April 21, 2025 • 29 mins
Looking for a vibrant, family-friendly event in the Houston area this spring? In this episode of Spotlight Houston, host Blanca Quezada interviews Stacy Borgfeldt, co-founder of the Sugar Land Cultural Arts Foundation, about the highly anticipated 2025 Sugar Land Arts and Music Fest.
Taking place April 26–27, 2025, at the Smart Financial Centre Plaza, the Sugar Land Arts and Music Fest brings together the best of visual arts, live music, local food, and cultural activities for all ages. This annual event is one of Fort Bend County’s most exciting spring festivals and showcases local talent and community spirit.
Art lovers can explore over 100 juried fine art booths featuring 14 mediums including oil paintings, watercolors, pottery, woodwork, and photography. Festival-goers can also enjoy live artist demonstrations and muralists painting large-scale works themed around the love of music.
Live music plays all weekend on three stages. Headliners include Too Much to Say, a Dave Matthews Band tribute group, jazz musician Vel Lewis, and Yacht Rock USA performing crowd favorites from the ’70s to ’90s. The festival also features mariachi bands, student choirs, and theatrical performances from local schools.
Local restaurants Escalante’s, Baker Street Pub, and Aling’s Chinese Bistro will offer curated menus exclusively for the event. Guests can enjoy the wine garden, beer garden, or upgrade to the VIP experience, which includes catered meals and front-row views of the main stage.
Families will love the children’s activity zone, featuring an art tent, chalk art mural walls, face painting, and science demos from the City of Sugar Land. Kids under 12 get in free, and parking is free and onsite.
Festival proceeds support youth art and music camp scholarships for underserved students in Fort Bend County. To get tickets, sign up to volunteer, or make a donation, visit: https://www.sugarlandartsfest.com.
Key points discussed:
· 100+ juried fine art booths with live artist demonstrations
· Three music stages with local talent and national tribute acts
· Festival food from locally owned restaurants, plus beer and wine gardens
· Free admission for kids 12 and under
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We have this year, we have 100 artist booths, and
this is fine art. This is not
really crafts or anything like that. It's fine art of 14
different mediums. We have oil. We have pastels.
We have watercolors, photography, woodwork,
pottery. And it's amazing because
(00:22):
we see return to artists every year, but we also get a lot
of new artists as our festival grows. And our
brand is becoming more and more recognized, which we're so excited
about. And we filled up our artist's booth mid
December of last year for our festival
that's April. So that was really
(00:44):
exciting for us that we were sold out by mid December.
Thank you for joining us for another episode of spotlight Houston, where
we bring you the best people, places, and events in Greater Houston. This
week, we're taking you inside one of the most exciting and colorful events of the
(01:05):
season, the Sugar Land Arts and Music Fest. Host Blanca
Quesada is joined by Stacy Borgfeld, cofounder and cochair of the
Sugar Land Cultural Arts Foundation. They talk about everything you can
expect at this family friendly weekend festival. This is episode one
thirty four of spotlight Houston with an original air date of Monday,
04/21/2025. Spotlight Houston is brought to you by
(01:27):
Storyzone Media. And now here's your host, Blanca Quesada.
Welcome, everyone, to this edition of Spotlight Houston.
I'm so happy that our weather has
become a little bit warmer. Well, maybe not.
It's really getting hot and humid out there. But
but, anyway, for me, it means that our art festivals
(01:51):
for the season are back. And one of the most exciting
art festivals is back, and it's going to
be bigger and better than ever. And that's the fourth
annual Sugar Land Arts and Music Fest. And
if you haven't gone there in the past couple of years,
you need to be there because it gets to be very exciting
(02:14):
and you don't want it to end. So and this Sugar
Land Arts and Music Fest is hosted by the Sugar
Land Cultural Foundation, and it
returns to the Smart Financial Center on
April. And we'll be
showcasing a spectacular lineup of talent
(02:36):
from low the local area and beyond, of
course, and, beautiful artworks,
and we can't forget the great food. So to find
out a little bit more about this fun and colorful festival,
I've invited Stacey Orgfeldt,
cofounder and co sharer of the
(02:58):
Sugar Land Arts and Music Fest. Welcome to the show,
Stacey. Thank you so much for having me. I'm
I'm so excited to be here and tell everybody about the festival.
Yeah. It's great to have you here because you know all about
it. You got all the scoop, and I wanna hear it. And I
know that my listeners wanna hear it as well. So but before we
(03:20):
get started into the details of the festival, tell
us about the Sugar Land Cultural Arts Foundation.
When was it established and why? Yeah. The
Sugar Land Cultural Arts Foundation is a five zero one c three
nonprofit, and we're actually now
in our twenty sixth year. Oh. We just
(03:43):
celebrated. We had a big celebration for our twenty fifth anniversary
last October. So the foundation's been around in
Sugar Land for a while and was originally
formed to to preserve the Sugar
Land Auditorium, which is the oldest public building
in Sugar Land that was built in 1918.
(04:06):
So that's how it started was to preserve that
building and refurbish it. And is that
the near is that the one that's near the Sugar Land
Factory or Sugar Factory? Yes. It's a
beautiful building. If you look on our website, s l c a
f dot org, that's a beautiful historical building
(04:28):
that, like I said, that's what was the original mission
of the foundation. How was it established?
