The Pecan Street Festival is a free, bi-annual juried art festival held on 6th Street in Austin, Texas. The festival has been an Austin tradition for more than 30 years. The show features artisans from all over the United States who display and sell homemade art and craftwork. Festival goers can find paintings, sculpture, woodwork, candles, jewelry, cowboy hats, home decor, games, and other useful and whimsical household items.
Local musicians provide entertainment on five stages, with headliner Tommy Tutone performing on the main stage Saturday night. The festival is the largest art festival in Central Texas, attracting over 300,000 people per event and generating $43 million in economic impact. The show benefits local charities including the Austin Boxer Rescue, Friends of the Planetarium and United Care USA. The show is also the primary fundraiser for the Old Pecan Street Association, an organization established to preserve and beautify 6th Street.
Like Austin itself, Pecan Street Festival attendees are diverse. Festival admission is free, so people from all walks of life flock to the streets. Some come to buy art. Some come for food, others for the music, but they all come to take part in a tradition that is 100% Austin and has been known for the last 30 years as a great way to spend a weekend.
Sixth Street is the heart of Austin’s live entertainment scene and the self-proclaimed live music capital of the world. It is lined with many historical houses and commercial buildings dating from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The storied old buildings now house numerous bars, a host of live entertainment venues, art galleries, casual cafes and upscale restaurants.
When Edwin Waller first laid out the street plan for Austin, the north-south streets were given the names of Texas rivers in the order in which they appeared on the Texas map. While Waller had recommended numbers for the east-west streets, they were instead given the names of trees. Later on, numbers replaced the tree-named streets and what had been Pecan Street became today’s 6th Street. The Old Pecan Street Spring and Fall Festivals honor the original name of the street.
Website:
http://www.oldpecanstreetfestival.com/
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