Relocated Cedar Park Kite Festival Quadruples Past Attendance

By Cashmir Khawaja

Reporting Texas TV

CEDAR PARK, Texas – The eclipse attracted thousands of visitors to Central Texas, prompting an annual kite festival to relocate for a bigger crowd.

A myriad of colors adorned the vibrant skies at Lakeline Park as enthusiasts gathered for the stunning celebration of community spirit.

The layout of the park provided an ideal backdrop for the festival, with its sprawling green spaces and panoramic views setting the stage for a day of high-flying fun and excitement.

The festival’s lively events included a concert, fresh food, small shops, and a live dance performance. Families, friends, and kite enthusiasts from all walks of life converged upon the park to showcase their creativity in the form of colorful kites dancing in the sky.

“Right when we got here, you can see all of this amazing stuff. Food trucks, kites, live music, so it’s been really fun,” Lindsey Leaverton said.

Families fly kites in the sky at Lakeline Park in Cedar Park, Texas, on April 7, 2024. (Cashmir Khawaja, Reporting Texas TV)

The decision to relocate the festival from Milburn Park to Lakeline Park proved a strategic move. The event had an unprecedented surge in attendance, due to the influx of visitors drawn by the recent eclipse.

“It has a lot of space for the parking lot. It has a lot of space for more people. So on that part, we are expecting more people to come by,” event coordinator Angie Gonzalez said.

The parking lot reached full capacity, with visitors forming their own parking spaces on the dirt gravel next to the lot.

Gonzalez said attendance was up from about 500 last year to at least 2,000 this year.

Loris Zarzar, Gonzalez’s assistant, contacted food vendors in advance to help them prepare for the influx of people.

“We told them about the expectations and how many people we saw had registered for the event, so that they could more easily prepare with the amount of food that they were going to have for the event,” Zarzar said.

The extra preparation to accommodate the mass attendance proved beneficial, as lines started forming at the 3 p.m. start time.

The festivity showed no signs of slowing down at the event’s end time of 7 p.m.

Gonzalez said she is happy with the turnout of people and plans to bring it back next year.