The foundation? So a couple of really
key members and back that are still on the board today,
which is amazing, Bridget Young, my cochair of the festival,
(04:48):
she was one of the founders of the foundation. She created the
foundation with a couple other people. And
we started it to preserve the auditorium. We felt like
this building was sitting there deteriorating, and it was something very
important to the history of the city that we needed
to create a foundation to to
(05:10):
bring that auditorium back to its full glory. It
was it's amazing the history of it. If you see some old photos
way back, they used to in the twenties, they would have dances on the roof
of the building, and the people from the it's right next to the sugar
factory, so people from the sugar factory used it all
the time for events. So it has a rich history. It's a beautiful
(05:32):
building. And so that's how we originally started
the foundation. Now the foundation's evolved a lot more since that time
and it's twenty six years, but it's and I
can tell you more about the mission that it's become because
it's gone way beyond just restoring the auditorium in
Sugar Land. Sure. Tell us a little bit more about its mission.
(05:55):
Yeah. So over the years, the
foundation has grown, and it's really to bring
about awareness of art and culture
into our community. And it's really a four band
foundation that we try and bring cultural
events into the area and through art
(06:18):
music and the performing and visual
arts. So that's a big part of our mission. We've now
we have a youth board that supports the
foundation that we've created and its students in the Fort Bend
County area. And we allow those students to actually
enter our board meetings, and we teach them about how board
(06:40):
meetings are run. And they also support the
foundation in the festival that we're gonna talk about, but the
youth board helps us find volunteers. They plan a youth
talent show every year where we get scholarship
awards through the talent show to bring talented
youth into the community and perform. And
(07:01):
so it's a way to recognize there's so much talent in our area. It's a
way to recognize those students. We also through
the foundation and the money we raise through Sugar Land Arts and
Music Fest, we've a big part of our mission has become
to provide scholarships to the
youth in Fort Bend County. It's not just Sugar Land area, but
(07:24):
all through Fort Bend County. And we partner with Fort
Bend ISD and Lamar Consolidated ISD.
And last year in 2025, we provided
92 scholarships to
students in our area, and the scholarships are targeted
for visual and performing arts scholarships.
(07:47):
So what we've done is we've partnered with the school
districts and a couple other music foundation,
inspiration stage, theatrical group,
and we provide these scholarships to kids that wouldn't otherwise have
these opportunities in our area. So
these students are hand selected, and then they are provided
(08:09):
maybe a musical instrument if that's their thing, and then they're
provided a music camp experience to go along
with it or a theater camp or an art
camp. And that has so
our mission really has evolved so much in over the
years in our fundraising efforts and and that's become, like,
(08:31):
really a big part of it is these scholarships
for we really wanna expose the youth to art
and music and music. Especially in your in your
underserved children's areas. Right?
Yes. Exactly. And that's the thing. It's like, we feel like if a child is
exposed to something like that, that they wouldn't have otherwise. It could
(08:53):
really be life changing for them. Ignite something that they could
be really passionate about. Yeah. You know, what I like
is, and this is the first time that I've heard about it, that you actually
have a youth board. Yeah. I have never heard of a
foundation having a youth board. And this is great because
kids can talk to kids. Right. Speak their language.
(09:15):
Yes. Absolutely. And they're so great about recruiting
the students in our area when we have events, and we
need the volunteers, and we want the students to get service hours.
So they really are that connection between us and
our events and then all the students in the area, which is
correct. Yeah. I'm sure they feel empowered and bringing in
(09:38):
their ideas changes everything too.
Exactly. Yeah. I know. Those young minds, they help us with
our social media and all that stuff. No. It's great. Like,
they're they're they're and, you know, that you can tell
that these kids, they're amazing. They're gonna be the leaders
once you could see where they're well prepared for college. So it's
(10:01):
great. Yeah. Well, this is a music fest. So do do they
come in with their ideas for music? Yeah.
We we actually consult with the youth board quite a
bit just to get their take on how
we should be doing everything. Like, we have a children's area at the festival.
They have input on that, and they actually volunteer all weekend in the
(10:23):
children's area. Those teens on that are on our youth board, which
is great, and we really need that help over there. So we've got so
many volunteer jobs for the festival, but we love having the youth board over
in our children's area. And then they are
just everywhere. They're just so such a big part of what we
do. And I'm sure they come they're coming in year after
(10:45):
year. Right? Yes. Absolutely. We have a
new youth board. Some of these members have been with us all four years of
high school, but we cycle out as kids some of the
kids' students graduate, then we bring in new members.
Yeah. Well, they feel it's theirs. So I agree.
Yeah. So the project then really is handled
(11:07):
a % by volunteers from what I'm understanding.
That is right. Our foundation is a
% volunteer board, and
we the board, the entire board is involved in our
festival, the Sugar Land Arts and Music Fest. Everyone has a role that
they play to make it successful. It really is collaborative
(11:30):
effort. It's we have a great board. I mean, we all
talk about it all the time, how everyone is so
involved in such such such a big part of what we're
doing. In fact, we had a meeting last night, and everybody was going through
all their every what everybody's doing to get ready for next
weekend. So it's a great group of people. We have
(11:52):
19 people on our board, and then we
also go out into the community, and we get end up
having over 200 volunteers to help run our festival
through the weekend. We have a large group
of volunteers that come out on Friday,
the day before the festival, and we are loading
(12:15):
in all the artists that day. So these are
community people because the students are in school that day.
These are people that are part of Rotary Club, Exchange Club, Knights of
Columbus, people that we get through the volunteers through the city of Sugar Land.
And they come out, and the artists pull up
their vehicle, and we unload all their art for them and
(12:38):
take it to the booth, and we have golf carts. We're we have a very
efficient process. So Yeah. We're really big on volunteerism,
obviously. I mean, I think you're probably get the idea. Yeah. That's, like,
a big part of what we do. So, Stacy, when we get
to the festival, what can we expect to see and do?
