CreekFest Houston, an annual, free festival celebrating the arts, was canceled in 2017 and this year due to Hurricane Harvey and ongoing flood repairs, but it is tentatively slated to relaunch Oct. 5, 2019, under new leadership, said Clara Lewis, vice president of the Cypress Creek Cultural District.

First launched in 2011 by the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce, the event is now overseen by CCCD, which includes local organizations and nonprofits such as Cypress Creek Foundation for the Arts and Community Enrichment, Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts, Barbara Bush Branch Library, Cypress Creek Christian Community Center and the Cypress Creek Greenway project, Lewis said.

“The [Cypress Creek] Cultural District organizations believe that CreekFest is such a vibrant and popular community offering, and all want to keep the annual CreekFest tradition going forward,” she said.

Festival events and activities have included live performances by local artists and singers, food trucks, chalk artists, canoeing and exhibitors. The entire event is put on by volunteers. Over the years, the number of festival attendees has grown, and roughly 3,000 people attended in 2016, HNWCC President Barbara Thomason said.

CCCD members are eyeing a return for the festival in 2019, but details have not yet been confirmed, Lewis said. The festival was put on the back burner this year due to delays related to ongoing flood repairs, and none of the cultural district venues are prepared to take on such a large a project this fall, she said.

The Centrum performance space and adjoining community center are not fully restored, so Cypress Creek FACE is holding events in other regional venues and the library does not have sufficient resources, she said.

“Our sponsors have been very supportive throughout. It is just taking time for each of the cultural district organizations to get settled and back in full operation,” Lewis said.

In 2017, HNWCC handed oversight of CreekFest to the cultural district so the chamber could invest more time and resources toward economic and community development programs such as the Economic Outlook Forum, which highlights business and community developments in northwest Harris County, and Grow Northwest, an initiative to expand Northwest Houston’s economic prosperity, Thomason said.

“When you look at our mission of [improving] economic development and economic health of the community, our activities and projects need to be true to that mission,” Thomason said. “While it could be argued that festivals contribute to the economic health of the area, it doesn’t mean that someone else can’t do the festivals.”