MAIN ST. Marks 25 Years of Arts and Entertainment
2010 marks the 25th year MAIN ST. Fort Worth Arts Festival has brought arts and entertainment to the streets of downtown Fort Worth.
The event traces its beginnings to the early 1980s when the City of Fort Worth set in motion a campaign of urban revitalization in the Central Business District. As momentum began to build, businessman Robert Bass spearheaded the initial effort in 1986 to create an event showcasing the attractions of the city's reawakening downtown core.
Mr. Bass and other prominent civic leaders envisioned a multi-faceted festival that would transform downtown into an outdoor gallery and concert stage on an early spring weekend. That first MAIN ST. Fort Worth Arts Festival was a three-day event involving 140 artists, 60 performance groups and 600 volunteers. Attendance was approximately 80,000.
Two decades later, downtown Fort Worth has become a thriving, 24-hour live-work-play environment. The MAIN ST. Fort Worth Arts Festival, meanwhile, has followed a parallel trajectory, evolving into the biggest and best-attended event of its kind in the Southwest. Art Fair SourceBook and The Harris List, two authoritative reference works on the American art-show circuit, each recently ranked MAIN ST. as #3 among the many hundreds of events they review nationally. The Harris List also rates MAIN ST. as the best festival in Texas.
Join us downtown April 15 through 18, and enjoy the best America has to offer - MAIN ST. Fort Worth Arts Festival. Experience the sights and sounds of history in the making.