Yeah. So this year, we've actually each year
(13:01):
that like you mentioned earlier, it's our fourth year. So we've tried to
add a couple new elements every year. So we
continue to try and do it the right way and grow
slowly. We have a live music
stage in the center of the plaza
that will be hosting. That's our main Stella Artois main stage, and
(13:23):
then we have two satellite stages as well. One in our wine
garden and then one over near our food vendors
that play as well during the throughout the festival.
And then the plaza at Smart Financial Center in
Sugar Land is a beautiful venue for our festival.
We have this year, we have 100 artist booths, and this
(13:47):
is fine art. This is not
really crafts or anything like that. It's fine art of 14
different mediums. We have oil. We have pastels. We
have watercolors, photography, woodwork,
pottery. And it's amazing because
we see return to artists every year, but we also get a lot
(14:09):
of new artists as our festival grows. And our
brand is becoming more and more recognized, which we're so excited
about. And we filled up our artist's booth mid
December of last year for our festival
that's April. So that was really
exciting for us that we were sold out by mid December.
(14:31):
Yeah. So how many people come to the festival? How many
are you expecting this year? Well, we hope and we're praying that
we have great weather. So Yeah.
Yeah. And last year, we just we had over
just over 3,000 that came out,
and we hope we have even more this year. Yeah.
(14:54):
It's just a great venue. Our venue is very
upscale and nice. There's tons of shade. There's tons of tables
and chairs with umbrellas to sit around. We have
a great wine menu. So we have this fabulous wine
garden with tons of seating. And then we
try and elevate our food experience at the Sugar Land
(15:16):
Arts and Music Fest where we have three main food
vendors that are local restaurants in Sugar
Land that we partner with that actually create
curated menus just for the festival. It's not things they offer in their
restaurant, so it's really fun. And this year, we're having Escalante,
we have Baker Street Pub, and Aileen's
(15:39):
Chinese Bistro. Just for that, we should go.
It's a great variety. Like, we've got such a
wide variety. We're really excited about the food this
year because everybody's a foodie now, so we wanna have an
elevated food experience to go with the great wine that we're gonna be
serving. Yeah. But what I like is that you're just
(16:01):
focused on art and not crafts because
a lot of us sometimes don't have the time to go out really and
go to museums or things like that to
see beautiful art. And beautiful art is
coming to us with a lot of others
things happening, the great music, the great food,
(16:23):
great kids, and that's unique.
That doesn't happen in all art festivals.
Yeah. I agree. And we the 100
artist booths, we are very thoughtful and deliberate
the way we do this and handle these artists. They're jury
it's a jury process for the artists that are going to come in.
(16:46):
We have four judges, and they
rate each person that applies. And then
we also have three of our artists this year that will
be doing live demonstrations in their art booths throughout the
weekend. We've actually got to schedule the the demo artists, so
we're super exciting. They're gonna be talking about their process
(17:08):
in live painting or pottery in their
booth over the weekend. And that's the
100 artist booths. And then right in the center of that action, we have
four muralists that will be live painting, and
they're four by eight murals. There's a theme,
and they all have art within that theme that they're painting.
(17:31):
And it's so fun to go and watch them live paint
and interact with them and talk to them while they're doing it.
It's one of my favorite parts of the festival. I always think it's so amazing.
And then those four murals after the festival, they go inside
Smart Financial Center, and they hang in the lobby of the
building for one year. And Smart Financial
(17:53):
Center recognizes those artists that did the mural
with plaques. So it's great for them too because they get a lot of
recognition that Smart Financial has shows coming through all
the time, so it's great for them. And what
is the theme? What is the theme, sir? What is the Yeah. No. It's the
love of music. Oh, perfect. Yeah.
(18:16):
Perfect. Yes. So they wanted a music center theme this
year to go with their performing arts venue. So
Yeah. We let Smart Financial Center pick the theme since the
murals end up inside their lobby, and it's really exciting to see
that. And then after the festival, we always do a muralist reception
and recognize those artists, and we do that inside Smart Financial
(18:39):
Center one evening Yeah. And you have everyone come out from
the community to recognize them. Who are the muralists this
year? We have four muralists this
year, and two are returning from last year and then two are
brand new. So we're super excited about that.
And one of them, Santiago Perez, he was with us
(19:01):
last year, and he's amazing. Very
personable, engages with the audience while he's painting, which
I don't know how he can do both, but he does it very well. So
I would it's I would highly recommend people to come
out and just come see them even if if if anything else
I mean, you'll hear the music in the background and all that, but it's just
(19:23):
the muralist piece. They're all four muralists are together painting at the
same time. So it's And where where where do
they usually do their murals? Is it around Sugar Land or
Houston or Fort Bend? Yeah. I think most of them are within
the Houston area. Yeah. And they're always looking for new
work and jobs like that to paint murals throughout the city.
(19:47):
And that's really something that has exploded over the past
few years. Yes. There's a really an appreciation for it. In fact,
Smart Financial hired one of our muralists to
paint entirely the backstage in
Smart Financial Center so that when the artists are back there,
about to go on stage, whoever that is, there's this beautiful
(20:09):
mural on the wall about Sugar Land. Yeah. So and they
took one of our artists from the festival and hired them to do that. So
that was great. They were able to get that job from it.
Yeah. Well, let's switch a little bit. So who are who's
the lineup for this year in your music presentations?
