Vegan Fest
Annual Texas Veggie Fair ramps up starpower with keynote speaker Erykah Badu
The 2013 version of the annual Texas Veggie Fair returns with some big guns: an appearance by Grammy Award-winning singer Erykah Badu as keynote speaker, plus a beer garden overseen by Trinity Hall.
This will mark the first time that alcohol has been sold at the fair, and it goes a long way toward expanding the appeal of the festival, held this year on Sunday, October 20.
"We've seen the fair grow by leaps and bounds every year, but we feel like the 2013 edition is going to be spectacular,” said founder and DallasVegan.com blogger James Scott. “We’re honored to welcome Erykah Badu. She’s a phenomenal performer, and we love that she is a vegan herself."
Badu will share notes from her journey toward a vegan lifestyle, then perform a DJ set.
The beer garden will offer an array of local craft brews, says the fair's co-producer, Stephanie M. Casey, founder of Frugal Foodie Dallas.
"As an attendee last year, I was so excited by what I saw, and ideas started popping about how to expand offerings even further,” she says. "A beer garden was one of those ideas, and I’m thrilled to have Marius Donnelly and his pub Trinity Hall partnering with us."
Other highlights include talks by renowned animal rights activist Carol Adams, author of the ground-breaking 1990 book The Sexual Politics of Meat, and plant-based personality Kristina Carrillo-Bucaram, founder of FullyRaw.com. Carrillo-Bucaram runs the largest raw, organic produce co-operative in the United States.
The fair will also have an expanded kids’ area; a new green program overseen by Dallas-based Recycle Revolution; and more vegan vendors than ever, including iconic restaurants such as Spiral Diner and beloved local food trucks such as Good Karma Kitchen.
The fair returns to Reverchon Park, a 46-acre facility in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas, at the corner of Maple Avenue and Turtle Creek Boulevard. It’s accessible by car, bus, DART and bicycle.
All of the fair’s speakers and features can be found on the new Texas Veggie Fair website.