Fort Worth resident Penny Buchan, 80, picks up a painted coaster during the West Main Arts Festival on Sept. 20, 2025, on West Main Street.
File photo / Elvis Martinez-Cartagena
The West Main Arts Festival will bring art, music and food to downtown Arlington from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday.
The festival is produced by Create Texas, a community organization based in Arlington. Its goal is to support local artists and help them establish full-time businesses in the arts, said Mark Joeckel, executive director of Create Texas.
Joeckel is also the director of the West Main Arts Festival. He said the festival will be family-friendly and free to attend, with 80 artists and artisan booths, music stages with 28 bands and a variety of food trucks. It will be located between City Hall and Levitt Pavilion, according to the organization’s website.
“It’s just unique in the sense of it’s really focused on the local and emerging,” he said.
The festival chose to highlight local musicians over more well-known bands to support the local music scene in Arlington. Joeckel said a variety of genres will be featured, including country, rock and mariachi vocalists. One of the stages will be dedicated to young, up-and-coming musicians.
“The folks will take away a huge cultural impact of all the music, all of the art, all the relationships,” he said.
Joeckel said one of the most interesting parts of the festival for attendees is meeting the artists running the booths.
“Very few people have actually met a local artist or artisan, so to speak, and so those conversations that happen between the artists and the residents that are coming, that seems to always be a great takeaway for people who come,” he said.
The festival is significant to the local art community because it gives new artists a place to establish themselves in the art business, Joeckel said. He also said the festival is a big deal for Arlington based on the economic impact on the community.
“When it’s all local, you have your money really circulating local, because it’s local artists and musicians,” he said. “It’s local businesses that then benefit. It’s all the restaurants and food trucks that benefit.”
For its 10th annual celebration this year, the festival will donate a percentage of its proceeds to the nonprofit organization Arlington Charities. The organization aims to fight food insecurity in the city, according to its website.
@hud4qureshi