Festival Season

Music and BBQ top the 15 must-hit Dallas festivals of spring 2025

Spring is when everything feels new again, and it's also the time when festival organizers try to take advantage of both the good weather and positive feelings to put on their big events.

We've rounded up the top must-attend festivals happening throughout spring 2025 across Dallas-Fort Worth. For even more options, head to our event calendar.

Deep Ellum Community Arts Fair (April 4-6)
The third annual Deep Ellum Community Arts Fair transforms Deep Ellum’s streets into a three-day celebration of art, music, community, and culture. Visitors can explore six blocks of original art, live performances, and culinary delights. There will be more than 120 fine and decorative artists and more than 80 bands and performing artists spread across four stages.

Breakaway Music Festival (April 4-5)
The Breakaway Music Festival is an electronic music event in Fair Park that will be headlined by big acts like Slander, Zedd, Afrojack, GRYFFIN, and Louis The Child. They will be joined by 16 national touring acts and four local DJs across two nights. Breakaway elevates the festival experience with a silent disco featuring local artists and brand activations.

Dallas Art Fair (April 10-13)
Taking place at Fashion Industry Gallery, the Dallas Art Fair offers collectors, arts professionals, and the public the opportunity to engage with a rich selection of modern and contemporary artworks presented by leading global and local galleries. Curated exhibitions and programming encourage conversations about the city's growing arts community.

Ennis Bluebonnet Trails Festival (April 11-13)
The annual Ennis Bluebonnet Trails Festival features an abundance of activities and live music throughout the weekend, as well as a spectacular array of Texas bluebonnets across 40 miles of trails in Ennis. Festival activities include arts and crafts exhibitions, shopping, children’s activities, the railroad and cultural heritage museum, and food options. Visitors also can enjoy the beer garden or sample Texas wines at the Ennis Education Foundation Wine Wander.

USA Film Festival (April 23-27)
The annual USA Film Festival features a variety of sneak preview screenings, tributes to filmmakers, retrospective screenings, short films, and more at Angelika Film Center in Dallas. This year it will have to share some dates with another big film festival (see below). The festival lineup is typically announced during the first week of April, so stay tuned for full details.

Taste Addison (April 25-27)
Taste Addison moves from its traditional late May/early June dates so that guests can relax with cooler temps at Addison Circle Park. Taste Addison has a focus on the culinary arts, performing arts, and visual arts. Food booths and trucks, international delicacies, a tasting area, and Sunday brunch are all part of the culinary experience. National, regional and community artists take to the stages (and spaces) for the performing arts.

Dallas International Film Festival (April 25-May 1)
The annual Dallas International Film Festival brings a variety of premiere screenings, documentaries, short films, filmmaker panels, and nightly red carpets to Cinépolis Luxury Cinemas Victory Park. For the first time ever, the festival has been named an Oscar Qualifying Film Festival, which may be a boon to the types of films it will screen. The festival lineup is typically revealed in late March/early April, so keep your eyes peeled for more details.

Festival of Joy (April 26)
Taking place at Klyde Warren Park, the sixth annual Festival of Joy features a parade, dancing, music, and live performances throughout the day. Presented by East Dallas restaurant Kalachandji’s, the festival includes a free vegetarian feast and a variety of ethnic vegetarian foods available for purchase. The event culminates with an evening concert by The Mayapuris.

Frisco Uncorked (April 26)
The annual wine-centered event at Frisco Square features hundreds of award-winning wines, local restaurants, a VIP experience, a craft beer garden, shopping with a variety of boutiques and artisans, grape stomping competitions, activations, and more.

Lone Star Smokeout (May 2-4)
The Lone Star Smokeout is a three-day country music and BBQ festival taking over AT&T Stadium in Arlington. It will feature some top country music artists, including Jon Pardi, Cody Jinks, Midland, Randy Rogers Band, Eli Young Band, Kaitlin Butts, and more. Top barbecue spots from around the state will be on hand, including Panther City BBQ, Slow Bone BBQ, Salt Lick BBQ, Black’s BBQ, Curry Boys BBQ, and more.

Dallas International Guitar Festival (May 2-4)
Taking place at Dallas Market Hall, the Dallas International Guitar Festival is the largest and oldest guitar show in the world. Visitors can buy, sell, trade, or just browse among the thousands of new and vintage guitars, basses, amps, banjos, music memorabilia, and more. There will also be performances by more than 50 local, regional, and national bands on four music stages. Headliners include Ian Moore, Sonny Landreth, and Andy Timmons.

Cottonwood Art Festival (May 3-4)
Cottonwood Art Festival, held at Richardson's Cottonwood Park, is a semi-annual event that features works from the nation's top visual artists. Jurors select over 240 artists to exhibit their museum-quality work, competing in 14 categories. The festival also features music from a variety of local bands.

Post Malone's Travelin' Tailgate (May 9)
Travelin' Tailgate is a free daytime event taking place at AT&T Stadium directly before Post Malone's concert. Running from 12-6 pm, it will feature live music, food, beer, merch, carnival games, photo opportunities, and tattoos by Posty’s personal tattoo artists from Oxford Circle Tattoos. Plus, one lucky fan will ride away with a 2025 Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Tickets to that night's concert are not required.

City of Grapevine presents 41st Annual Main Street Fest (May 16-18)
The 41st Annual Main Street Fest is a family-friendly festival featuring live music, craft brew and wine experiences, food, and unique shopping in Historic Downtown Grapevine. Visitors can enjoy the Carnival and Midway, explore the KidZone, and more.

Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival (May 16-18)
The annual Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival at Richardson's Galatyn Park Urban Center features performances by national, regional, and local bands, led by headliners The Revivalists, Cold War Kids, Young the Giant, NEEDTOBREATHE, and Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. Over the course of the festival, nearly 50 bands will perform on various stages, and there will be a variety of other activities, including a Singer Songwriter contest, strolling entertainers, and a Battle of the Bands contest.

Photo courtesy of Visit Addison

Taste Addison takes place at Addison Circle Park, April 25-27.

barbecue craft beer fairs-festivals families galleries kids movies music music festivals nature spring festivals wine

Movie Review

Film sequel Avatar: Fire and Ash is a technical and visual feast

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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Movie Review

Film sequel Avatar: Fire and Ash is a technical and visual feast