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Severe weather threat looms over busy weekend of events in Oklahoma City metro area

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OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — This weekend is considered one of the busiest weekends of the year for the Oklahoma City metro area, with several events planned from the Memorial Marathon to the OKC Festival of the Arts. But on Saturday the state will face an extreme severe weather threat, and some are concerned about what that means for the events.

Organizers say they are monitoring the weather closely and will make changes if needed, but for now, they plan on running things as normal, weather permitting.

The OKC Metro will be booming this weekend, with people traveling from all over for several different events,

"We're hosting our Festival of the Arts incredible annual event, we're hosting historic Olympic trials out at river sport, the thunder playoffs are back after a few years and of course, we have one of our larger horse shows in town better barrel racing," said Visit OKC's Vice President of Sports Development, Adam Wisniewski, "So there's something for everybody to do at Oklahoma City, we've never had a weekend like this diverse quite this exciting."

But with a threat of severe weather on Saturday, many of the events could be impacted, as most of them take place outdoors.

Organizers say they are waiting until Saturday to make any changes if they are necessary, but with many vendors at the OKC Festival of the Arts traveling from out of state for the festival, some are concerned about how the potential bad weather could impact their sales,

"I'm from originally Estes Park, Colorado, I now live in Loveland, Colorado, and this is my sixth year," said Dawn Normali, an Artist at the OKC Festival of the Arts, "Because it's Saturday tomorrow, there's some concern, so I'm hoping today that a lot of people will come and also on Sunday."

"It does give me a little bit of concern only for the event itself, I want all the vendors out here including ourselves to be able to provide an amazing service and amazing product to all the people, and once we get that Oklahoma weather that rolls through on occasion, it can put a damper on that," said Jason Head, Chef of the Bourbon Street Cafe who has a booth at the festival, "It will definitely impact sales."

While other vendors say they're not worried and are used to Oklahoma's unpredictable weather,

"Oklahoma's weather changes hourly," said Kat Page with Nutworks, "Last year, seven days it rained almost every day."

"If you do art fairs, you're used to bad weather," said Kansas City Artist, Kale Vanleeuwen, "I had one year of rain on me about every show we did so you just kind of roll with it and hope for the best."

If you plan on attending any of the events this weekend, organizers say to check their social media pages for updates regarding the weather.

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