The 28th Best of Dallas winners have been announced and the 2024 Dallas Observer Reader’s Choice Award for Best Art Festival goes to Cottonwood Art Festival! Richardson has been proudly hosting the semi-annual event since 1969 and it remains free to the public, while also attaining prestigious rankings as one of the top fine art festivals in the country.
For the longest time, Dallas leaders spoke of their desire to build a “world class city” to the point that the phrase became a punchline. You don’t hear that much anymore, and for good reason: We’ve made it. That’s why we’re calling this year’s Best of Dallas issue “The Lone Star Metropolis.” Enjoy it. – Patrick Williams, Editor of Dallas Observer
Our annual Best of Dallas issue is on the streets and online now, chock-full of ours and our readers’ recommendations for the top places to eat, drink, shop, play and just generally live a good life in the city. Our theme this year is “The Lone Star Metropolis.”
Why is that? Well, to be honest, partly because this is the 28th one of these issues I’ve edited. It gets a little harder every year to invent a new theme, and the folks in our advertising department wouldn’t go for “you know the drill” or a simple “etc.”
And then there’s this: The word “metropolis,” say the writers of dictionaries, derives from the old Greek words for mother and city.* A metropolis is, according to Merriam-Webster, “a city regarded as a center of a specified activity.” That pretty much captures Dallas: a mother of a city that’s the heart and soul of a specified activity in North Texas, namely living. And living involves growth and change and development, and Lord knows Dallas has plenty of that.
One of the interesting things about editing so many Best of Dallas issues is the city’s capacity to offer up surprises every year. Big D is proud of its traditions — the nightlife and artists in Deep Ellum and Oak Cliff, the historical neighborhoods in East Dallas, the diverse and developing neighborhoods south of the Trinity River. But every year as we put Best of Dallas together, we find something new and surprising or old and unheralded.
Dallas is a big, ever-changing metropolis, and if you care to look hard enough, you always find something unexpected. Don’t take my word for it: Just check out Best of Dallas 2024. You’re sure to find something new to love.
*As opposed to the word Metroplex, which is not in Merriam-Webster and we suspect derives from some semiliterate PR person who deserves a swift kick in the pants each time it’s used.
“Some of Richardson’s award-winning community events have been nominated for the 2024 Dallas Observer’s Best of Dallas Readers’ Choice Poll. The Wildflower! Arts & Music Festival is up for both Best Music Festival and Best Art Festival, with Cottonwood Art Festival and Huffhines Harvest Fest joining Wildflower! as nominees in the Best Art Festival category. Both categories are found within the broader category of Arts & Culture.” – Richardson Today
Voting was held through September 5 and the results of the poll announced on September 19 in the Best of Dallas printed issue and online.
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