Representatives of the event, which is in its 29th year, have signed on to continue hosting the event in downtown McKinney for another five years through 2029, said Joshua Jones, event founder and general manager at KHYI 95.3 The Range.
“My favorite Texas Music Revolutions have all been in McKinney. ... It's just the most magical, charming downtown in America,” Jones said.
What you need to know
The event, a two-day musical festival, features both chart-topping and emerging artists in the country and Americana genres, the organization’s website states.
The year’s event features headlining acts Dawes and Flatland Cavalry, along with a lineup of other artists, including Taylor Hunnicutt, Bri Bagwell, Lola Kirke, Liam St. John and more. Jones said the event can feature between 60-80 artists performing on about 15 stages around downtown.
“You're going to see national touring acts ... but then you also have a very deep bench of other great music ... and then you also have the singer-songwriter-type experiences,” Cultural District Director Andrew Jones said.
During the event, some areas of downtown are closed to traffic and require tickets to enter, but other areas remain open to the public, including stages located around downtown and inside some businesses, Andrew Jones said.
“It's a unique opportunity for our residents that don't have access to this caliber of music all the time,” Jones said, noting that previous years of the festival have drawn out over 10,000 attendees.
Attendees can purchase tickets online at www.tmrfest.com, which range from $59-$299. Event information including parking, stage map, schedule and lineup, and more can be found on the Texas Music Revolution mobile app.
Quote of note
“When I think about [Texas Music Revolution] at 7 p.m. ... you’ve got something to drink and you're walking around downtown, and you're just hearing all this music coming from different ways, and that's kind of the magical experience,” Andrew Jones said.
The setup
The event came to McKinney after being held at Southfork Ranch in Parker for over 15 years, as well as some years being held in other venues in the area.
Jones said city officials began considering how the event could operate in downtown McKinney in 2020, which later became a reality in 2021.
“They didn't want us to just do one or two stages for a day, they wanted to make this something where you could hear live music coming from every corner of downtown,” Jones said of the initial partnership with McKinney officials.
Andrew Jones said when the event was moved to McKinney, it had to be reimagined for a downtown area rather than an open event space.
“That's really when it transformed to kind of a South by Southwest-style format, where you have main stages ... ticketed areas, but then you also have all these smaller, partner venues throughout the district, you have an alley stage, you have these one-off areas to create a sense of exploration and discovery for these smaller stages,” Andrew Jones said.
Also of note
A documentary showcasing the Texas Music Revolution festival was filmed in 2021.
The film, which premiered at the Catalina Film Festival in late 2023, followed the planning, production and execution of the festival’s 25th year and first year in McKinney.
“It was kind of like downtown was a character in that documentary because downtown ... gave it a sense of place,” Andrew Jones said.
Looking ahead
Jones said he works year-round to book artists for the annual music festival, working to secure artists that may otherwise play at other venues or events in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
“As soon as TMR ends in June, I'm going to take a week off, and then I'm going to start working on next year's festival,” Jones said.
During the event’s next four years in McKinney, Jones said he would like to see the event continue to evolve while continuing to draw in visitors nationally and internationally.
“A trusted friend told me ‘TMR is a unicorn,’ and I believe that it's a special event and a special place, [a] special vibe, I want to continue to see it evolve,” Jones said. “I would love for the brand to continue to bring people to downtown McKinney.”
