After a weekend of East Dallas residents complaining of hearing music from a Fair Park Festival miles away, Dallas Park and Recreation Director John Jenkins said the city has “learned its lesson.”
For two nights straight, residents in East Dallas and Lakewood said they heard something unusual, loud music echoing through their neighborhoods.
Neighbors described a steady, pounding beat that carried late into the night.
The sound came from the Breakaway Music Festival and concerts at Dos Equis Pavilion.
According to Jenkins, the festival used a new stage setup involving two stages. One location the city had used before, but the other faces out toward open space, which the city attributed to the noise issue.
Low clouds were also a contributing factor to the noise traveling further, Jenkins said. Now, whenever there are low clouds, he said the city knows it will need to reposition and watch the decibel levels.
“We want to be a good neighbor, and we will make any adjustments necessary, as we did Saturday night,” Jenkins said. “We learned our lesson.”
Rudy Karimi with the Dallas Park and Recreation Department said the goal is to keep Fair Park vibrant while also protecting residents’ quality of life.
“You could hear it all the way down the block, everything,” said Maxwell Stirnweis, who works at Laboratory DTX in Lower Greenville.
He said the noise quickly became a topic of conversation.
“It’s really cool to see all these new and interesting things come around,” Stirnweis said. “Yeah, it might be a little too loud when I can hear it over here, but it’s still super cool to see.”
Residents took to social media and neighborhood apps like Nextdoor to express frustration.