Stefan Struik and Helena Struik are the inventors behind the Elfia phenomenon. This phenomenon of an outdoor fantasy event/costume event did not exist anywhere in the world in 2001. There were outdoor medieval events or SciFi happenings (all indoor). But the mix of all kinds of costume styles and subcultures in a fairytale setting such as a castle was an unknown phenomenon. Cosplay also had to get off the ground. For example, the first (indoor) world cosplay summit would only take place at the end of 2003 in Japan with only 5 cosplayers.

Stefan Struik and Helena Struik had first devised the Elf Fantasy Shop store concept. This resulted in the event concept ‘Kingdom of Elfia’.

Afterwards, the event organization team expanded enormously with people such as Ronald Gordijn, Jan de Bruijn, Anneke Groeneweg, Cathalijne van Weert, Michael Regelmann and many others, including hundreds of volunteers.