For three days every October, the blocks around Jácome Plaza in downtown Tucson stop being a business district and become something closer to a village. That transformation is the work of Tucson Meet Yourself, a free folklife festival that has been gathering the cooks, musicians, dancers, and craftspeople of Southern Arizona and the Arizona-Sonora borderlands for more than five decades. This year's edition runs Oct. 16-18.
The event remains free and open-gated, with no tickets. You simply show up.
Today the festival is produced by the Southwest Folklife Alliance, which has organized it for more than five decades. The scale is considerable. More than 500 artists, tradition bearers, musicians, dancers, and cooks take part. Three main stages host more than 80 performing acts across the three days. One of those stages sits on the lawn at Jácome Plaza with sideline bleachers, designed for intimate, close-to-the-ground performances where the audience is nearly part of the act.
The food is the festival's most visible tradition, and this year's roster is wide. More than 60 food booths represent nearly 30 regions. Longtime favorites return, including the Greek food served by the Order of Ahepa, takoyaki balls, and churros in abundance, now including a vegan version. Newcomers include Maya Gracie's, serving food from Nepal; Pupuseria Rosita's, with Salvadoran pupusas; and The Sweet Coqui, representing Puerto Rico. The Women from the Kingdom of Congo also return.
One of the more unusual additions this year is the first annual Heritage Beer Garden, mounted in partnership with Borderlands Brewing Co. The garden is built around a piece of brewing history that is often forgotten: women were the first brewers. The festival honors that lineage with brewing demonstrations and samples of what it calls heritage brews, including a commemorative beer named "Tucson Wheat Yourself." The name is a nod to the festival's 50th edition, a milestone that speaks to how long this gathering has been part of the city's calendar.
Cars have been part of Tucson Meet Yourself for more than 30 years. The Dukes Car Club returns with its annual Low and Shine Car Show, featuring some 60 modified cars, a lowrider tradition that has become one of the festival's most photographed corners.
The largest new element this year comes from Washington. Tucson Meet Yourself is one of roughly 40 stops on a national tour by the Smithsonian Institution, part of a program called "Of the People: The Smithsonian Festival of Festivals," mounted for the nation's 250th anniversary. The Smithsonian's own Folklife Festival, the institution's oldest and largest public event, had long been held around the Fourth of July on the National Mall. This year the Mall instead hosted the "Great American State Fair" for the semiquincentennial, and the Smithsonian took its folklife programming on the road.
In Tucson, that means the mural lot on Pennington Street, across from City High School, will be designated the Smithsonian Village. It will have a main stage for guest speakers, including author and historian Jeff Chang, who wrote a biography of the actor and martial artist Bruce Lee. The Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage is also helping stage a special precursor event ahead of the festival proper.
For the Southwest Folklife Alliance's senior curator, the partnership is a natural fit. "They're embracing this principle: of the people," she said of the Smithsonian. "The celebration of America 250 is a celebration of how we celebrate, how we eat, how we play." It is a description that could serve as the festival's own mission statement, and it explains why the event has survived so long without charging admission or selling tickets.
The underlying transaction has not changed. A cook sets up a booth, a dancer steps onto a stage, a family walks in off Stone Avenue, and for a weekend the city's many cultures are simply in the same place at the same time, in public, for free.
Tucson Meet Yourself runs Oct. 16-18 at Jácome Plaza, 101 N Stone Ave. Admission is free. Specific daily hours vary, and visitors should check the festival's website for the full schedule.