The Arena — Attraction in Todd Mission

I've been going to the Texas Renaissance Festival for years, every year. I've always enjoyed it and over the years my group has increased with my children. This past Saturday Barbarian Invasion was disappointing. We decided to pay the extra money to valet Park because we knew that parking is always a hassle and wanted to keep the kids as happy and comfortable as we could. That back fired but I'll get to that. To start the park was overcrowded and you could hardly walk around. Everything was fine and there was a lot of new shops and entertainment for the kids which was good but everything seems to be getting more and more expensive every time. Anyway we knew we would be spending a lot of money and didn't mind it but what made this a horrible experience was leaving. As I mentioned before we paid for valet parking, imagine my disappointment when I hand the valet my ticket and was walked to our car, yes walked to our car not the car brought to us. Then we sit in the line to get out for 3 hours! 3 hours while rumors are being spread about accidents on the road and why traffic was bad... we continued to wait for over three hours in a complete stop. When we finally started moving we were rerouted to the lanes behind us (general parking) and they were all empty! So exactly what was the benefit of valet? And why after so many years of the Festival have they not figured out a system that works. Worst experience ever. We left the Festival grounds at 7:25pm to "avoid" the traffic after the fireworks. The picture I shared shows us stopped at 9:49pm we didn't leave until 10:27pm And yes we live 3 hours away so we didn't get home...

Big amount of entertainment opportunities. The festival brought not only XV+ cosplayers/roleplayers/roleplaying merchants, but a vast amount of fans of closeby themes (like Scottish traditional musicians, swordmen, archers, pirates, barbarians, and particularly noticeably fantasy & anime fans [lmao]). I even got to free tea party with g̵a̶m̶b̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ cookies and venerable ladies. Not good thing was that everything was expensive af. My lads had spent $20 on fкn 10m-lever swing and then $10 on rope-action carousel (tbh there was a carousel propelled by actual ponies, goats and camel). At that point I had no intereat in buying a $80 swords or even $20 "magic" staffs (but y'all might've given 'em a more professional look, idk). Also, in this year the night was pretty cold (my fingers have frozen enough to waste 5 out of 7 throwing knives at 2 m target) There was also an actual zoo with all kinds of farm animals (and an low-sized elefant). In the afternoon, on the arena there was some kind of 1v1v1v1 joust (it's heavy horsemen tournier where one have to kick his opponent off the saddle by crushing a lance by his body). After the sunset, there was a fire spinners' show (idk how that's called) and a half-hour firework rush. P.S. At the archery site, it was possible to pick up dropped arrows (which were going by $3 for 5) and shoot them by free, which I did with satisfaction, destroying their balloons, cus i'm a sertified BSA range...

Went to the Renaissance Festival this past weekend and enjoyed the new shows. Especially the Mud Show and the Laundry ladies, its a must go. Costs have definitely gone up over the years and by the afternoon it was pretty crowded compared to prior years that we have attended. But my worst experience was leaving. We normally park in general free parking but this year decided to upgrade to preferred parking towards the front (smaller number rows). This was a big mistake. It took us HOURS to leave the parking lot. This Festival needed to do a better job with traffic control. The parking lots in the larger number rows got out sooner then the smaller number, so next time I plan to park in the larger numbers so I can have priority leaving. Don't get me wrong we will go again because the Festival is AWESOME, not getting the preferred parking pass next time and making sure we have enough gas, food, drinks and toilet...