HOUSTON, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- More than 44,000 visitors attended the Texas Renaissance Festival over the weekend, breaking the record for attendance on a closing weekend of this festival.
Workers at the festival who were affected by Hurricane Harvey flooding said this year's season helped save them.
"This has been a life saver," artisan festival potter Rosemary Hesterly told local TV station. "If it wasn't for this, I think I would've gone crazy."
Hesterly and her husband Gary have been vendors at the festival for years. Their home was flooded by more than 1.5 meters of water.
They were able to set up their shop at the festival which became a reprieve from the sadness they were dealing with back in Houston during the work week.
Texas Renaissance Festival 2017 began on Sept. 30, bringing the magic of the 16th century to life through Nov. 26.
For the first time in nearly two decades, the 43-year-old festival has added a new themed weekend -- a "Heroes and Villains" weekend -- to the season schedule, for a total of nine themed weekends, which include Pirate Adventure, Barbarian Invasion and Celtic Christmas.
Since the 1970s, the festival has provided visitors with an opportunity to escape everyday life and be transported to an enchanted kingdom located in the middle of a forest.
An escape from reality has never been needed more than this year, by visitors and workers alike.
Although Harvey flooding may not have had as much of an impact on the number of visitors, vendors said it has impacted their sales since visitors may have had tighter budgets due to Harvey-related expenses this season.
Harvey blew ashore on Aug. 25 as the most powerful hurricane hitting Texas in more than 50 years, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and damaging some 200,000 homes in a path of destruction that stretches for more than 500 km. The Houston area was devastated by severe flooding, after receiving 1.4 meters of rain.
