During the 10-day festival, you’ll find a variety of entertainment, food and fun on the Wurstfest Grounds in Landa Park as well as many special events throughout New Braunfels and Comal County, Tx.
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From humble beginnings, the Wurstfest grown into an annual bash which draws thousands of visitors a day to the dedicated Wurstfest Festival Grounds. Ed Grist, the city meat inspector, created a festival to honor sausage in 1961.
The festival honoring this most delectable of local foods was a one-day affair held on Saturday, climaxing a week of activity featuring sausage dishes on menus of local cafes and specials on sausage products in local meat markets and grocery stores.
The first year it was “Sausage Festival”, later “Wurst Week”, and finally “WURSTFEST”.
What he thought would be a typical small town festival was conceived by Ed A. Grist, who was a practicing veterinarian and city meat inspector. At the time, no one anticipated the phenomenal success this festival would achieve.
The first Wurstfest drew a crowd of 2,000 sausage-hungry visitors attracted by literally world-wide publicity. There were feature stories on this unique celebration in newspapers in Canada and Germany, as well as most major cities in the United States.
Although scheduled to take place in Landa Park, threatening weather caused the first festival to move to the National Guard Armory.
The festival went “big-time” in 1963, moving downtown to the Rathskeller (a burned-out department store basement, now the New Braunfels Utilities parking lot) with an event scheduled every night of Wurst Week.
Wurstfest was the recipient of a gift of a one-half acre piece of property on Landa Street from JPMorgan Chase Bank in 2002, which allowed the organization to increase patron parking.
The 2007 festival introduced Kinderhalle, a special children’s entertainment area, in cooperation with the New Braunfels Parks and Recreation Department.
Wurstfest continues rain or shine, and no rain dates are scheduled.
Food and drinks are sold throughout the grounds. Visitors are prohibited from bringing food and beverages onto the festival grounds. This includes, but is not limited to, beer, wine and distilled spirits. Beer sales require tickets.
Good to know:
Seating is provided in all entertainment areas. Dirndls, lederhosen and silly hats are encouraged. Smiles required.
Where: 120 Landa Street New Braunfels, Tx 78130
When: Until November 10
Monday through Wednesday the gates open at 5:00 pm and entertainment ends at 10:00 pm.
Thursday and Fridays the gates open at 5:00 pm and entertainment ends at 11:00 pm.
Saturdays the gates open at 11:00 am and entertainment ends at 12:00 midnight.
Sundays the gates open at 11:00 am and entertainment ends at 10:00 pm. ■
A trailing cold front in connection with a low pressure system currently moving east across the Great Lakes toward New England will bring a chance of rain into the eastern U.S. on this first day of November following an exceptionally dry October for this part of the country.