2009 Fort Worth Main Street Arts Festival

In less than a month downtown Fort Worth gets really busy with the Main Street Arts Festival, starting on Thursday, April 16, ending Sunday, April 19.

The Main Street Arts Festival is the one and only thing I've been to in Fort Worth that is better than any similar thing I've been to anywhere else.

Well, there is the Fort Worth Stockyards. They are definitely the best Stockyards I've ever seen.

But the Main Street Arts Festival, it is something about which the Star-Telegram could actually use its making towns far and wide "green with envy" verbiage and have it actually be possibly true for once.

The Main Street Arts Festival is not some flea market on steroids. Actual artists come from all over America to display their work here. Some of it is very expensive. As in thousands of dollars type expensive. The Festival is sort of like going to an outdoor museum. With music stages and food.

From the Official Main Street Arts Festival website...

BREAKING NEWS: Headliner entertainment announced! MAIN ST. now ranked #3 Fine Arts festival in the U.S.! The MAIN ST. Fort Worth Arts Festival hosts tens of thousands of people annually during the four-day visual arts, entertainment and culture event. MAIN ST. showcases a nationally recognized fine art and fine craft juried art fair, savory food, live concerts, performance artists and street performers on the streets of downtown Fort Worth. The net result: fun!

There are only a couple vexing things about the Main Street Arts Festival. With the loss of the huge Tandy Subway parking lots, it is not as easy as it used to be to find parking in downtown Fort Worth.

The other vexing thing is this festival uses the coupon method for buying food and drinks. You wait in a line to buy coupons at 50 cents each. Then you wait in another line to buy something. This was the first event I'd ever been to where the use of American currency was not allowed and had to be exchanged for another currency, that being coupons. The State Fair of Texas uses the coupon method, too.

A lifelong Texan explained the reason for the coupon method. Apparently it is difficult to find Texans willing to work at these food purveyor jobs who are able to make change. So, coupons simplify the process. I suppose coupons also make it more difficult to steal. Although the State Fair of Texas had a coupon stealing scandal a couple years ago.

Anyway, if you haven't been to it before, and you live in the D/FW zone, you really should experience the Main Street Arts Festival. Unless you have a strong aversion to big crowds. I'm planning on going this year. I met a lady from Austin at the Fremont Sunday Market last summer, during my period of indentured servitude, who is an artist at the Main Street Arts Festival. I told her I'd see her there this year. I always do what I say I'm going to do. Usually.