Tennessee Renaissance Festival leaves some locals, festivalgoers saying aargh

ARRINGTON, Tenn. (WZTV) — Hundreds of people complained they waited hours in traffic in Williamson County to get to the Tennessee Renaissance Festival.

Residents that live near the event said they could not leave their homes all weekend.

Some festival goers dressed as knights and fairies, celebrated medieval times in Arrington.

The festival traffic stalled on roads leading into the festival grounds for hours, leaving residents frustrated.

“We’ve never had these issues in the past with traffic, not until Williamson county bought the fare and started routing traffic down our road,” Ashley LaQuiere, a 10-year resident, said.

“In the past, they’ve always blocked off our road,” LaQuiere said.

She said she lives less than half-of-a-mile from the fairgrounds and this year the county opened her road as a route to the event; something never done in years past.

“We probably waited two and a half. Thankfully, Ardyce had some UNO cards, so we just kind of played cards in the car while we waited,” Aidan Nichols, Murfreesboro resident and festival goer said.

Hundreds of people sounding off concerns on Facebook. Many asked if they’ll get refunds.

Neighbors said they warned county officials about not blocking off their road, weeks ago.

“We feel like the county has basically said we don’t care about you,” LaQuiere said.

“In my opinion, they’re treating it as though all the matters is the money,” she said.

Williamson County Director of Parks said Saturday’s bad weather played a part.

“We lost over 200 parking spaces. And with an average of three or four people in the car, you’re looking at anywhere from six to 800 people that we were having difficulty parking. Normally it’s very well organized. But when we lost so much because of mud. It was a big mess and we admit that,” Gordon Hampton, Williamson County Director of Parks said.

He added they alerted people on social media to leave early.

The county posted last weekend as well-citing about traffic hold-ups at the fest.

Neighbors said they just access to their road back, like in previous years during the festival.

Nichols friend, Ardyce Mercier said although the wait was intense, they still had a great time.

“We didn’t get to do a whole lot because we weren’t in line for the turkey legs for a while but we still got to like walk around and look at the stuff but empty hats were really fun. But it was a great time,” Mercier said.

Fox 17 News reached out to the director of parks to ask about refunds and if there will be traffic changes for next weekend, we are waiting to hear back.