Yeah. So this year, we have
(20:33):
on Saturday, we start out with a live soft
jazz called Soiree, and they're coming at
11AM on Saturday. And then our
headliner on Saturday is at 1PM, and it's too much to
say, and they're Dave Matthews cover band. Oh, yeah. They're
good. I know. I'm super excited about that. They'll be
(20:55):
great. They have a large following, so we're really excited to to have
them out this year. This is a new addition for us. And then
Saturday afternoon at 03:00, we have Bell Lewis. And Bell
is a local resident, a very
talented jazz musician. He actually used to perform with
Dionne Warwick, and we're super
(21:17):
excited to have him. He's gonna be amazing, really
talented guy. He runs f two f foundation,
which also gives music scholarships back to
kids in our community. So he's a great guy,
and he's very talented. So we're really
excited about that. So that's our Saturday lineup. And then in between
(21:39):
those main bands, we actually host student
groups from Fort Bend ISD and Lamar
Consolidated ISD to come out and perform, and these are
theater groups. We have a mariachi band
coming that we're really excited about from Lamar
Consolidated. We have the Fullshore High School Chamber
(22:01):
Choir coming on Saturday afternoon.
And then on Sunday, we start the day out at
11AM with the Gary Michael Dahl
band, and it's also Smooth Jazz, R and B. And they used
to be the house band for the Houston Texans, so they have quite a
bit of history in our city. Oh, they're amazing. Really
(22:25):
talented. Super excited about them. So so
the festival is going to be on the twenty sixth and '20
seventh? Right. Yes. Start from what time to what
time? Yeah. On Saturday the twenty sixth, we start at 10AM, and
we go until 5PM. And then on
Sunday, the twenty seventh, we start at 10AM and stop at
(22:47):
4PM. Yeah. And this festival is
gonna be for everyone, the entire family. So
kids can come, kids can have fun. There's a section
for kids that I understand you have Yeah. To put you have for
children's art activity? Right. Yes. We do have
a children's art activity area. We'll have a face painter over there, a
(23:09):
balloon artist. We have a large large
murals there, and the kids can come and
paint on the murals. And we'll also have a chalk art
activity going on. And the city of Sugarland's coming
out, and they're gonna be over in the children's area doing a really cool
water display Wow. Thing to teach kids
(23:32):
about where does your water go when you when it
goes down the drain, what happens to it? So it's a
kind of a fun scientific thing that we have. They get to
learn while they're having fun. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
So, Stacy, where can we find tickets for the festival?
Yeah. Tickets are on our website,
(23:53):
sugarlandartsfest.com.
And if you go on there, you'll see that right on the home page, there's
a link that a button right there to click on.
And right now, we're offering early bird tickets
for only $10. That's just for a limited time
(24:13):
only. And so our Arts Fest is a
great deal. We have on-site parking for
free. We do not charge for parking, and it's right there where you can
easily park and walk in. So that's a big selling point of
our festival. We love to promote that because it makes it so easy for
people to come. And That's true. Reasonable. We feel like
(24:35):
it is. We really yeah. Especially if you have a large family.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And kids kids
12 and under are free. Okay. Great. Yeah.
So do you have any rules? I mean, can we bring our pets? Can we
bring our chairs, umbrellas, that sort of
thing? Well, luckily, we have
(24:57):
so many chairs and tables and umbrellas on-site, so that won't
be necessary. So there's plenty lots of seating in our
festival. So people can hang out and listen to the music
and have something to eat or drink. And we are no
pets allowed. Unfortunately, there's just not facilities
at the festival for dogs to relieve themselves.
(25:20):
So we have not we don't offer that. Yeah.
Yeah. And, of course, no beverages. We can't walk in with
beverages or food. Right? Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Because
of TNBC. Yeah. Yeah. And,
so do you need more volunteers? Do you still need more volunteers?
We do need some more volunteers for Friday. Our setup day,
(25:43):
that day I was telling you about that we load in the artist. Yeah. And
also on our website, sugarlandartsfest.com,
there is right there is on the home page, there's a link that
says volunteer, and then it takes you right to an
online sign up genius for Friday. And then all the
jobs are broken down so you know exactly what you're gonna be doing.
(26:06):
But nothing's hard or difficult, and,
and it's kinda fun. Like, it's really like the you see the whole
community come out help out.
So it's it's a great and we do it in the morning. We
start early. So before it gets really warm or anything
and to do the hard work of moving all
(26:28):
the artists in, and they love it. Artists are always so
appreciative for people that can come help. You can come drive a golf
cart and Yeah. Drop off art at
at one of the booths. It's just And what happens if the weather is
not so great? Are you going to reschedule?
Yeah. So we hope and pray for great weather. And if
(26:51):
for some reason it's really bad one day, then we'll
become a one day festival. I mean, we'll just go to the other
day. If the whole weekend's really bad, then we
will postpone it to the fall. Oh, okay. Okay.
Well, maybe you should have two festivals. One to follow.
I'll tell you, it takes almost a year to plan the one. It's a lot.
(27:14):
There's a lot to it. But, yeah, maybe eventually we'll do
that. Yeah. And, Stacy, can we donate
make donations for this the kids' scholarships?
Yes. So there is a link on our website,
and you can see there's on also on our home page of the
website, there's a sponsorship link, and you can make a
(27:36):
donation on there. You can also just if you would like, we have
VIP tickets. The VIP ticket sales really
help go towards those scholarships we
sell. And then that also gets you VIP access to the
festival, which means it includes your food, and we have then a
catered meal on that VIP area. Yeah.
(27:58):
So if somebody really wants to be really nice and generous, we'd love
that. We, of course, appreciate anything we can do more for the youth
in our community. So purchase a VIP ticket, and that
helps so much. Yeah. So definitely get there
with cool clothes on and nice walking
shoes and, just expect to have a great
(28:20):
time. Yeah. Like, come out, walk through the artist
booths, watch the live demos of the artist,
have a glass of wine, get some great food from
one of our restaurants, and sit and listen to all the
music. It's yeah. Can we dance? Yes.
