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WEBER COUNTY -- All this wet weather has put the site of a Weber County festival under about five feet of water. Organizers scrambled last-minute to change locations, but they say getting people to the right place has been a challenge.
Weather hasn't been exactly ideal for this year's Renaissance Festival and Fantasy Faire in Marriott-Slaterville. As the event enters prepares for the closing weekend, organizers say if you want to re-enact those olde times, you should be prepared to deal with the weather.
The festival usually gets tens of thousands of visitors. It brings an economic impact of around $1 million to the area. That's just one of the reasons Marriott-Slaterville city leaders joined forced with festival organizers to make some last-minute changes.
"We're at the lowest point in Weber County, and so flooding here is a way of life," said City Administrator Bill Morros. "But the R festival getting flooded out was something new for us."
Even the road to enter the site of the original festival was washed out with the wet weather. But when you've got pirates, magicians and peasants coming in, everybody needed to be relocated.
So that's what they did.
1700 West 1350 South
Marriott-Slaterville
Take exit 344 off I-15 and drive west to 1900 West. Turn left and go one block, then turn left again on 1350 South. Continue east for a quarter mile and watch for the signs. Parking is to the east. Entrance to the Faire will be on the east end of the grounds.
"It's been a scramble. It was a scary two weeks before we opened," said John Harvey, a festival regular from Delta, Colo.
Instead of setting up at the usual secluded 10-acre site, they're now at a smaller one-acre spot right next to the noisy freeway. But that isn't getting them down.
"More people see us, more people come out, have a good time, which is what we're here for, some adventure," Harvey said. "Of course the other side of it is, I have to pretend it's the ocean."
Despite those changes, organizers say the festival has been a success. They're just hoping this closing weekend stays relatively dry.
"The old site's a mystical site. You get this bird, wetlands look," said Ralph Huntzinger, a festivalgoer who calls himself Zinger the Magick. "Our site for our stage is above water, but there's about three to 15 feet of water everywhere else."
The festival runs through the weekend, starting Friday at 10 a.m.
Email: manderson@ksl.com
