Festival draws more than 4,000 visitors to Lockhart

By Anthony Collins

LPR Editor                        

   Downtown Lockhart was filled with music, songwriters, and plenty of visitors Sept. 18–20 as the second annual Texas Women Songwriters Festival (TWSF) drew well over 4,000 people during its three-day run, according to festival organizers. 

   More than 50 women songwriters performed throughout downtown, transforming local businesses, galleries and gathering spaces into intimate listening rooms and giving visitors the chance to move from one performance to another while experiencing music in a setting far different from a traditional large-stage festival.

   Festival founder, Mandy Rowden, said the second-year event exceeded what organizers had hoped to see. “Our second annual TWSF far surpassed our expectations and hopes in terms of attendance, good vibes, and the sense of community among the songwriters,” Rowden said. “We’re so excited to see what the future holds for the festival and how it continues to evolve and grow.”

   The weekend opened Friday with singer-songwriter Tish Hinojosa delivering the keynote address at The Blue Pearl. Friday’s featured performances included Patricia Vonne at The Blue Pearl and BettySoo at Masur Hall, with Vonne’s performance selling out before the festival began. Saturday brought a full slate of songwriter rounds throughout downtown before Patrice Pike took the stage at The Blue Pearl and Susan Gibson performed later that evening at Masur Hall. Gibson is best known as the songwriter behind “Wide Open Spaces,” which became a major hit for The Chicks. Pike’s featured performance also sold out, adding to a weekend that saw strong interest in both the ticketed headliner shows and the festival’s free songwriter events.

   Sunday brought a different sound to downtown as Mariachi Las Coronelas performed during a sold-out brunch at The Blue Pearl before the festival wrapped up with Girl Guitar songwriters performing Sunday afternoon. The weekend also included an ALS awareness event Saturday at the Dr. Eugene Clark Library featuring Barbara Bergin, along with an Ice Bucket Challenge. The ALS Association was among the organizations involved with this year’s festival, adding a charitable and awareness component to a weekend built primarily around music, songwriting and community.

   One of the festival’s defining features continues to be its song-swap format. Rather than placing every performer on a traditional concert stage, several songwriters shared smaller stages and took turns performing original material, often telling the stories behind the songs along the way. The song swaps were free and open to the public, giving festivalgoers the opportunity to discover performers they may not have heard before while creating a much more personal setting between the artists and their audiences. For many visitors, the experience was as much about hearing how a song came together as it was hearing the finished song itself.

   The festival’s growth has been quick. When Rowden began planning the inaugural event, the idea was originally much smaller, with hopes of bringing roughly 20 performers together. Instead, the first TWSF in 2025 grew to include 54 women songwriters performing across nine downtown venues. Lockhart was also a deliberate choice. Rather than placing the event in nearby Austin and competing with the feel of a larger music festival, the smaller venues, walkable downtown, and relaxed atmosphere allowed organizers to build an event where the songwriters and their stories remained the focus.

   That same idea carried into this year’s festival, with performances spread among venues including The Blue Pearl, Masur Hall, Chaparral Cantina, the Dr. Eugene Clark Library, Soundwaves Gallery, The Get Up, Thorn & Bred and Commerce Gallery. Instead of thousands of visitors gathering in one festival area, crowds moved through downtown throughout the weekend, walking between performances and passing restaurants, bars, galleries, shops and other locally owned businesses along the way. The setup made downtown Lockhart itself part of the festival rather than simply the location where it happened.

   With organizers estimating attendance at well over 4,000, that movement also meant thousands of potential customers were circulating through the downtown district over the course of three days. While no official economic-impact figure has been released, the festival’s layout naturally puts visitors in front of local businesses as they travel between performances. Restaurants, shops, bars, and galleries became stops along the festival route, creating an opportunity for the event to benefit more than just the venues hosting performances.

   The festival also showed signs of expanding its reach within the music industry. Support for the weekend included organizations and businesses ranging from the Recording Academy and Texas Music Office to BMI, Gibson Guitars and the Center for Texas Music History, along with numerous Lockhart-area businesses and organizations. The Recording Academy also sponsored an artist breakfast during the weekend. All four featured headliner concerts included live American Sign Language music interpretation provided by Amber G Productions, making accessibility another visible part of this year’s event.

   Rowden’s connection to the festival goes beyond organizing concerts. Her academic work at Texas State University has focused on Texas women singer-songwriters, and she has spent years working to create opportunities for women in music. She is also the founder of Girl Guitar, an Austin-based program that provides women with opportunities to learn guitar, songwriting, and performance. The TWSF grew from that same interest in documenting, celebrating, and creating space for women whose work has helped shape Texas music.

   For an event only in its second year, the combination of more than 4,000 attendees, sold-out featured performances, industry support, and dozens of songwriters filling venues throughout downtown showed how quickly the festival has established itself. But the weekend was about more than numbers. At its heart, the festival remained centered on songwriters sitting together, sharing original music and telling the stories behind it while audiences listened just a few feet away. The TWSF is no longer simply introducing itself to Lockhart.