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Organizers with Livermore Downtown Inc. are preparing for their major annual fundraising event and a beloved showcase of the city’s community, artists, and businesses this weekend.
This year marks the 32nd annual Livermore Downtown Street Fest — formerly known as the Honey and Wine festival — featuring a range of arts, entertainment, food and beverages. The two-day event highlights the best the city’s growing downtown neighborhood has to offer.
“We have something for everyone really,” said Ruby Lopez-Villarreal, executive director for LDI. “It’s a family event.”
That includes a beer and wine experience for adults, as well as arts, entertainment, and celebration for all ages, including a robust lineup of local musicians.
With the longstanding celebration’s deep roots going back multiple decades, some of those musicians – such as Brandon Olivero of Crawdad Republic – are now set to grace the same event that they remember attending growing up in Livermore.
“I have memories of seeing my father perform at the event, and memories of getting to see a lot of local music,” Olivero said. “I played in high school at the event, and I will say it’s grown a lot and it’s done a much better job of placing an emphasis on the music.”
This year, that means a total of 14 bands on two stages throughout the weekend, at Bankhead Plaza and Stockmen’s Park.
Musical offerings are just one thing that have expanded over the years for the celebration and for Livermore itself, following downtown redevelopment efforts that kicked off in 1995 and are among the factors that led to the current downtown landscape, with the historic neighborhood now bustling with a range of local, independent merchants beloved by diners and shoppers in the present day.
“What we do essentially is support and advocate for our downtown small business families yearwide, but this is our biggest fundraiser of the year that helps sustain us so we can continue to provide services for our small business community,” Lopez-Villarreal said.
While the event is free, tickets are available for an adults-only beer and wine experience, with beer tastings from Altamont Beer Works, Shadow Puppet Brewing Company, and wine from Cuda Ridge, Charles R Vineyards and Wood Family Vineyards, among other local wineries.
“Altamont Beer Works brings out their brew trailer,” Lopez-Villarreal said. “People love that, and then we have our wine and beer pavilion or lounge. There’s one at Stockmen’s Park and one at the Bankhead Plaza.”
Although the event returned in a modified form amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, one popular offering – a commemorative glass for the beer and wine experience – is returning this year for the first time since 2019.
“It really is a wonderful, free community celebration where we welcome locals and tourists to experience the best of the Livermore Valley,” Livermore Mayor John Marchand told the Weekly.
That includes Crawdad Republic, with Olivero calling himself and his bandmates “products of the Tri-Valley,” with five out of six band members having grown up in Livermore and attended Livermore schools. Some, such as Olivero, played in other bands before the group came together.
“We formed and we’re all kind of deeply embedded into our community,” Olivero said. “We’ve got several members who work at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, some of us are teachers in Livermore.”
However, a primary focus of the event is the city’s downtown merchants.
“They’re all really stocked up and ready to provide those one-of-a-kind finds,” Lopez-Villarreal said.
The celebration – always set for the third weekend in May – is set to take place along First Street between L and Maple streets, plus South Livermore Avenue between Railroad Avenue and Second Street from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Wine and beer pourings are scheduled from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
More information and tickets for the beer and wine offerings – as well as the commemorative glass returning this year – are available at livermoredowntown.com.
