What a wild ride! I write this with my voice completely shot, running on fumes, and still absolutely blown away by the support this community showed. We came out, we turned up, we had a blast! The simplest place to start: Thank you.
Oak Lawn Live was a new event. There was no previous year to point to, no established tradition behind it, and no guarantee that everything we were building would come together the way we hoped. A lot of people chose to believe in it anyway. I want to take a moment to recognize the people and organizations who helped make the day possible and helped me personally fulfill a bucket-list item.
Thank You to CSMA and Pride in Dallas
First, I want to thank the Cedar Springs Merchant Association for supporting the idea of bringing a new music and arts festival to Cedar Springs and for giving this project the opportunity to become something real.
I am also incredibly grateful to Pride in Dallas for its support, partnership, and willingness to work alongside us during an already very busy Pride week in Oak Lawn. Events like this require people and organizations to share resources, solve problems, and sometimes simply have faith that the work is going to come together. I am grateful to both organizations for doing exactly that.
Thank You to the Sponsors and Partners
To every business, organization, and individual who sponsored or supported Oak Lawn Live: thank you twice over. A first-year event requires a different kind of commitment. You are investing in an idea before anyone can point to photographs from last year or tell you exactly what the event will look like.
The sponsors helped turn plans into something people could actually experience on Cedar Springs. I am deeply grateful for that support, and I encourage everyone to take a moment to recognize the sponsors and partners who helped make Oak Lawn Live possible.
To the Volunteers: There Was No Festival Without You
I cannot say this strongly enough: Oak Lawn Live would not have happened without the volunteers.
Volunteers helped set up the grounds, greeted guests, helped at entrances, answered questions, supported festival operations, assisted VIP guests, helped keep things moving, and stepped into whatever needed to be done throughout a very long day. Several key volunteers formed a core leadership team, and without the skills and dedication they brought with them, we would have had a very different day. Rodger, Isabell, Shash, Brent, Joel, Ryan (Oak Lawn Band) – you all are super rockstars, you put in all day shifts, helped train, coach, support the entire staff.
I especially want to give a huge thank-you to Oak Lawn Band and Turtle Creek Chorale for stepping up and helping us staff the event. When we needed people, you showed up. That made a real difference, and I am personally grateful to everyone from both organizations who gave us their time.
I am also grateful to the other organizations that stepped up to help us staff the beverage tents. That support mattered more than you probably know.
Thank You to the Oak Lawn Community
I also owe a very big thank-you to the Oak Lawn community. Thank you for giving a new event a chance. Thank you for sharing our posts, telling your friends, asking questions, and helping spread the word. And thank you for the feedback. There was plenty of it.
Some of you told me when our messaging was confusing. You pointed out information people needed that we had not communicated clearly enough. You asked questions that helped identify gaps. You told us what you were excited about and what you were concerned about.
That feedback helped make our communications and marketing better. I mean that sincerely. Oak Lawn has a community that pays attention and cares deeply about what happens here. If something does not make sense, people will tell you. If something needs work, people will tell you that too.
Thank you for trusting the process enough to give honest feedback and then continuing to support the event.
Thank You to the Cedar Springs Merchants
Putting a festival in the middle of an active entertainment and business district is not a small thing. The merchants dealt with street closures, rattling shelves, deliveries, altered traffic patterns, additional people, production activity, and all of the other complications that come with transforming Cedar Springs into a festival site.
At the same time, many opened their doors, welcomed festival guests, helped answer questions, promoted the event, and supported us in ways large and small. Oak Lawn Live was intentionally built around the neighborhood rather than separated from it. I am grateful to the merchants who worked with us and helped make that possible.
Thank You to the Production Team and Crew
There is another group that deserves enormous recognition: the people who actually built and operated the event. Think about everything that has to come together before anyone hears the first song: stages, sound systems, barricades, power, tents, signage, credentials, schedules, security plans, artist logistics, and hundreds of other pieces.
Thank you to the production team, stage crews, technicians, contractors, security personnel, event staff, and everyone working behind the scenes. Festival days are long. Problems happen. Plans change. Something always needs to be solved. I saw a lot of people solve problems that day.
Special shout out to two guys: Cody Hutchinson Director of Marketing and Design and David Berryman Logistics Coordinator. With out the monumental effort these two put in, we would not have pulled this off.
Thank You to the City of Dallas and Dallas Police Department
I also want to thank the City of Dallas, the city staff and departments that worked with the event, and the Dallas Police Department for their coordination and support.
Closing streets and producing a public event of this size requires coordination across many different people and agencies. I appreciate the professionals who worked with us throughout that process and helped us get through event day.
Thank You to the Vendors
To every vendor who decided to spend the day with us on Cedar Springs: thank you.
You brought food, products, services, creativity, and personality to the festival footprint. Vendors are an important part of what turns a street with stages into an actual festival environment, and I appreciate everyone who took a chance on a first-year event and joined us.
And Thank You to the Artists
Finally, thank you to the musicians, DJs, performers, visual artists, and creatives who gave Oak Lawn Live its personality. We could build stages and close streets, but there would not be much of a music and arts festival without artists willing to stand on those stages and share what they do.
Thank you for being part of the first one.
This Took a Community
One of the biggest lessons I am taking away from Oak Lawn Live is just how many people it takes to make something like this happen.
There were people who sponsored it. People who volunteered. People who performed. People who built it. People who worked behind the scenes. People who opened their businesses. People who sold food and art. People who promoted it. People who gave advice. People who answered my phone calls.
And more than a few people who helped solve a problem at exactly the moment it needed solving. Then there were all of you who came to Cedar Springs and gave this new event a chance.
I am incredibly grateful. Please let us know what worked, what did not, what we learned, and what could be better.
That is part of building something new.
For now, I simply want to say thank you to everyone who had a hand in making the first Oak Lawn Live possible. Thank you for believing in the idea. Thank you for supporting Cedar Springs. Thank you for showing up for the Oak Lawn Gayborhood.
— Peter Pepper
Photo Credit: Cody Hutchison