Fort Worth Main Street Arts Festival

FORT WORTH MAIN STREET ARTS FESTIVAL

The D/FW Metroplex has many street fairs and festivals. Many are good, many are not so good. The Main Street Arts Festival is among the very good. Artists come from all over the country to display and sell their art. Prices range up to tens of thousands of dollars. The festival lasts 4 days. There is much music and since it is Texas, much food. Over a half million people attend this event.

2008 Main St. Fort Worth Arts Festival
10am - 10pm Thursday April 17
10am - 11pm April 18 & 19
10am - 8pm Sunday April 20
The Festival is Free
Click here for the Daily Performance Schedule
More Details: Official Website

Click here for a map of showing the location of the Spring Palace

click a thumbnail to view a photo

A sign pointing to the various venues, which gives you an idea of the size of this thing, the fact it needs directional signs.

Two years ago the Main Street Arts Festival had to be moved a couple miles west to what is called the 'Cultural District' ; the area of Fort Worth were culture is allowed unfettered. This move was necessitated by a tornado which had blown through downtown wreaking much havoc. That tornado is a distant memory and now a monument to that tragedy stands in downtown Fort Worth, known as the Plywood Skyscraper.

Main Street is a wide street with wide sidewalks. But this throng made it seem way too small. Very crowded.

On Main Street at Sundance Square a master sand castle builder constructed this Fort Worth themed sand sculpture. It was interesting but seemed borderline out of place hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean sand.

A totally Texas Tacky practice the Eyes on Texas has only witnessed in Texas. United States Currency is not accepted. To buy food and drink you must first get in line to buy coupons, sold in blocks of 9 for 5 bucks. This practice seems to inflate the prices. And since you can not get refunds for unused coupons you find yourself buying things you didn't want, just to use up your coupons.

5 coupons for a 20 oz. Coke...it would be an interesting psychology of selling experiment to see which sells more, pricing the Coke at 5 coupons, or pricing it at $2.75.

Obviously downtown Fort Worth is not a dry zone, judging by all the oversized Coor Light signs and the beer purveyors all over selling 12 ounces for 7 coupons. You do the math. That is expensive beer.

Texans have been shocked of late to learn they rank near the top of the nation in obesity levels. You do seem to see more examples of this than you do on the west coast. There is just so much tempting food.

Here we see a prime example of the sort of tempting fare which may contribute to this phenomenon of excess girth. This food booth is an excellent example of the Texan tendency to fry foods that might be best left out of a deep fryer.

Here we see some Texans lining up for their wurst after completing the process of the coupon buying line.

This artist, Shelly Corbett, came over 2000 miles for this event, from Seattle.

At each artist's display there is info about the artist, where he/she was from, and a description of the artist's work, often in his/her own words.

Not everyone can meet the criteria get into the Arts Festival. There is an effort made to display a wide range of styles and types.

In a painting is about the only way you see tulips in Texas.

This giant bird made its way down the street squawking at the crowd to please let it pass.

This fish cost a few thousand dollars. That's a lot of coupons.

Some more fish dangling in an air aquarium.

This looked even more interesting in person.

That squawking bird is in the background of the display of sculptures. These are very expensive.

That ends this year's Main Street Arts Festival

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