Organizers of San Antonio's newest festival have a message for this city of perpetual partygoers: It is time to put on your hiking boots and get out of downtown. The first-ever WildFest San Antonio is scheduled for May 4 to 6, and despite the name, it has nothing to do with mass quantities of beer and gorditas.
The region is blessed with an abundance of plant and animal life and geological wonders, and the three-day event is all about getting outdoors to explore them, said Dwight Henderson, chairman of the festival planning committee.
"We wish for people to discover the wild side of San Antonio," Henderson said at a news conference Monday at the San Antonio Botanical Garden.
WildFest planners have organized 74 events, including 57 field trips to parks, preserves and natural areas where festivalgoers can see the flora and fauna of desert scrub, caves, grasslands, canyons, wetlands and spring-fed rivers.
Local experts will accompany participants to locations such as the Bracken Bat Cave, Choke Canyon Reservoir, Mitchell Lake and Government Canyon. Guided tours also will explore traditional urban areas such as the River Walk, Mission Trail, San Antonio Zoo and the Botanical Garden.
There also will be workshops and seminars on topics such as xeriscaping, cooking with native plants and building birdhouses.
San Antonio is at the cross hairs of four ecological regions — the Edwards Plateau, the Blackland Prairies, and the eastern and southern Texas plains. This means the area is host to a diverse array of plant and animal life, said Iliana Peña of the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center, where some 320 species of birds can be observed.
"We live in the seventh-largest city in the United States and we sit on a campus of an amazing array of natural beauty," she said.
Organizers hope the event will be attractive to tourists as well as area residents.
Advance registration is required for all events. Seating is limited at most of them, and there are fees — from $5 to $20 — for most field trips, seminars and workshops.
Basic registration for the festival costs $20 for adults and $5 for children 4 to 12, a price that includes one workshop or field trip of up to $10 in value.
A full schedule of events, registration forms and fee information are available online at www.wildfestsanantonio.com.
Printed copies may be obtained at all San Antonio libraries or by calling (210) 886-9991.
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(Photos by Jerry Lara/Express-News) Dwight Henderson, chairman of the festival planning committee, said the region is blessed with an abundance of plant and animal life and geological wonders. 