EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) – Destination El Paso and El Paso County partnered to bring the first ‘Mission Trail Music Festival’ to the historic nine mile stretch along Socorro Road. <\/p>\n
The event is free to attend, scheduled to last from 1 p.m. until 10 p.m. meant to be a day of cultural celebration according to organizers. <\/p>\n
The booths with food and cutouts allowing people to take photos as their favorite Loteria squares and even a place to play cornhole all encircle the main courtyard with enough tables and chairs for everyone as the stage and dancefloor are where people’s attention is drawn to. <\/p>\n
Energy from the performers on stage reflects back onto the audience as every song draws a new crowd to the dance floor reflecting the moves seen on stage with the smiles on the people as big as the ones on the singers in between verses. <\/p>\n
Each song change brings a different color of light filling the stage, the main reason people like Adri Munez Lopez enjoyed coming in addition to being ‘in the middle of history’.<\/p>\n
“It’s amazing, the food is delicious, the music is insane,” Lopez said. “To be here in the missions, in the middle of history it’s amazingly beautiful and I can’t wait for this to be an annual thing.”<\/p>\n
An aspect of the set list Lopez liked was a reflection of the cultural celebration the festival is meant to be and was definitely one of the highlights for her.<\/p>\n
“They started everything out with a Danza Prehispanica that was beautiful, it was theatrical and also honoring our roots,” Lopez said. “La Cumbia, la comida, the gorditas were top notch.” <\/p>\n
Now that the community has had a taste of this festival, at least in Lopez’s opinion, there should be more for them to enjoy to bring people together through culture as she said.<\/p>\n
“I think we need more of these kind of festivals that bring together our culture, our heritage, our food so that we can come together as a community,” Lopez said. “We need more of this in different pockets of our area.”<\/p>\n
Lopez said she really hopes this festival returns and becomes a regular occurrence for her to look forward to in her community because in her opinion ‘it’s important and we need it’.<\/p>\n