Grito Fest

This page lives at /events/annual/grito-fest and updates every year. Dates, headliner and street closures are pulled from the calendar; nothing here is typed by hand that changes.

Baytown's biggest night of the year. The Mexican Independence Day celebration downtown on Texas Avenue: sometimes a Pre-Grito on Friday, the festival Saturday with a headliner on the main stage, food vendors the length of the avenue, a car show some years, folklórico, and the grito itself — the cry — at the top of the hour before the headliner, when five or six thousand people on the avenue all shout back.

When

A Saturday in late September or early October, with a Pre-Grito the night before in some years. It floats — this year it's the first weekend of October — so the calendar card above is the source. If the card is blank, it hasn't been announced.

Where

Texas Avenue and Town Square, downtown. Streets close from mid-afternoon Saturday; the closure map posts on the Living Here page when the city releases it.

Parking

Don't drive into downtown after 5 p.m. Saturday. Park at Lee College and walk the ten minutes, or come in on the north side and park on a side street off Main. Rideshare in is cheap; rideshare out at midnight is not — walk to the college lot to meet it. The Town Square garage, if it's open, is full by four.

Eating

The vendors are good and the lines are an hour. Eat before — Bocanegra's or Black Bayou at four — and treat the vendors as dessert: elotes, aguas frescas, the churro stand that's been in the same spot for years.

Kids

A family event until about nine, a very loud concert after. Ear protection for anyone under six. The kids' area is near the Town Square end; the stage end is for the crowd.

Weather

Late September is ninety degrees at six in the evening. Water, a hat, a place to sit that isn't the curb. If a storm rolls in, the stage pauses and the crowd goes under the awnings on Texas Avenue; it usually restarts.

History

The festival grew out of the city's Hispanic community celebrations and became the downtown anchor as Texas Avenue came back. Attendance is in the thousands and climbing; the Baytown Sun put it near 5,500 last year.

Related

Nurture Nature is the following Saturday at the Nature Center — the other big October weekend. The Market at Town Square runs the third Saturday. October in Baytown is three good Saturdays in a row.

En español

Grito Fest es la celebración de la Independencia de México en el centro de Baytown, en Texas Avenue: a veces un Pre-Grito el viernes, el festival el sábado con artista principal, y el grito a la hora en punto antes del concierto. Estacione en Lee College y camine. Coma antes; las filas de los vendedores son de una hora.