About 40,000 people attended the Texas Eclipse Festival in Burnet, only to have it shut down a day before it was supposed to. Organizers asked folks to evacuate right after totality – around 1:30 p.m. last Monday afternoon — because of concerns about severe weather in the forecast.
The cancellation, and rumors of mismanagement on social media, have spurred calls for refunds and even investigations. But for festival goers with disabilities, the problems were obvious from the start.
Tanya Valencia has a lot of experience going to music festivals in her wheelchair. She said from the moment she arrived at the festival on Friday, she knew it was not set up with disabled patrons in mind.
When they drove up to the site on a private ranch about 90 minutes northwest of Austin, Valencia said she and her husband waited in what they already knew was the wrong line of cars for over an hour, only to find out there wasn’t accessible parking.
With little help from staff, they finally made it to the campsite for disabled guests so they could catch a shuttle to the proper festival entrance. But, Valencia said the problems kept piling up.
“And at that point, me and my husband decided that it legitimately was not safe for me personally, as a disabled person, moving forward,” she said. “We decided to go back to our car and just not even try to enter the festival.”
The Texas Standard spoke to five disabled patrons who all said they dealt with a lack of transportation, difficult terrain, and poor communication between event staff and those hired specifically to assist disabled patrons.