For coverage of this year’s Marfa Lights Festival, The Big Bend Sentinel hosted a competition among Marfa High School’s Journalism class, who were tasked with writing about the festival for prize money and publication. To read more about the competition, click here.
MARFA — The Marfa Lights Festival has had many changes over the last 37 years since it was founded, and also over our lifetimes (in our memories, the last 10 years or so!). Some changes have been good, and some bad. The worst change was in 2020 when, unfortunately, the annual festival was canceled due to the COVID pandemic.
After that year, in our opinion, the festival has never really felt the same. We don’t know why, really; if it’s lingering restrictions and people being very cautious, or if it’s because new vendors have come and others have left. In any case, over the course of the last four years, the festival has slowly changed. Some differences others pointed out are the addition of the Marfa police force, less vendors attending the festival, and different and fewer activities. However, we held out hope that this year, things would finally be all the way back to normal. This year there was a lot of anticipation for the festival with people looking forward to different vendors and new activities. And, this year, we thought Marfa Lights was definitely more about music and food. It did feel, to us, like there are fewer things to buy, like toys and clothes and shoes and things like that. For us teens, who save up for Marfa Lights to blow money on not just food, it seems like there are fewer vendors for items than there were when we were kids.
But, we interviewed lots of locals who have been attendenting for many years. We sought their perspectives on the festival as a whole and its changes over time. We started by interviewing David Beebe, who serves as the Presidio County commissioner Precinct 4. We started off by asking “What was your best memory of the Marfa Lights Festival?”
He answered, “Well my hobby is to play music, so the first time when I was able to play with Primo Carrasco here was in 2014, maybe 2013? That was when the stage used to be over by the sheriff’s office on the top of a trailer which is not as nice as it is now, and there was no top cover, meaning there was a lot of sunlight, so somebody gave us sombreros. So, we were up there playing in straw sombreros. I mean, man, it was just such a good time. But yeah that was the first time I got to play at the Marfa Lights Festival, so it was really fun.”
The next question we asked him was how he thought the Marfa Lights Festival has changed over time. He answered, “Well, I have to say I like the fact that now everybody sits in front of the courthouse and looks at the stage pointing south. It’s more inviting to the rest of the community because they come down the street and they see activity. Whereas, when the scene was over by the sheriff’s office, you couldn’t tell whether people were really here or not, so I think that’s been a big improvement. Also it’s really nice since we have very nice trees out in the front of the courthouse and you see a lot of the old folks who brought tents or even if they’ve brought a chair. You can just sit out in front. It makes it special since you know the courthouse is the center of the town. Since this 1886 beautiful building is one only we have, there’s no other like this historic courthouse, it’s something to be proud of for all of us.”
After we finished interviewing Beebe we decided to move on to another local, Tony Saenz, who owns his own construction company. The first question we asked was, “What was your best memory of the Marfa Lights Festival?” “Probably about a good 10 years back or 15 when we used to get like name brand groups. You know we used to get a lot of bands, those were good memorable years.”
We asked, “What have you noticed changed about the Marfa Lights Festival over the last years?” He responded, “The population has gone down as far as those who partake in the festival goes. And it’s as the locals say, we all agree, the type of music that’s coming here it’s not really a local thing anymore, it’s more of a bigger city type deal. Back in the day this was probably a more local-friendly place to be. Now, it’s more who can get what and who they can bring in, so it’s not the same.”
The next question we asked was, “What would you improve about the Marfa Lights Festival?”
He answered back, “Bring back the old times’ bands. The good Mexican bands.”
The final local we decided to interview was Jaylia Foster, who is a teacher here at Marfa ISD and a local Marfa High School graduate. The first question we asked was, “What have you noticed changed about the Marfa Lights Festival over the last years?” “Oh we used to get what people consider ‘big names’ so that was always like the highlight! And it was always out at Vizcaino Park, like the booths where you had to get tickets to go see the headliner band, and not a bunch of, like, smaller bands.”
We continued, “What would you improve about the Marfa Lights Festival?” She responded, “I think the pricing of course makes things more expensive, if you’re paying for a slot for $400 dollars for your booth, that could be your whole profit for the weekend. I know we need to make money for the chamber and also for the community, but at the same time, we need to consider lowering the price so we can get more vendors. Then, everyone would make more money, not just the vendors but also the community.”
So, the Marfa Lights Festival has changed so much over the last 37 years. In the last three alone, there have been what feels like big changes to us. Is it because of growing up and changing perspectives? Is it because the T-shirt lady wasn’t here from El Paso this year? Is it because a turkey leg costs $18? Or because the music isn’t Mexican enough, or Tejano enough, or too local, or not local enough? We couldn’t find out. But, we decided we will try to find out more again when we go next year.
