Big Parties

Viva Big Bend is the biggest party in Texas, when measured by land area. Every July, the combined “Big Bend” communities throw an art, music, and weirdness gala that stretches from Fort Davis to Terlingua (106 miles) and from Marfa to Marathon (53 miles). Draw a rectangle around that and you get 5,618 square miles. Or, in other words, Connecticut. Or two Rhode Islands. Or 3.5 Delawares. 

The 2025 lineup featured 44 musical acts, ranging from Bob Schneider’s soulful progressive rock to Dallas Burrows’ traditional country to the accordion-driven rhythms of Tejano star Josh Baca & the Hot Tamales. All of that hits different in the weird and beautiful atmosphere that envelopes Big Bend. While daytime temperatures are toasty, the rapid desert cooling at night makes for an ideal summer evening outdoors. Each of the hosting communities (Alpine, Fort Davis, Marathon, Marfa, Presidio, and Terlingua) offers interesting dining options, unique accommodations, and other attractions. A true ‘let your hair down’ long weekend, running from Thursday to Sunday.

Our pretty educated guess is that the percentage of Texans who can name three Formula One teams falls well below freezing. On the other hand, big money draws Texans like moths to the flame, and Formula 1 races are the biggest money events in the world. In 2025, over 450,000 attended the Austin gala. The headline concert was Garth Brooks, while the Turnpike Troubadours played Sunday’s “wrap-up show.”   

Supermodels and celebrities are everywhere. Austin’s ballyhooed nightlife ratchets up a few notches, and everyone has a good time. For those willing to foot the bill, a victory lap at the water cooler awaits on Monday morning, if the hangover is not too bad.

Jerry World can hold up to 105,000 souls, wondering how the hell America’s team can go 30 years between championship game appearances, and why buying a Michelob Ultra and a Margarita requires a financing package. However, it is an absolute tradition dating back to Clint Murchison’s cagey decisions to put the Cowboys at the center of the football universe every Turkey Day. In addition to those at the game, the timing of millions of Thanksgiving dinners depends on the kickoff time. Of course, most of us will be exhibiting our sleep apnea snore from the couch by halftime, but the effort will be at least equal to our football heroes.

Growing up, we loved the one-two punch of the Cowboys afternoon tilt and the Longhorns and Aggies fighting for bragging rights in the evening. The internecine relationship between the schools ended that tradition for a little more than a decade. Sidenote: for a sport that extolls its place in the sportsworld based on the pageantry and tradition of the game, there seems to be precious little regard for the pageantry and tradition of the game. Rant over.

And tradition resumed–sort of. The Aggies and Longhorns meet again on Thanksgiving weekend, but this time on Friday evening. Leftovers will be consumed during the game, and you can count it as a two-day cornucopia of football.

Galveston, Oh Galveston…Constant winds, regular storms and flooding, vicious economic ups and downs, and decades-long rule by mob-adjacent families. What to do? Throw huge parties, the hugest of which is Mardi Gras. The Galveston Mardi Gras celebration is the third largest in the United States. It is also a long-standing tradition, with large private parties dating back to 1853. The celebration was more or less a constant in Galveston life, but its size ebbed and flowed with the city’s prospects, which is to say radically. In 1985, George and Cynthia Mitchell spearheaded the wise decision to revive Mardi Gras and other Galveston traditions.

Today, over 250,000 revelers enjoy the week-long celebration. Nobody in Texas parties like Galvestonians, followed closely by people who visit Galveston. If you want to enjoy yourself for a week, this is the party for you.

San Antonio’s showcase event is an 11-day celebration of the city’s culture, designed to honor the heroes of the Alamo and San Jacinto. (Texas Ten suggestion–let’s include Goliad in that group). They have been doing this since 1891, and the party has grown into one with an invitation list in the millions. Generally, Fiesta takes place in late April to coincide with the April 21st anniversary of the victory at San Jacinto.

San Antonio is a wildly colorful and vibrant city to start with, but Fiesta is an explosion for the senses. All week long, you have to guard yourself against cascarones egg attacks, lest you end up with confetti all through your hair. There are three good-sized parades, one featuring floats on the San Antonio River. The Battle of Flowers (across land) is the biggest, but our favorite is the Fiesta Flambeau Parade, held at night, and the nation’s largest illuminated parade. Stars on the Water. There is a friendly competition between dueling royal houses, the city’s old guard Cavaliers, who host the River Parade, and Rey Feo. Rey Feo is the “Ugly King,” born of a Spanish tradition of representing the peasants. A tremendous amount of scholarship funds is the result.

Night in Old San Antonio, or “NIOSA,” is where the party really gets going. Across downtown, 150 vendors provide food, drinks, art, souvenirs, and cascarones. Local bands rock into the night. Last year, that meant 30,000 tortillas, among other things. If you are a resident, it’s best not to schedule anything important during the week.

