Gerald Hanks
Transporting guests back to medieval times, a power outage reportedly forced organizers of the Texas Renaissance Festival to close the grounds of the area’s annual event early this weekend.
Videos by Rare
A power transformer in western Montgomery County reportedly overloaded and blew out at around 2:00 p.m. Saturday, causing widespread power outages throughout the area.
Officials said the park location for the festival did contain backup generators, but, due to safety concerns, ultimately decided to close early.
“To ensure the safety of our patrons and employees, we made the decision to close the park early on Saturday,” Terre Albert, general manager of the Texas Renaissance Festival, said in an interview with a Houston newspaper. “Our crews worked quickly to provide power solutions after the outage, and we were able to operate near capacity during the day.”
RELATED: TX Renaissance Festival To Donate Ticket Proceeds to Harvey Charities
Sales show the festival operated at nearly its full capacity the day of the overload, with around 40,000 visitors roaming through the park on the penultimate weekend of festivities.
The early closure reportedly forced a massive traffic jam on the highways near Plantersville, as thousands of visitors attempted to leave at the same time, with one patron describing the scene as “pandamonium.”
Organizers Tweeted the following:
Attention TRF Patrons. We are aware of heavy traffic as our festival closed at 6:00 pm & all 40,000 guests are now trying to get out at the same time, as well as a traffic accident on 1774. We appreciate your patience as our traffic control gets everyone out ASAP.
RELATED: Six Houston chefs to compete at Texas RenFest Royal Chef Showdown
Workers reportedly restored power around 6:30 p.m. after the outage, which allowed the TRF After Dark entertainment program to go on as scheduled.
But not everyone was amused:
We apologize for yesterday's outage. We can assure you that all of our back up plans ensured that our food service was in complaince with health department codes. For further information, please email [email protected].
— 𝑻𝒆𝒙𝒂𝒔 𝑹𝒆𝒏𝒂𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑭𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒍 (@texrenfest) November 19, 2017
But the show goes on – for one more weekend:
Make your way to the Globe Theatre for a pure brilliant performance of pipes and drums as @Tartanicoffical takes the stage at 5pm. pic.twitter.com/evtYLdQUvg
— 𝑻𝒆𝒙𝒂𝒔 𝑹𝒆𝒏𝒂𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑭𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒍 (@texrenfest) November 19, 2017
