Fort Worth’s popular ArtsGoggle festival is preparing for one final celebration before a major construction project puts the annual event on hiatus and forces businesses along Magnolia Avenue to adapt.<\/p>\n
The free arts festival, which draws about 80,000 people to the Near Southside neighborhood for a day of local art and music, will pause as crews begin a two-year project to replace cast-iron pipes beneath Magnolia Avenue.<\/p>\n
Construction is expected to begin in the spring, with work taking over different sections of the street over the next two years.<\/p>\n
For festival organizers, that means finding new ways to celebrate the neighborhood’s arts community while construction continues.<\/p>\n
“It’s our signature event that celebrates the Near South Side Cultural District,” said Mary Henderson, ArtsGoggle festival producer and president of Near Southside Inc.<\/p>\n
The festival has brought artists, musicians and crowds to Magnolia Avenue for more than two decades.<\/p>\n
“There are no tickets, wristbands, entry fees. It’s a totally free festival,” Henderson said.<\/p>\n
Although the festival will take a break, Henderson said organizers are already exploring alternatives to keep people visiting the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
“We’re going to plan some other indoor programming, sidewalk festivals, and kind of pivot programming that continues to welcome the public to Magnolia Avenue,” Henderson said.<\/p>\n
Magnolia Avenue businesses prepare for construction<\/p>\n
For Mary Perez, owner of Enchiladas Ole’, the upcoming construction presents a challenge just as her restaurant approaches its first anniversary on Magnolia Avenue.<\/p>\n
Perez was drawn to the neighborhood because of its vibrant atmosphere and diverse businesses.<\/p>\n
“I came over to Magnolia, and I thought, this is a magnificent street. There’s so much here and so much diversity,” Perez said.<\/p>\n
She’s looking forward to participating in her first ArtsGoggle festival, even as she prepares for the possibility of fewer customers dining inside her restaurant during construction.<\/p>\n
“It’ll be fun. We’re all excited about it,” Perez said.<\/p>\n
With parking expected to become more difficult as construction moves along the street, Perez said she’s considering shifting much of her business toward takeout and delivery.<\/p>\n
“We’re just going to just shift and pivot like we did with during COVID. And it’s going to be mainly to go, probably 90% to go because there will be no parking, or people won’t want to come down the street,” Perez said.<\/p>\n
That could mean changing employees’ responsibilities, with servers transitioning from waiting tables to making deliveries.<\/p>\n
Perez is even considering investing in a new way to get food to customers without worrying about parking.<\/p>\n
“We may just invest in mopeds, just a few mopeds. That we don’t have to worry about parking,” Perez said.<\/p>\n
One final celebration before the changes<\/p>\n
For now, festival organizers and local business owners are hoping the final ArtsGoggle before the hiatus will bring another large crowd to Magnolia Avenue.<\/p>\n
While construction will temporarily change how people experience the neighborhood, Henderson hopes smaller events will continue drawing visitors to support local businesses.<\/p>\n
Perez, meanwhile, is determined to keep her restaurant operating through the disruption.<\/p>\n
“We’re just shifting. We got to, either that or you gotta get out of the business. And we’re not gonna get out of the business,” Perez said.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Worth’s popular ArtsGoggle festival is preparing for one final celebration before a major construction project puts the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-475128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475128","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=475128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}