One of the most enjoyable aspects of living in Austin revolves around its wide variety of festivals such as SXSW, ACL, X-Games, FunFunFunFest, and the Keep Austin Weird Festival which allows streetwalkers to enjoy the perks of taking in extraordinary sights downtown.
However, those being annual and popular events that bring people from around the world, a biannual event that many locals look forward to attending to is the Pecan Street Festival, which allows its attendees the chance to soak in the Austin vibe without being overrun by out-of-town tourists.
“I went with a couple of friends because I had heard about it and I thought I’d scope it out,” junior Alvaro Gonzalez said. “It wasn’t really at all what I expected but it was better than I thought it would be which wasn’t surprising because it was an Austin event.”
Originating in the fall of 1978, it’s one of the oldest and most popular two-day arts and crafts events that happens the first weekend of May and the last weekend of September.
The reason it’s called the “Pecan Street Festival” is because originally the streets were named after trees. It was later revised and renamed with numbers, so they call it the Pecan Street Festival to honor its original name.
“I saw Austinites selling homemade merchandise and people playing music on the sidewalks, which I think totally gives off the Austin vibe,” Gonzalez said.
There is live music, dance, performing arts, vendors, a children’s carnival, a petting zoo, and art classes provided as well as artists and artisans who display and sell handcrafted paintings, sculptures, pottery, mosaic tiles, candles, clothing and wood and glass objects and musicians performing.
“I think it’s a good way to get people to put themselves out there and show you their creative side,” sophomore Erika Rocha said.
Rocha, who has attended The Pecan Festival since the age of 5, has gone every year since is even more impressed every year.
One of the things that the festival is very well known for is for the different kinds of food that are sold there.
“My favorite thing was definitely the foods and different cuisines that they served,” junior Nicholas Suydan said. “For instance they had fried alligator which turned out to taste like chicken.”
Some of the food vendors that attended during the spring of 2014 were Baja Smoothies, Country Fair, Geauxsicles, Hill Country Kettle Korn, Social Ice, as well as Jim and Lor’s Candy Store.
“I like how it gives people a chance to enjoy some fresh air and seeing everything that Austin has to offer,” said Rocha. “It keeps alive the abiding saying of Keep Ausin Weird.”