Cattle Country Music Festival seeks mass gathering permit

Gonzales County commissioners will discuss a mass gathering permit at 9 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 26, for a proposed Cattle Country Music Festival that could bring as many as 20,000 people to Gonzales County on the second weekend in April.

County Judge Pat Davis said Monday, Oct. 23, that the promotion team behind the new festival is the same that was behind Float Fest in July 2022.

“It was actually going to be called the Wine Country Music Festival and be held in Fredericksburg,” Davis said. “Everything was good with the officials over there; however, some landowners got upset about it, so they were going to move it to the same place they held Float Fest.

“However, it’s not going to have any floating so they decided they wouldn’t have it there. Marcus (Federman) spoke to Noel Reese, who owns some land right across the river, and they came to an agreement they were going to have it there.”

The country music festival — slated for April 12-14, 2024 — will bring in big-name acts, especially in the genre of Red Dirt Texas Country, and also will have Texas wineries setting up booths for wine tastings as well as top-notch food, including a possible James Beard award-nominated chef, Davis said.

“They’re also going to have some things set up for kids to make it more kid friendly as well,” Davis said. “It will be three days on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday, just like Float Fest and Come and Take It, and then they’ll be gone. There will be no river floating; it will just be camping for three days and they’ll have music on two separate stages.”

Davis said he was impressed with how Float Fest was run in 2022 and is willing to work with the organizers because they have shown they run their event professionally and safely.

“Anytime we have an event like this, anything can happen,” Davis said. “But the last time, we were very prepared for it. Everyone from Walmart to the restaurants really entertained them being here and profited from it and the tax base benefitted from it greatly.”

Davis said the mass-gathering permit request covers up to 30,000 people, but the estimate is for an attendance of between 16,000 to 20,000 for the three-day festival.

“It’s hard to deny anything when you don’t have anything to back it up,” Davis said. “When they had Float Fest, I made sure that I went out there all three days to see what was actually there because I wanted to make a decision whether I was going to let them come back or not.

“In between all the law enforcement, the security and everything they had in place out there, it was just unbelievable. I’m not saying it won't happen this time, but there was not one arrest at that venue when we had 16,000 people there at once. There were 15 arrests made outside of the venue with DPS intercepting people before they got there, but I never would have dreamed that it would have been zero on site.”

Commissioners have to approve the mass-gathering permit during a public meeting, which is why the special meeting for Thursday has been called.

If the mass-gathering permit is approved, festival organizers are expected to announce their lineup and festival pricing possibly as soon as Thursday afternoon or Friday, Oct. 27.