Texas Renaissance Festival expanding for 2017 season

Fall weather drew quite the crowd to RenFest in Houston on Oct. 8, 2016. Click to see who showed up... Fall weather drew quite the crowd to RenFest in Houston on Oct. 8, 2016. Click to see who showed up... Photo: Jorge Valdez/Houston Chronicle Photo: Jorge Valdez/Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 159 Caption Close Texas Renaissance Festival expanding for 2017 season 1 / 159 Back to Gallery

Organizers of the Texas Renaissance Festival say the success of the event from past seasons is the reason they will extend the festival to a ninth weekend this year.



The festival will begin Sept. 30 and run through Nov. 26. Traditionally, the festival has been during the months of October and November.



"We had a very successful year last year with almost zero rain and we were able to see the attendance not be affected by the weather," said Terre Albert, CEO and general manager of the Texas Renaissance Festival.

According to Albert, the festival, which got its start in 1974, was averaging about 35,000 people a day last season. While there were few major traffic problems in the area, he said spreading the festival out over another weekend could help lower the attendance per day as well as reduce traffic.



The expanded season will create a new themed weekend called Heroes and Villains. It will be Nov. 11-12.



Albert said the new Heroes and Villains weekend was really driven by festival-goers.



"The one thing that has never faded is little kids coming out dressed in their Halloween costume," said Albert, noting people not only dress in Renaissance costumes but many come dressed in other genres such as Storm Troopers, Harry Potter and even Ironman.