Eastern State Penitentiary has announced the annual celebration of Bastille Day will be making its final tour this summer.
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The penitentiary called the day, which has been celebrated since 1995 in Philly, an "extremely resource-intensive" day and not in line with its new mission which "requires we make tough sacrifices," an announcement read.
The penitentiary's Bastille Day celebration involved a drag cabaret "Bearded Ladies" reenactment of the French Revolution, complete with 2,000 butterscotch krimpets that rain down from the towers as Marie Antoinette delivers her infamous line: “Let them eat Tastykake!”
With the announcement, the site included an updated mission statement, which lays a greater emphasis on historic preservation, developing a comprehensive and modern visitor center, renovations and hosting exhibits on criminal justice reform. You can read more about its future plans here.
"Bastille Day 2018: The Farewell Tour is the perfect opportunity to give Marie Antoinette a proper, spectacular sendoff," a statement said. "Guests can expect a show that is, as the Beards say, 'both intellectual and accessible, entertaining and meaningful, stupid good and just plain stupid.'"
Correction: An earlier version of this article had misstated the number of visitors who had attended the Bastille Day festival in 2017. The number – 250,000 – represented the daytime prison tour attendance for all of 2017.