Deep Ellum Arts Festival

Deep Ellum Arts Festival responds to big changes in the neighborhood

Deep Ellum Arts Festival is back, with a new location.

Photo by Mark Thompson

The Deep Ellum Arts Festival is back, but with a shift to the right. For 2016, the multiday art and music extravaganza is moving three blocks east.

The location change is a reflection of the vitality of Deep Ellum, says festival founder Stephen Millard.

"When we first started this event, there wasn't one business open on Main Street," he says. "In the last several years, the area between Good Latimer and Malcolm X has exploded. We never want to block the entrance of a business, and as a result, we've lost a lot of real estate for our vendors.

"So we've been working with all of the businesses trying to find a solution. Moving it seemed like a natural resolution, to put it in area that's not competing."

The Deep Ellum Arts Festival first debuted in 1995 as a one-block street party and has since become a mega-event with visual and performing artists. Where it used to reside on Main between Good Latimer and Hall, now it will occupy six blocks between Malcolm X and Sons of Hermann Hall.

Millard is especially excited about a "village" area set up on the lot on the corner of Main and Malcolm X, with food vendors and artists making art onsite.

"It starts at Malcolm X, which becomes the gateway and allows us to use this giant parking lot that connects Elm and Main streets together as the Deep Ellum Village," he says. "In the evening, it'll be the main performing stage area. So instead of closing Malcolm X, we'll close Hall Street."

There'll be more than 100 performances, including bands and solo musicians representing a variety of genres, on four outdoor stages and two new indoor stages at the Sons of Hermann Hall.

Among the more than 130 bands already announced include Brave Combo, Rivethead, and Rebel Jazz Alliance.

Fitting into the April Fools' Day theme, entertainment will include street performers, jugglers, and other whimsical characters, plus a Poetry Slam open mic and a speakers corner, where registered speakers can wax a topic of their choice.

The festival opens on Friday, April 1, at 11 am, with a special lunchtime preview for downtown office workers. Sunday at noon sees the return of the annual Deep Ellum Pet Parade, which joined the festival in 2015. Registration begins at 11 am at the dog park on Trunk and Commerce.

"We hope to keeps the synergy going in Deep Ellum," Millard says. "Still bring in thousands of people. We're hoping that businesses will continue running special activities.

"The festival brings in thousands of people, who stay about three hours, then walk down to see the rest of Deep Ellum."

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Wicked News

Wizard of Oz ruby slippers bought by mystery bidder for $28 million

Heritage Auctions

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A pair of iconic ruby slippers that were worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz and stolen from a museum nearly two decades ago sold for a winning bid of $28 million at auction on December 7.

Dallas-based Heritage Auctions had estimated that they would fetch $3 million or more, but the fast-paced bidding far outpaced that amount within seconds and tripled it within minutes. A few bidders making offers by phone volleyed back and forth for 15 minutes as the price climbed to the final, eye-popping sum.

Including the auction house fee, the unknown buyer will ultimately pay $32.5 million.

Online bidding, which opened last month, had stood at $1.55 million before live bidding began late Saturday afternoon.

The sparkly red heels were on display at the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in 2005 when Terry Jon Martin used a hammer to smash the glass of the museum’s door and display case. Their whereabouts remained a mystery until the FBI recovered them in 2018.

Martin, now 77, who lives near Grand Rapids in northern Minnesota, wasn’t publicly exposed as the thief until he was indicted in May 2023. He pleaded guilty in October 2023. He was in a wheelchair and on supplementary oxygen when he was sentenced last January to time served because of his poor health.

The shoes were returned in February to memorabilia collector Michael Shaw, who had loaned them to the museum. They were one of several pairs that Garland wore during the filming, but only four pairs are known to have survived. In the movie, to return from Oz to Kansas, Dorothy had to click her heels three times and repeat, “There’s no place like home.”

As Rhys Thomas, author of The Ruby Slippers of Oz, put it, the sequined shoes from the beloved 1939 musical have seen “more twists and turns than the Yellow Brick Road.”

Over 800 people had been tracking the slippers, and the company’s webpage for the auction had hit nearly 43,000 page views by Thursday, said Robert Wilonsky, a vice president with the auction house.

Among those bidding to bring the slippers home was the Judy Garland Museum, which posted on Facebook shortly after that it did not place the winning bid. The museum had campaigned for donations to supplement money raised by the city of Grand Rapids at its annual Judy Garland festival and the $100,000 set aside this year by Minnesota lawmakers to help the museum purchase the slippers.

After the slippers sold, the auctioneer told bidders and spectators in the room and watching online that the previous record for a piece of entertainment memorabilia was $5.52 million, for the white dress Marilyn Monroe famously wore atop a windy subway grate.

The auction also included other memorabilia from The Wizard of Oz, such as a hat worn by Margaret Hamilton, who played the original Wicked Witch of the West. That item went for $2.4 million, or a total final cost to the buyer of $2.93 million.

The Wizard of Oz story has gained new attention in recent weeks with the release of the movieWicked, an adaptation of the megahit Broadway musical, a prequel of sorts that reimagines the character of the Wicked Witch of the West.

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