Festival Season

Oktoberfest and more major festivals coming to Dallas in fall 2024

As summer turns to fall in Dallas-Fort Worth, one alliteration instantly springs to mind: fall festivals.

The world loves a festival, but not in the middle of summer, not in Texas. We save our festivals for when the temperatures drop and cram as many into the fall as we possibly can. From early September through the end of November, fans of the fall festival — which is to say, everyone — can pretty much find at least one every week.

We are here with the complete list: ranging from traditional fall fests to gatherings celebrating aviation, pop culture, and food.

Below are the best festivals taking place in the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the next two months:

Addison Oktoberfest (September 19-22)
The first big Oktoberfest celebration of the year takes place at Addison Circle Park in Addison. Visitors can enjoy a taste of the original Bavarian celebration with a purely Texan twist. Guests can also enjoy polka bands and other traditional entertainers on multiple stages, and participate in special games for bier lovers, kids of all ages, dachshunds, and more.

HEB | Central Market Plano Balloon Festival (September 19-22)
The Plano Balloon Festival is an annual four-day event that features nightly balloon glows, skydivers, hot air balloons taking off into the morning sky, concerts, drone shows, fireworks, a kids fun zone, merchandise vendors, corporate exhibitors, and variety of foods. The festival takes place at Red Tail Pavilion in Plano.

Fort Worth Oktoberfest (September 26-28)
Fort Worth gets in on the Oktoberfest fun with a three-day celebration featuring traditional German food and drink, a midway with carnival rides and games, and an extensive music lineup. Performers include Alex Meixner Band, Das Ist Lustig, Alpenmusikanten, Walburg Boys, Lederhosen Junkies, Off the Grid Band, and more. The festival takes place at Trinity Park in Fort Worth.

State Fair of Texas (September 27-October 20)
You can't talk about festival season without including the biggest one around, the State Fair of Texas. There is so much to do at the annual 24-day event that it's almost impossible to fit it all in, but the universal favorites include the Midway with the Texas Star Ferris Wheel, the new fried food options, and a steady supply of live music. This year performers include Jo Dee Messina, Shakey Graves, Jefferson Starship, Jon Wolfe, Spin Doctors, and The Commodores. The fair takes place at Fair Park in Dallas.

Aviation Discovery Fest (October 4-6)
The Commemorative Air Force’s Aviation Discovery Fest celebrates the wonder of flying with cockpit tours and rides on vintage aircraft. More than 20 historic aircraft will be present at Dallas Executive Airport in Dallas, including the B-29 Superfortress “FIFI,” P-51 Mustang “Gunfighter,” C-47 Skytrain “That’s All, Brother,” and more. Other activities include kid-friendly hands-on projects, educational exhibits, food trucks, living history re-enactors, rides on vintage military vehicles, and a classic car show.

Cottonwood Art Festival (October 5 and 6)
The semi-annual Cottonwood Art Festival features works from over 240 artists competing in 14 categories: 2D Mixed Media, 3D Mixed Media, Ceramics, Digital, Drawings/Pastels, Fiber, Glass, Jewelry, Leather, Metalwork, Painting, Photography, Sculpture and Wood. The festival, taking place at Cottonwood Park in Richardson also features performances from a variety of local bands.

McKinney Wine and Music Festival (October 12)
At the 8th Annual McKinney Wine & Music Festival, guests can taste hundreds of wines from local wineries, California wineries, and beyond. The one-day event, taking place at District 121 in McKinney), will also feature performances by Downtown Fever Band, Maylee Thomas Band, and Like Combs, with food available for purchase from 400 Gradi and The Common Table.

Flying Saucer Draught Emporium presents OktoberFeast (October 19)
The annual OktoberFeast at Flying Saucer Draught Emporium in Fort Worth is a beer tasting extravaganza featuring more than 80 Beerknurd-approved, rare, and unusual brews from across the globe. Highlighted breweries include Odell, Manhattan Project, Sierra Nevada, Real Ale, Firestone Walker, and Lakewood breweries, in addition to a selection of seasonal pumpkin beers. There will also be live music from Mike Randall and Paul Val.

Dallas Fan Festival (October 19 and 20)
The Dallas Fan Festival offers the ultimate playground for fans of comics, sci-fi, horror, anime, and gaming. Celebrity guests scheduled include Tyler Hoechlin, Danielle Panabaker, Tom Cavanagh, John Wesley Shipp, and more. Visitors can also interact with comic book creators, shop for merchandise, dress up for cosplay fun, and more. The event takes place at Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas.

Ennis presents Autumn Daze (October 25-27)
The annual Autumn Daze in Ennis, back for its 22nd year, features more than 15,000 pumpkins. With the theme of "Season of Harvest," the star of the festival is the Giant Hay Maze and Pumpkin Patch. Along with the main attractions, kids will enjoy pumpkin painting, carnival rides, climbing on the life-size tractor made from haybales, a gigantic harvest moon, and the huge corn pit. The event takes place in downtown Ennis.

Tianyu Lights Festival (November 8-January 19, 2025)
The Tianyu Lights Festival is an immersive show that tells the story of a 7-year-old boy as he explores the magical rainforest of Caballococha, Peru. It includes 19 immersive scenes featuring larger-than-life lantern sculptures crafted from metal, steel, fabric, and LED lights, plus nightly performances by acrobats and folk performers, as well as food, beverages, and souvenirs for sale. It takes place on the parade grounds around Texas Trust CU Theatre in Grand Prairie.

AURORA Biennial: FuturePresentPast (November 16)
Taking place at Dallas City Hall and surrounding areas, AURORA Biennial is a free nighttime exhibition of technology-based public art. Under the title FuturePresentPast, the exhibition looks into the shared experiences of Dallas-Fort Worth, reflecting on the past to consider and shape the future through the present. Artwork themes will include bridging disconnected communities, health advocacy, environmental sustainability, and urban transformation due to displacement and migration.

Shaq’s Bass All Stars Festival (November 16)
DJ Diesel (aka Shaquille O'Neal) will come back to Fort Worth with the second annual Shaq’s Bass All Stars Festival. The lineup will feature performances by DJ Diesel, Dion Timmer, Dirt Monkey, Eptic, Space Laces, and more. The festival at Panther Island Pavilion in Fort Worth will also include an array of local Texas flavors, interactive brand activations, and photo opportunities.

Photo courtesy of Addison Oktoberfest

Addison Oktoberfest takes place at Addison Circle Park, September 19-22.

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Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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