What if you had Woodstock every year? Actually, a much bigger and more organized Woodstock. Across consecutive three-day weekends, the biggest acts in music play eight separate Austin stages, celebrating the history and tradition of Austin City Limits.  The biggest acts in music as hyperbole? Tell that to the Allman Brothers, Eric Church, Coldplay, Sheryl Crow, Drake, the Eagles, Eminem, Foo Fighters, Guns N Roses, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, the Killers, Lyle Lovett, Paul McCartney, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, Tom Petty, Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Pepper, REM, Chris Stapleton, George Strait, the Weekend, Kanye West, Wilco, Stevie Wonder, and Neil Young. I am a bit OCD, and it hurt leaving off the hundreds of great acts we could not list. 

We are aware that there are many tremendous music festivals across the country. We are aware of how much people moan about ticket prices and Austin congestion. The truth is that ACL is right there with the best of them. For music lovers, it offers the best weekends in Texas.

We love Texas traditions, something we wanted to mention in case you are a first-time reader or if you’ve overlooked every other sentence we’ve written. College football is one of our best traditions, and the Cotton Bowl Classic sits at the apex.  Begun in 1937, the game traditionally pitted the champion of the Southwest Conference against another top squad.  

College football is changing. There used to be a Cotton Bowl parade (M’Lissa marched in it on January 1, 1981, with the Baylor University Golden Wave Band on the way to humiliation at the hands of Bear Bryant)—no more parade. Traditionally, the historic Cotton Bowl Stadium on the grounds of Fair Park, where Doak Walker, Ernie Davis, Jim Brown, Roger Staubach, Earl Campbell, Bo Jackson, Joe Montana, Darrell Royal, and Bear Bryant once roamed the sidelines, hosted the game. Now it is Jerry World, infinitely more comfortable, and infinitely less historic. Worst of all, we used to be guaranteed a team with some connection to Texas, even if only by rivalry. Since the powers-that-be unveiled the new playoff format, no Texas team has played in the game. Great for the tourist economy in DFW, not great for fans of Texas college football teams. 

Yet, the Kilgore Rangerettes still do their precision, impossibly high, high-kick routine. We see the reels of history and Tommy Lewis leaping from the bench to tackle Dicky Maegle on his way to the end zone, or of James Street, Steve Worster, and Cotton Speyer clinching Darrell Royal’s second national title at Texas. Branding means something, so around New Year’s, we will all check in on the Cotton Bowl, because at least it is not Texas.

South by Southwest (also SXSW or “Souuthby”) is the least traditional entry on the list, but it probably says the most about where Texas is today. Southby is the largest confluence of creatives across a variety of disciplines in the world. Music, film, branding, and tech collide in a kaleidoscope of hype. 

We would love to see a Richard Linklater satire of the whole thing, but until then, Southby will attract people who make tomorrow different. For a week, there is a unique energy and sense of possibility that belongs in Texas. Austin is many things to many people. I don’t know who penned the line in Linklater’s Bernie that it is “the People’s Republic of Austin,” but every Texan knows at least ten people who hold that very idea. Still, some of the other things Austin is relevant, young, different, and exciting. Southby showcases that fact to the world every year.

All of our major rodeos–Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Pecos, Mesquite, and others–are special. We focus on Houston because it is the world’s largest, fueled by an incredible volunteer effort, and regularly features the most remarkable entertainment talent in the world. The best analogy is a Super Bowl every day for three weeks in a row.

It is only possible because of 36,000 volunteers, and no, that is not a misplaced comma. We love all of it. The stock show brings 4-Hers and FFAers to the fourth-largest city in the country. World-class athletes are on display daily, and the cowboys and cowgirls who ride them are exceptional, too. You get to hear music stars play only their hits. There are rides, games, and silly food choices. 

Maybe we love it most because Texans love to show off. Houston is, by far, our most international and cosmopolitan city. The fact that we so spectacularly display our claimed heritage “for all the world to see” is a tribute to Houston. If you want to see the past, present, and future of our state, the three weeks each March when Houston’s best stage is the biggest show in rodeo would be a good place to do it.

Stephen Harrigan’s Big, Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas is on a very short list of the best books about Texas. Harrigan begins with the day that Big Tex burned on the Fair Park grounds, because it was a story that stopped almost everyone in their tracks. It is a brilliant piece of non-fiction writing because the small truth about the fire reveals a larger truth about Texans. As corny as it sounds, most of us have a true and deep affection for where we live.

Big Tex was, and thankfully is, a repository for that affection. Tex is perfectly positioned where over 2,000,000 people pass through the gates each year to celebrate our state. Not surprisingly, Texas hosts the largest state fair in the country. The fairgrounds on which the fair takes place were, in large part, built to celebrate the centennial of our independence from Mexico. The annual Texas-Oklahoma football game, with half the stadium burnt orange and half crimson and cream, takes place in the middle of the fair and remains one of the most iconic scenes in college sports. 

People come for the rides, the variety of fried foods, the music, the football, or maybe for the food, contests, and other activities. Many school districts still do a “fair day” as a respite from schoolwork. Young adults from across the state dream of winning a livestock competition. Whatever the reason, other than the 40,000 fans who come up short in the UT vs. OU rivalry, most people leave the fairgrounds happy and happy to be a Texan.