We can. Yes. Absolutely. There's actually a big
(28:44):
area in front of the stage that we and the
stage sits up in the middle of the plaza. It's raised up, so it's
really a nice center point of the festival. So
Great. So we can't complain. No.
You get to have a lot of fun, dancing and
art and music and food. And I mean, what I mean,
(29:06):
you have everything there. There's nothing that we can miss.
So That's right. Yeah. We've
tried. We've tried to think of everything. So we feel like We've
tried our calendars. We host a great event. We really
try. Yeah. Well, Stacy, thank you for joining me and,
for letting us know all about the fun that awaits us at the
(29:29):
fourth annual Sugar Land Arts and Music Fest.
And, of course, as always, thank you as well for joining me. Hope you have
a great time at the festival. Yeah. Thanks, Martha. I appreciate
it. Yeah. And please send me your comments and
story ideas.
We have this year, we have 100 artist booths, and
this is fine art. This is not
really crafts or anything like that. It's fine art of 14
different mediums. We have oil. We have pastels.
We have watercolors, photography, woodwork,
pottery. And it's amazing because
(00:22):
we see return to artists every year, but we also get a lot
of new artists as our festival grows. And our
brand is becoming more and more recognized, which we're so excited
about. And we filled up our artist's booth mid
December of last year for our festival
that's April. So that was really
(00:44):
exciting for us that we were sold out by mid December.
Thank you for joining us for another episode of spotlight Houston, where
we bring you the best people, places, and events in Greater Houston. This
week, we're taking you inside one of the most exciting and colorful events of the
(01:05):
season, the Sugar Land Arts and Music Fest. Host Blanca
Quesada is joined by Stacy Borgfeld, cofounder and cochair of the
Sugar Land Cultural Arts Foundation. They talk about everything you can
expect at this family friendly weekend festival. This is episode one
thirty four of spotlight Houston with an original air date of Monday,
04/21/2025. Spotlight Houston is brought to you by
(01:27):
Storyzone Media. And now here's your host, Blanca Quesada.
Welcome, everyone, to this edition of Spotlight Houston.
I'm so happy that our weather has
become a little bit warmer. Well, maybe not.
It's really getting hot and humid out there. But
but, anyway, for me, it means that our art festivals
(01:51):
for the season are back. And one of the most exciting
art festivals is back, and it's going to
be bigger and better than ever. And that's the fourth
annual Sugar Land Arts and Music Fest. And
if you haven't gone there in the past couple of years,
you need to be there because it gets to be very exciting
(02:14):
and you don't want it to end. So and this Sugar
Land Arts and Music Fest is hosted by the Sugar
Land Cultural Foundation, and it
returns to the Smart Financial Center on
April. And we'll be
showcasing a spectacular lineup of talent
(02:36):
from low the local area and beyond, of
course, and, beautiful artworks,
and we can't forget the great food. So to find
out a little bit more about this fun and colorful festival,
I've invited Stacey Orgfeldt,
cofounder and co sharer of the
(02:58):
Sugar Land Arts and Music Fest. Welcome to the show,
Stacey. Thank you so much for having me. I'm
I'm so excited to be here and tell everybody about the festival.
Yeah. It's great to have you here because you know all about
it. You got all the scoop, and I wanna hear it. And I
know that my listeners wanna hear it as well. So but before we
(03:20):
get started into the details of the festival, tell
us about the Sugar Land Cultural Arts Foundation.
When was it established and why? Yeah. The
Sugar Land Cultural Arts Foundation is a five zero one c three
nonprofit, and we're actually now
in our twenty sixth year. Oh. We just
(03:43):
celebrated. We had a big celebration for our twenty fifth anniversary
last October. So the foundation's been around in
Sugar Land for a while and was originally
formed to to preserve the Sugar
Land Auditorium, which is the oldest public building
in Sugar Land that was built in 1918.
(04:06):
So that's how it started was to preserve that
building and refurbish it. And is that
the near is that the one that's near the Sugar Land
Factory or Sugar Factory? Yes. It's a
beautiful building. If you look on our website, s l c a
f dot org, that's a beautiful historical building
(04:28):
that, like I said, that's what was the original mission
of the foundation. How was it established?
The foundation? So a couple of really
key members and back that are still on the board today,
which is amazing, Bridget Young, my cochair of the festival,
(04:48):
she was one of the founders of the foundation. She created the
foundation with a couple other people. And
we started it to preserve the auditorium. We felt like
this building was sitting there deteriorating, and it was something very
important to the history of the city that we needed
to create a foundation to to
(05:10):
bring that auditorium back to its full glory. It
was it's amazing the history of it. If you see some old photos
way back, they used to in the twenties, they would have dances on the roof
of the building, and the people from the it's right next to the sugar
factory, so people from the sugar factory used it all
the time for events. So it has a rich history. It's a beautiful
(05:32):
building. And so that's how we originally started
the foundation. Now the foundation's evolved a lot more since that time
and it's twenty six years, but it's and I
can tell you more about the mission that it's become because
it's gone way beyond just restoring the auditorium in
Sugar Land. Sure. Tell us a little bit more about its mission.
