekend passes were listed at $110, daily passes at $75 and an event T-shirt at $25, while registration also allowed entrants to pay at the door. The academy’s payments page added an afterparty for participants, extending SERFO beyond the strip and into the social circuit that has become a defining part of major HEMA weekends.

That mix of weapons mattered as much as the venue. Longsword drew the broadest attention, but the inclusion of rapier and sword and buckler gave specialists more ways into the brackets and widened the competitive field. In a region where mixed-weapon events often serve as the first serious test of the year, SERFO’s structure suggested a tournament designed to measure more than one skill set and reward clubs that bring depth across disciplines.

Atlanta’s role in that landscape was hard to miss. The academy’s training address is 996 Huff Rd NW, Suite E, Atlanta, and the 2026 calendar already places SERFO ahead of Hot Sword Summer on June 27-28, Revolution Rumble on July 11, Cactus Cup on July 17-19, In the Name of St. George! II on July 25-26 and Ars Gladii Open on September 18-20. SERFO is not operating as an isolated weekend; it sits at the front edge of a packed competitive run.

The event also carried the weight of history. HEMA Scorecard showed SERFO in both 2022 and 2023, with the 2023 edition marked as the ninth time the Southeast Renaissance Fencing Open had been held. Its 2024 page listed more than 170 participants, including 130 fencers in open longsword and more than 60 in both conventional rapier and first blood rapier. That kind of turnout explains why SERFO has become an early-season benchmark: in Atlanta, it is where the Southeast starts measuring form, depth and momentum for the summer ahead.