The festival sits in Todd Mission, about 55 miles northwest of Houston, in genuinely rural Grimes County. That matters more than the distance does: you cannot rely on rideshare out there. If your group plans to drink mead all afternoon, the ride home is a question you need to answer before you go, not at five o’clock in a field.
This page covers what a group trip to the festival costs, how long it actually takes, which weekend to pick, and the practical things that catch Houston groups out. Rates match our Houston party bus price guide.
At a Houston venue, the fallback is always the same: if the plan falls apart, someone books a car. Todd Mission is not a Houston venue. It is a small community in Grimes County surrounded by farmland, and the driver supply out there on a Saturday afternoon is close to nothing.
What that means in practice is that groups get stranded, or spend a long time and a lot of money getting a car to come out from Conroe or Tomball. Every year people discover this at closing time, having sensibly decided they should not drive.
So the honest framing for this trip: the transport is not a convenience you are adding to a day out. It is the thing that lets the day out work the way you want it to. If nobody in your group is prepared to stay completely sober for eight hours and drive an hour home, you need a plan, and there are not many plans available.
It is roughly 55 miles northwest of Houston, generally an hour to an hour and fifteen each way depending on where you start and how the traffic behaves. From the north and northwest of the city it is shorter; from Pearland or Clear Lake it is meaningfully longer.
Two things worth knowing about the approach:
Budget two and a half hours of your booking for driving and queueing, not two. Groups that plan the drive at exactly an hour each way are the ones paying overtime.
General parking at the festival is free, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. There is also paid preferred and valet parking that you can buy online in advance, which puts you closer in.
The free lots fill quickly on a busy weekend, and they are fields. That means a walk to the gate, and after rain it means a walk to the gate across ground that has had thousands of cars on it.
So the cost argument here is weak and we will not push it. The real argument is the drive and the drinking, in that order. You are not saving on parking, you are buying a day where nobody has to stay sober and nobody has to drive an hour of rural road at dusk.
The festival runs weekends across the autumn, in 2026 on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 October to 29 November plus the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend. Each weekend carries its own theme, and they genuinely change the character of the day. Recurring ones include Oktoberfest, All Hallows Eve, Heroes and Villains and Return to the Renaissance.
How to choose:
Confirm the current season’s dates and themes on the festival’s own site, because they set them fresh each year.
This is the single biggest planning error Houston groups make. The festival is not an evening out, it is a day out, and it opens in the morning.
A realistic day looks like this: leave Houston mid morning, arrive late morning, spend six or seven hours on site, leave at closing, get home in the early evening. That is a nine to ten hour booking, and it is why this trip costs more than a night at a Houston venue.
Groups that try to compress it into five hours arrive at two, spend three hours on a site that takes a full day to see properly, and leave feeling they missed it. If the budget will not stretch to a full day, this is a trip worth waiting on rather than rushing.
A large share of festival attendees dress up, and a large share of the groups we take are in costume. That has practical consequences that nobody thinks about until the day.
The festival runs through autumn, which in Texas means the weather varies wildly across the season and sometimes within a day.
Bring a change of shoes and leave them on the vehicle. It is the single most useful thing on a wet weekend, and it costs nothing to do.
Our party bus rental minimums, three hours mid week, four Friday and Sunday, five Saturday, never come into play here. The trip is far longer than any of them.
| Group | Vehicle | Rate | 8 hour visit | 10 hour full day | Per person, 10 hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 to 13 | Sprinter Lounge | $90 per hour | $720 | $900 | about $75 |
| 14 to 20 | LoungeS | $100 per hour | $800 | $1,000 | about $55 |
| 21 to 23 | LoungeX | $110 per hour | $880 | $1,100 | about $48 |
| 24 to 28 | Lounge Plus+ | $120 per hour | $960 | $1,200 | about $44 |
| 29 to 32 | Lounge XL | $130 per hour | $1,040 | $1,300 | about $42 |
| 33 to 50 | Mega Lounge | $140 per hour | $1,120 | $1,400 | about $32 |
These party bus prices cover the rental only, before 15 to 20 percent gratuity, and separate from festival admission. Per person assumes a full vehicle, which is why groups organising this tend to fill a bigger bus rather than book a small one. Fuel is included with no surcharge added later. Every party bus is on our fleet page.
This is one of our longer bookings, so it is worth being straight: for a group of six, a full day here is expensive per head. For a group of thirty in costume it is one of the best value days we run. Fill the vehicle if you can.
Do not count on it. Todd Mission is rural Grimes County and driver supply out there on a festival Saturday is close to nothing. Groups get stranded at closing time every season, or pay a lot to get a car out from Conroe or Tomball. If nobody in your group wants to stay sober and drive an hour home, arrange transport before you go.
About 55 miles northwest, in Todd Mission, generally an hour to an hour and fifteen each way. Budget two and a half hours of your booking for driving and queueing rather than two, because the last stretch is rural two lane road and it backs up both arriving and leaving.
A full day of nine to ten hours runs $900 to $1,400 depending on vehicle size, which is roughly $32 to $75 per person depending on how full the bus is. A shorter seven to eight hour visit runs less. Bigger groups get much better value per head here than small ones.
Nine to ten for a proper full day. The festival opens in the morning and takes a full day to see, and two and a half hours of your booking is driving and queueing. Groups that compress it into five hours arrive at two, rush three hours and leave feeling they missed it.
General parking is free, yes, with paid preferred and valet available in advance. We are not going to pretend the bus saves you a parking fee. The real argument here is the hour of rural driving at dusk and the fact that this is a drinking event, in that order.
The Halloween weekends are the busiest with the best costumes and the longest queues, and they are the hardest dates to get a vehicle, so book well ahead. Early October and late November are calmer. Sunday is usually quieter than Saturday and carries a shorter minimum on our side, which makes it cheaper for the same festival.
Groups routinely travel comfortable and adjust closer to the gate, and anything you do not want to carry around a field for eight hours stays on the vehicle. Costumes are awkward in a car, so for a group in full kit the bus is genuinely more practical, not just more fun.
The festival runs rain or shine, and the grounds and parking fields turn to mud. Footwear matters more than anything else you decide. Bring a change of shoes and leave them on the bus; it is the single most useful thing on a wet weekend and it costs nothing.
Tell us the weekend, your group size and whether you want a full day or a shorter visit. If your dates are flexible we will show you what a Sunday saves against a Saturday.
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