(05:55):
Yeah. So over the years, the
foundation has grown, and it's really to bring
about awareness of art and culture
into our community. And it's really a four band
foundation that we try and bring cultural
events into the area and through art
(06:18):
music and the performing and visual
arts. So that's a big part of our mission. We've now
we have a youth board that supports the
foundation that we've created and its students in the Fort Bend
County area. And we allow those students to actually
enter our board meetings, and we teach them about how board
(06:40):
meetings are run. And they also support the
foundation in the festival that we're gonna talk about, but the
youth board helps us find volunteers. They plan a youth
talent show every year where we get scholarship
awards through the talent show to bring talented
youth into the community and perform. And
(07:01):
so it's a way to recognize there's so much talent in our area. It's a
way to recognize those students. We also through
the foundation and the money we raise through Sugar Land Arts and
Music Fest, we've a big part of our mission has become
to provide scholarships to the
youth in Fort Bend County. It's not just Sugar Land area, but
(07:24):
all through Fort Bend County. And we partner with Fort
Bend ISD and Lamar Consolidated ISD.
And last year in 2025, we provided
92 scholarships to
students in our area, and the scholarships are targeted
for visual and performing arts scholarships.
(07:47):
So what we've done is we've partnered with the school
districts and a couple other music foundation,
inspiration stage, theatrical group,
and we provide these scholarships to kids that wouldn't otherwise have
these opportunities in our area. So
these students are hand selected, and then they are provided
(08:09):
maybe a musical instrument if that's their thing, and then they're
provided a music camp experience to go along
with it or a theater camp or an art
camp. And that has so
our mission really has evolved so much in over the
years in our fundraising efforts and and that's become, like,
(08:31):
really a big part of it is these scholarships
for we really wanna expose the youth to art
and music and music. Especially in your in your
underserved children's areas. Right?
Yes. Exactly. And that's the thing. It's like, we feel like if a child is
exposed to something like that, that they wouldn't have otherwise. It could
(08:53):
really be life changing for them. Ignite something that they could
be really passionate about. Yeah. You know, what I like
is, and this is the first time that I've heard about it, that you actually
have a youth board. Yeah. I have never heard of a
foundation having a youth board. And this is great because
kids can talk to kids. Right. Speak their language.
(09:15):
Yes. Absolutely. And they're so great about recruiting
the students in our area when we have events, and we
need the volunteers, and we want the students to get service hours.
So they really are that connection between us and
our events and then all the students in the area, which is
correct. Yeah. I'm sure they feel empowered and bringing in
(09:38):
their ideas changes everything too.
Exactly. Yeah. I know. Those young minds, they help us with
our social media and all that stuff. No. It's great. Like,
they're they're they're and, you know, that you can tell
that these kids, they're amazing. They're gonna be the leaders
once you could see where they're well prepared for college. So it's
(10:01):
great. Yeah. Well, this is a music fest. So do do they
come in with their ideas for music? Yeah.
We we actually consult with the youth board quite a
bit just to get their take on how
we should be doing everything. Like, we have a children's area at the festival.
They have input on that, and they actually volunteer all weekend in the
(10:23):
children's area. Those teens on that are on our youth board, which
is great, and we really need that help over there. So we've got so
many volunteer jobs for the festival, but we love having the youth board over
in our children's area. And then they are
just everywhere. They're just so such a big part of what we
do. And I'm sure they come they're coming in year after
(10:45):
year. Right? Yes. Absolutely. We have a
new youth board. Some of these members have been with us all four years of
high school, but we cycle out as kids some of the
kids' students graduate, then we bring in new members.
Yeah. Well, they feel it's theirs. So I agree.
Yeah. So the project then really is handled
(11:07):
a % by volunteers from what I'm understanding.
That is right. Our foundation is a
% volunteer board, and
we the board, the entire board is involved in our
festival, the Sugar Land Arts and Music Fest. Everyone has a role that
they play to make it successful. It really is collaborative
(11:30):
effort. It's we have a great board. I mean, we all
talk about it all the time, how everyone is so
involved in such such such a big part of what we're
doing. In fact, we had a meeting last night, and everybody was going through
all their every what everybody's doing to get ready for next
weekend. So it's a great group of people. We have
(11:52):
19 people on our board, and then we
also go out into the community, and we get end up
having over 200 volunteers to help run our festival
through the weekend. We have a large group
of volunteers that come out on Friday,
the day before the festival, and we are loading
(12:15):
in all the artists that day. So these are
community people because the students are in school that day.
These are people that are part of Rotary Club, Exchange Club, Knights of
Columbus, people that we get through the volunteers through the city of Sugar Land.
And they come out, and the artists pull up
their vehicle, and we unload all their art for them and
(12:38):
take it to the booth, and we have golf carts. We're we have a very
efficient process. So Yeah. We're really big on volunteerism,
obviously. I mean, I think you're probably get the idea. Yeah. That's, like,
a big part of what we do. So, Stacy, when we get
to the festival, what can we expect to see and do?
Yeah. So this year, we've actually each year
(13:01):
that like you mentioned earlier, it's our fourth year. So we've tried to
add a couple new elements every year. So we
continue to try and do it the right way and grow
slowly. We have a live music
stage in the center of the plaza
that will be hosting. That's our main Stella Artois main stage, and
(13:23):
then we have two satellite stages as well. One in our wine
garden and then one over near our food vendors
that play as well during the throughout the festival.
And then the plaza at Smart Financial Center in
Sugar Land is a beautiful venue for our festival.
We have this year, we have 100 artist booths, and this
(13:47):
is fine art. This is not
really crafts or anything like that. It's fine art of 14
different mediums. We have oil. We have pastels. We
have watercolors, photography, woodwork,
pottery. And it's amazing because
we see return to artists every year, but we also get a lot
(14:09):
of new artists as our festival grows. And our
brand is becoming more and more recognized, which we're so excited
about. And we filled up our artist's booth mid
December of last year for our festival
that's April. So that was really
exciting for us that we were sold out by mid December.
