A vendor at the 2018 Pecan Street Festival Credit: Photo by John Anderson
Organizers announced today that the Pecan Street Festival – originally slated for May 2-3 in Downtown Austin – is moving to a virtual festival experience instead.

Describing the fest as “being redesigned for the virtual world,” today’s announcement follows the March 21 announcement that the city’s largest and longest-running arts, crafts, and music festival would not be taking place IRL, at least this spring, due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The fall iteration of the biannual festival is still scheduled for Sept. 19-20.

Keep reading for today’s press release.

“In the coming weeks, we will be building up the website with links to our Spring Pecan Street Festival vendors, sponsors & musicians/performers (along with a Soundcloud channel featuring them), such that by May 2nd and 3rd, we will have a virtual festival online!

“In addition, we will be keeping abreast with the activities of our confirmed participants for the Spring festival and relay their online offerings via our social media channels.

“We’ll be building a catalog of music along with artist studio demonstrations, through their preferred platforms (FaceBook, Twitch, Streamlabs OBS, Youtube). We will feature some live and/or prerecorded performances and workshops to occur on what would have been the Festival weekend.

“Also, on May 2nd and 3rd, we’ll include some interactive activities like yoga, meditation, something special for the kids and some Austin history or festival trivia, with chances to win Festival t-shirts and posters. More ideas are sure to come from the creativity of our Festival participants, ATX residents and the world at large, as every day, people are inventing new modes of virtual engagement. We welcome your ideas!

“We’ll keep it going beyond that weekend too, until we have to switch gears for planning the fall festival (September 19th & 20th).

“We’ll be seeking partnerships in the community to help spread our platform to further the possibilities of connections for our artists/vendors and musicians/performers.

“Our goal is to spread the #KeepAustinWired meme to keep our community connected.

“As the world reinvents itself in this stay-in-place age, we will reinvent our Festival right along with it.”

This article appears in April 17 • 2020.

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A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...