{"id":362749,"date":"2026-07-06T15:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/362749\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T15:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:36:09","slug":"liberty-fest-grows-with-more-vendors-crowds-fireworks-indo-american-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/362749\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberty Fest Grows with More Vendors, Crowds, Fireworks \u2013 Indo American News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Jawahar Malhotra<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"545\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-4-1024x545.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-84434 lazyload\" data-  \/><\/p>\n<p>HOUSTON: The crowds were already building up by the time the Liberty Fest was opening at 4pm on Sunday, June 28, despite it being a sweltering afternoon. By the time the Liberty Fest, a\u00a0Signature event for the\u00a0Southwest Management District, ended after fireworks about 9:30, the crowd had grown to several thousand.<\/p>\n<p>They came for the early July 4th celebration that\u00a0is\u00a0held at the site of the PlazAmericas (formerly the Sharpstown Mall) on the Sunday before the actual holiday so as not to compete with the City of Houston\u2019s celebration, this year marking the nation\u2019s 250th Birthday.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-5-1024x506.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-84435 lazyload\" data-  \/><\/p>\n<p>This is the fifth year that the SWMD has held the family-oriented event which serves no alcohol. There were 122 booths \u2013 more than previous years \u2013 serving food, clothing and wares from different ethnicities as well as politicians and nonprofits promoting\u00a0their causes.<\/p>\n<p>There were a lot\u00a0of activities for kids, like a train\u00a0ride,\u00a0putt-putt golf, bounce houses, rock climbing and this year even a Tesla Cybertruck which everyone had a chance to write on the side panels with washable color markers.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"507\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-7-1024x507.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-84437 lazyload\" data-  \/><\/p>\n<p>As in previous years, there was non-stop stage entertainment\u00a0from Chinese Dragon dances, to Vietnamese dances, Indian classical\u00a0dances, country music, Tejano music, and Mariachi bands. Once again this year, the feature show was She Wolf, a high energy Shakira tribute band, and Paul Wall, a hugely popular local rap artist entertainer.<\/p>\n<p>An estimated record 15,000 people of many ethnic backgrounds attended the event, which once again had no entrance fee and a small vendor fee, all thanks to the support of generous sponsors. Harris County Pct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones\u2019 office offered a cooling off bus and Houston City Councilman Edward Pollard, whose District J includes the Sharpstown area, attended the event.<\/p>\n<p>Southwest Management District Board Directors \u2013 Chair Kenneth Li, Peter Acquaro, Safety Vice-Chair; Raj Adnani, Blu Baillio and David Peters and others, as well as the staff and countless volunteers \u2013 were at the festival throughout the event, meeting and greeting people.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/dWJXcgXA-USE-FP-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-84438 lazyload\" data-  \/><\/p>\n<p>They plan for an even better event next year. Those interested in sponsoring next year\u2019s event\u00a0should contact the SWMD at https:\/\/www.Southwestdistrict.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jawahar Malhotra HOUSTON: The crowds were already building up by the time the Liberty Fest was opening&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-362749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}