(14:31):
Yeah. So how many people come to the festival? How many
are you expecting this year? Well, we hope and we're praying that
we have great weather. So Yeah.
Yeah. And last year, we just we had over
just over 3,000 that came out,
and we hope we have even more this year. Yeah.
(14:54):
It's just a great venue. Our venue is very
upscale and nice. There's tons of shade. There's tons of tables
and chairs with umbrellas to sit around. We have
a great wine menu. So we have this fabulous wine
garden with tons of seating. And then we
try and elevate our food experience at the Sugar Land
(15:16):
Arts and Music Fest where we have three main food
vendors that are local restaurants in Sugar
Land that we partner with that actually create
curated menus just for the festival. It's not things they offer in their
restaurant, so it's really fun. And this year, we're having Escalante,
we have Baker Street Pub, and Aileen's
(15:39):
Chinese Bistro. Just for that, we should go.
It's a great variety. Like, we've got such a
wide variety. We're really excited about the food this
year because everybody's a foodie now, so we wanna have an
elevated food experience to go with the great wine that we're gonna be
serving. Yeah. But what I like is that you're just
(16:01):
focused on art and not crafts because
a lot of us sometimes don't have the time to go out really and
go to museums or things like that to
see beautiful art. And beautiful art is
coming to us with a lot of others
things happening, the great music, the great food,
(16:23):
great kids, and that's unique.
That doesn't happen in all art festivals.
Yeah. I agree. And we the 100
artist booths, we are very thoughtful and deliberate
the way we do this and handle these artists. They're jury
it's a jury process for the artists that are going to come in.
(16:46):
We have four judges, and they
rate each person that applies. And then
we also have three of our artists this year that will
be doing live demonstrations in their art booths throughout the
weekend. We've actually got to schedule the the demo artists, so
we're super exciting. They're gonna be talking about their process
(17:08):
in live painting or pottery in their
booth over the weekend. And that's the
100 artist booths. And then right in the center of that action, we have
four muralists that will be live painting, and
they're four by eight murals. There's a theme,
and they all have art within that theme that they're painting.
(17:31):
And it's so fun to go and watch them live paint
and interact with them and talk to them while they're doing it.
It's one of my favorite parts of the festival. I always think it's so amazing.
And then those four murals after the festival, they go inside
Smart Financial Center, and they hang in the lobby of the
building for one year. And Smart Financial
(17:53):
Center recognizes those artists that did the mural
with plaques. So it's great for them too because they get a lot of
recognition that Smart Financial has shows coming through all
the time, so it's great for them. And what
is the theme? What is the theme, sir? What is the Yeah. No. It's the
love of music. Oh, perfect. Yeah.
(18:16):
Perfect. Yes. So they wanted a music center theme this
year to go with their performing arts venue. So
Yeah. We let Smart Financial Center pick the theme since the
murals end up inside their lobby, and it's really exciting to see
that. And then after the festival, we always do a muralist reception
and recognize those artists, and we do that inside Smart Financial
(18:39):
Center one evening Yeah. And you have everyone come out from
the community to recognize them. Who are the muralists this
year? We have four muralists this
year, and two are returning from last year and then two are
brand new. So we're super excited about that.
And one of them, Santiago Perez, he was with us
(19:01):
last year, and he's amazing. Very
personable, engages with the audience while he's painting, which
I don't know how he can do both, but he does it very well. So
I would it's I would highly recommend people to come
out and just come see them even if if if anything else
I mean, you'll hear the music in the background and all that, but it's just
(19:23):
the muralist piece. They're all four muralists are together painting at the
same time. So it's And where where where do
they usually do their murals? Is it around Sugar Land or
Houston or Fort Bend? Yeah. I think most of them are within
the Houston area. Yeah. And they're always looking for new
work and jobs like that to paint murals throughout the city.
(19:47):
And that's really something that has exploded over the past
few years. Yes. There's a really an appreciation for it. In fact,
Smart Financial hired one of our muralists to
paint entirely the backstage in
Smart Financial Center so that when the artists are back there,
about to go on stage, whoever that is, there's this beautiful
(20:09):
mural on the wall about Sugar Land. Yeah. So and they
took one of our artists from the festival and hired them to do that. So
that was great. They were able to get that job from it.
Yeah. Well, let's switch a little bit. So who are who's
the lineup for this year in your music presentations?
Yeah. So this year, we have
(20:33):
on Saturday, we start out with a live soft
jazz called Soiree, and they're coming at
11AM on Saturday. And then our
headliner on Saturday is at 1PM, and it's too much to
say, and they're Dave Matthews cover band. Oh, yeah. They're
good. I know. I'm super excited about that. They'll be
(20:55):
great. They have a large following, so we're really excited to to have
them out this year. This is a new addition for us. And then
Saturday afternoon at 03:00, we have Bell Lewis. And Bell
is a local resident, a very
talented jazz musician. He actually used to perform with
Dionne Warwick, and we're super
(21:17):
excited to have him. He's gonna be amazing, really
talented guy. He runs f two f foundation,
which also gives music scholarships back to
kids in our community. So he's a great guy,
and he's very talented. So we're really
excited about that. So that's our Saturday lineup. And then in between
(21:39):
those main bands, we actually host student
groups from Fort Bend ISD and Lamar
Consolidated ISD to come out and perform, and these are
theater groups. We have a mariachi band
coming that we're really excited about from Lamar
Consolidated. We have the Fullshore High School Chamber
(22:01):
Choir coming on Saturday afternoon.
