Dreamland Dripping Springs hosted inaugural music and arts festival DreamFest last weekend, bringing together music groups and artisans for the day-long event.

Dreamland, still fairly new itself, opened in February 2021 as an outdoor entertainment, recreation and arts venue. The venue features sculptures, mosaics and murals from international artists throughout the property and has a state-of-the-art music stage for performances — in addition to miniature golf courses, pickleball courts and a disc golf course. DreamFest, on May 28, was a logical next step for the venue, which has become well known for its local events.

The idea behind DreamFest actually preceded the venue itself, beginning as an Austinbased music, food and arts festival.

“We had worked on that for maybe six months, and then we were canceled due to COVID-19,” said Gareth Maguire, Austinbased artist and creative director for Dreamland. “When we were canceled, Steve — our owner — brought me out to Dripping Springs, to what is now Dreamland, and said, ‘Why don’t we make this the permanent home of the festival?’”

Getting the festival up and running proved a challenge for the fledgling venue, which faced not only the COVID-19 pandemic but severe weather issues.

“Last year, we were going to do it, and I had scheduled it, I think, two or three times,” Maguire said. “We got rained out twice, and at that point, it was impossible to get all nine or ten bands we booked for the same date. We had to push it back to 2022.”

This year’s festival featured musical artists of all ages and styles, including pop-rock musician Bob Schneider, Latinfolk singer Gina Chavez, and indie-R&B artist Sir Woman.

“I picked what I thought would be a good lineup, popular lineup, fun lineup,” Maguire…