The Gates Up 1774 Open October 10 for a 52nd Season. It Is the Second Under an Owner Who Won It in Court.
By The Magnolia Standard · September 15, 2026
Eight weekends, eight themes, and the road to all of it runs through the light at 1488 and 1774. The job faire was Saturday. The gates open in three and a half weeks.
The Texas Renaissance Festival opens its 52nd season on Saturday, October 10. It runs Saturdays and Sundays through November 29, plus the Friday after Thanksgiving, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., with no entry after 7. The address is 21778 FM 1774, Todd Mission, which puts it up the same road that leaves Magnolia at the FM 1488 light. Tickets are sold by date at texrenfest.com and at the gate. They are non-refundable; the festival sells a $5 option that lets a ticket be exchanged for a different day.
The themed weekends, in order: Oktoberfest, October 10 and 11. 1001 Dreams, October 17 and 18. Pirate Adventure, October 24 and 25. All Hallows Eve, October 31 and November 1. Heroes and Villains, November 7 and 8. Barbarian Invasion, November 14 and 15. Highland Fling, November 21 and 22. Celtic Christmas, November 27 through 29, the three-day close.
The festival lists 21 stages and close to 500 shops and vendors, and it drew 530,000 people over its 50th season in 2024. Most of them come up FM 1774 or across FM 1488 to get there. Running the place takes more than 400 seasonal workers, which is what the job faire we wrote about in Issue 25 was for; it ran this past Saturday, September 12, on the grounds.
Whose festival it is now
George Coulam founded it in 1974 and ran it for fifty seasons. Meril Rivard, a real estate investor, agreed to buy the festival, an adjacent property and the festival's assets for $60 million. Coulam backed out. Rivard's companies sued in Grimes County, and on May 7, 2025, after a week-long trial, Judge Gary W. Chaney ordered Coulam to complete the sale and awarded Rivard $22 million in damages on top of it.
Coulam was found dead at his home in Todd Mission on May 21, 2025. He was 87. Grimes County officials confirmed the death as a suicide a week later.
The sale closed that August. Rivard's attorney, Anthony LaPorte, said at the time that the new owner intended to keep the existing vendor contracts and the festival's operations unchanged. The 2025 season, the 51st, was the first under the new ownership. This one is the second, and by every public indication it is the same festival: same grounds, same eight weekends in the year, same 9 to 8.
What it means on this side of the county line
Todd Mission is in Grimes County. The customers are not. For eight weekends a good share of half a million people drive FM 1774 north through Magnolia in the morning and back south in the evening. If your Saturday errands run along 1774, October and November are the months to do them before nine or after dark.
It is also, for a lot of people in Magnolia, a seasonal paycheck. The positions are merchandise sales, food prep, game and ride attendants; the minimum age is 16 and the commitment is eight straight weekends. If you missed Saturday's faire, the festival's careers page on its own site is where whatever is still open gets posted.
Sources: texrenfest.com (the 2026 season dates, hours, address, themed weekends and their dates, ticket terms); Hoodline's September 9, 2026 report on the 52nd season (the stage and vendor counts, the 2024 attendance figure, the attorney's statement); Houston Public Media's May 9, 2025 report and the Houston Chronicle's 2025 reporting on the court-ordered sale (the $60 million price, the May 7, 2025 judgment and the $22 million award, the buyer's identity, the August 2025 closing, the founder's death and its confirmation by Grimes County officials); our August 7, 2026 report on the festival's hiring at /texas-renaissance-festival-jobs-2026/. Corrections to editor@themagnoliastandard.news.