And then on Sunday, we start the day out at
11AM with the Gary Michael Dahl
band, and it's also Smooth Jazz, R and B. And they used
to be the house band for the Houston Texans, so they have quite a
bit of history in our city. Oh, they're amazing. Really
(22:25):
talented. Super excited about them. So so
the festival is going to be on the twenty sixth and '20
seventh? Right. Yes. Start from what time to what
time? Yeah. On Saturday the twenty sixth, we start at 10AM, and
we go until 5PM. And then on
Sunday, the twenty seventh, we start at 10AM and stop at
(22:47):
4PM. Yeah. And this festival is
gonna be for everyone, the entire family. So
kids can come, kids can have fun. There's a section
for kids that I understand you have Yeah. To put you have for
children's art activity? Right. Yes. We do have
a children's art activity area. We'll have a face painter over there, a
(23:09):
balloon artist. We have a large large
murals there, and the kids can come and
paint on the murals. And we'll also have a chalk art
activity going on. And the city of Sugarland's coming
out, and they're gonna be over in the children's area doing a really cool
water display Wow. Thing to teach kids
(23:32):
about where does your water go when you when it
goes down the drain, what happens to it? So it's a
kind of a fun scientific thing that we have. They get to
learn while they're having fun. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
So, Stacy, where can we find tickets for the festival?
Yeah. Tickets are on our website,
(23:53):
sugarlandartsfest.com.
And if you go on there, you'll see that right on the home page, there's
a link that a button right there to click on.
And right now, we're offering early bird tickets
for only $10. That's just for a limited time
(24:13):
only. And so our Arts Fest is a
great deal. We have on-site parking for
free. We do not charge for parking, and it's right there where you can
easily park and walk in. So that's a big selling point of
our festival. We love to promote that because it makes it so easy for
people to come. And That's true. Reasonable. We feel like
(24:35):
it is. We really yeah. Especially if you have a large family.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And kids kids
12 and under are free. Okay. Great. Yeah.
So do you have any rules? I mean, can we bring our pets? Can we
bring our chairs, umbrellas, that sort of
thing? Well, luckily, we have
(24:57):
so many chairs and tables and umbrellas on-site, so that won't
be necessary. So there's plenty lots of seating in our
festival. So people can hang out and listen to the music
and have something to eat or drink. And we are no
pets allowed. Unfortunately, there's just not facilities
at the festival for dogs to relieve themselves.
(25:20):
So we have not we don't offer that. Yeah.
Yeah. And, of course, no beverages. We can't walk in with
beverages or food. Right? Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Because
of TNBC. Yeah. Yeah. And,
so do you need more volunteers? Do you still need more volunteers?
We do need some more volunteers for Friday. Our setup day,
(25:43):
that day I was telling you about that we load in the artist. Yeah. And
also on our website, sugarlandartsfest.com,
there is right there is on the home page, there's a link that
says volunteer, and then it takes you right to an
online sign up genius for Friday. And then all the
jobs are broken down so you know exactly what you're gonna be doing.
(26:06):
But nothing's hard or difficult, and,
and it's kinda fun. Like, it's really like the you see the whole
community come out help out.
So it's it's a great and we do it in the morning. We
start early. So before it gets really warm or anything
and to do the hard work of moving all
(26:28):
the artists in, and they love it. Artists are always so
appreciative for people that can come help. You can come drive a golf
cart and Yeah. Drop off art at
at one of the booths. It's just And what happens if the weather is
not so great? Are you going to reschedule?
Yeah. So we hope and pray for great weather. And if
(26:51):
for some reason it's really bad one day, then we'll
become a one day festival. I mean, we'll just go to the other
day. If the whole weekend's really bad, then we
will postpone it to the fall. Oh, okay. Okay.
Well, maybe you should have two festivals. One to follow.
I'll tell you, it takes almost a year to plan the one. It's a lot.
(27:14):
There's a lot to it. But, yeah, maybe eventually we'll do
that. Yeah. And, Stacy, can we donate
make donations for this the kids' scholarships?
Yes. So there is a link on our website,
and you can see there's on also on our home page of the
website, there's a sponsorship link, and you can make a
(27:36):
donation on there. You can also just if you would like, we have
VIP tickets. The VIP ticket sales really
help go towards those scholarships we
sell. And then that also gets you VIP access to the
festival, which means it includes your food, and we have then a
catered meal on that VIP area. Yeah.
(27:58):
So if somebody really wants to be really nice and generous, we'd love
that. We, of course, appreciate anything we can do more for the youth
in our community. So purchase a VIP ticket, and that
helps so much. Yeah. So definitely get there
with cool clothes on and nice walking
shoes and, just expect to have a great
(28:20):
time. Yeah. Like, come out, walk through the artist
booths, watch the live demos of the artist,
have a glass of wine, get some great food from
one of our restaurants, and sit and listen to all the
music. It's yeah. Can we dance? Yes.
We can. Yes. Absolutely. There's actually a big
(28:44):
area in front of the stage that we and the
stage sits up in the middle of the plaza. It's raised up, so it's
really a nice center point of the festival. So
Great. So we can't complain. No.
You get to have a lot of fun, dancing and
art and music and food. And I mean, what I mean,
(29:06):
you have everything there. There's nothing that we can miss.
So That's right. Yeah. We've
tried. We've tried to think of everything. So we feel like We've
tried our calendars. We host a great event. We really
try. Yeah. Well, Stacy, thank you for joining me and,
for letting us know all about the fun that awaits us at the
(29:29):
fourth annual Sugar Land Arts and Music Fest.
And, of course, as always, thank you as well for joining me. Hope you have
a great time at the festival. Yeah. Thanks, Martha. I appreciate
it. Yeah. And please send me your comments and
story ideas.
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