Cy-Fest 2011
Normally I wouldn’t cover a 1st year festival, but two things occurred. First, I fell victim to the local rumor mill that Cy-Fest 2011 was the second year for the festival instead of checking the facts on it, so I went ahead and scheduled it, and the second being that once I found out it was the first year, I just sort of didn’t care. You see, I grew up in the Cy-Fair area (a suburban area of NW Houston), and I sort of felt this burning civic need to make sure the world was at least aware of this festival, regardless if it shined in glory for the next several decades or was a one hit wonder. Up until this point probably the biggest parties going on were at a person’s house (or bonfire out by the barn), a spring fling thrown by a local church or a long running Friday night rodeo. A sleepy residential suburb for the most part when I was growing up, the Cypress area is arguably one of the fastest and steadiest growing areas around Houston now, and this festival was due to be probably the largest crowd the area has seen short of the Premium Outlet center in the area that seems to be amazingly packed every single weekend come open to close.
The Saturday morning of the event I wandered over to a local mom and pop deli to get some breakfast and happened upon a poster for the event that listed out the bands for the night, and two things caught my eye. First up was that a band that was a friend of the family (Luther and the Healers, just so you know) was playing just before sundown and that the closer for the night was Mark Chesnutt. I had still second guessed if I should cover the festival, but seeing that Luther and Mark were up on the stage that night made me confident that should the festival be a full shame that I would, at the very least, catch some legit musical acts.
Festival Breakdown
Entertainment – I spent the earlier part of the day wandering the vendor areas, so I only caught the last 3 music acts, Luther and the Healers, Kyle Bennett and Mark Chesnutt. Credit to the festival producers for knowing the mainstream audience in the Cypress area, as the blues infused Healers, the progressive Texas country of Kyle Bennett and the traditional country of Mark Chesnutt all appeared to be a win with the crowd. Score: A-
Food – The festival was themed “A Taste of Louisiana”, so a variety of foods inspired by Louisiana were expected. While I’m not sure at this point if this will be the recurring theme for the festival, or just for this year, there was at least a stab at fitting the bill with creole and cajun inspired food booths. A dedicated area for boiled crawfish and a tent ripe with Abita beer worked out to represent the largest contribution to the theme. The two biggest plusses? First, the folks at Floyd’s Seafood brought their top game. The crawfish were generously seasoned and flavorful without being spicier than the average person would want, and second… they were surprisingly inexpensive for a festival. At $5 a pound, they were doing festival business at less that many restaurants in Houston area do for a “crawfish special”. Based on the theme, one would guess that they would be replete with options to fill the belly with creole or cajun cuisine, but the large crawfish area was the only real festival based theme eats. I would have liked to see some more variety, but the offerings made were tasty and a good value. Score: B+
Vendors – To round out the food offerings, the festival was represented well with what I estimate to be about 40% of the vendors offering food. This ranged from the typical carnie offerings such as cotton candy and funnel cakes, to those drawing business from the Louisiana theme , with plenty of offerings of gumbo, grilled fish, boiled shrimp and spicy sauces. There were other vendors there from a variety of small businesses, but being that this is food based, we won’t get in to the rest of them. Two local businesses near the site of the festival showed a bit of genius, Cypress Station Grill offered everything you might want at the festival (beer and crawfish), including the one thing you couldn’t get… air conditioning, and the other, a local tea house, volunteering to let the road in front of them be closed off for the festival gained probably more foot traffic in an hour than they see in a normal week. Tack on that they had seating and A/C on the festival grounds, they were golden for turning random festival goers in to return customers. A solid showing from the food vendors that stayed within theme. Score: A-
Atmosphere – This is probably where this festival lacked the most. The layout of the festival ground ran along roughly a half mile of road with the main stage at one end and the main gates at the other end. The crawfish area was set off to the side on an available pad of grassy area. While this made the festival amazingly easy to navigate, there didn’t ever seem to be a moment where you felt “lost”… in the good way… where you lose track of time and just enjoy yourself. Also there was a fairly deep ditch to one side of the road, so setup of vendors off the paved path was limited to one side, which kept some of the areas, especially in front of the midway area a bit crowded for traffic. Another downside to the setup was that it seemed that once the major music acts took stage, everyone abandoned the vendors towards the front of the festival grounds in order to make their way within earshot of the stage. In the future I think I’d like to see a bit more room to move about and possibly a second minor stage operating towards the other end to help keep people engaged on both ends. Had you shown up at the main gate during Mark Chesnutt’s set, you might already thing that the festival was closed, since the only people on that end of the festival were on their way out the gate. Score: C
Overall: This was a fairly well put together festival with credible music, flavorful food, enthusiastic vendors and a good family oriented vibe, especially for a first year run. I’d like to see more adult and family attendance, as there were times that the midway area felt like a parking lot of every young teenage girl in the Cypress area and all the teenage boys pursuing them, but all in, I enjoyed the time there and I’m looking forward to how they’ll learn and grow towards next year. As mentioned, the layout and crowd issues are a big issue that definitely needs to be looked at for next year, especially if they want to attract serious vendors. Score: B+
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