R.I.P. Mud Festival

The City of San Antonio decided not to drain the River Walk this year for its annual cleaning. Matter of fact, they claim to be doing such a good job at keeping the tourist attraction clean that they will need to drain it less often in the future.

That's good, having a cleaner River Walk and all. But there is a sad casualty to this development: the Mud Festival.

The Mud Festival is history — at least the version we have come to know since 1987.

“They’re not draining the river and we just thought it was time to regroup,” Marcie Hernandez, the Paseo del Rio Association’s marketing director, said.

The Paseo del Rio is discontinuing the festival which has traditionally coincided with the draining of the river at the start of the year. The city has done such a thorough job cleaning the river in recent years that no draining was necessary in 2012 (although the newer Museum Reach is in the middle of its cleaning). The Paseo del Rio decided this was as good a time as any to shake things up.

(Plus, the city hasn’t allowed the festival to be in the actual mud in years.)

...

Next year, the Paseo del Rio will start a new tradition called the River Festival — taking the place of the Mud Fest — in which aspects of the various River Walk events throughout the year will be incorporated into one event, Hernandez said.

(from The Downtown Blog)

I hope the new "River Festival" is fun. And I hope it's successful. But the name just won't have that same bit of strangeness that made the Mud Festival so endearing, even if it never was as popular as other city parties throughout the year.