Event Pick: Float Fest

Cool River Ranch
July 22-23

Some bands are just sonically engineered for summer. Bands with the humid psychedelia of MGMT, Passion Pit, and Cage the Elephant. Bands with the backyard barbeque feel of Weezer, the pulsing heat of electronic producer Zedd, or the cool-brain, hot-feet rap of Mac Miller.

On July 22 and 23 you’ll be able to catch all them and more at the annual Float Fest. A 45-minute cruise down I-35 from Austin will plant you at Cool River Ranch in San Marcos where the festival, now in its fourth iteration, will be held. The festival brings together national names like those listed above with home-grown Texas talents, from the Houston-born rap of Mike Jones, Lil’ Flip, and King of Nothing to Austin’s poppy Wild Child and country-rock Sweet Spirit.

With a tubing pass you can participate in the festival’s namesake activity: a float down the San Marcos River. Every day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. festival-goers are shuttled upstream for a 2.5- to 4-hour river crawl back to the Ranch. Once refreshed and re-fueled (yes, you can bring drinks along on the river) it’s time to dance away the rest of your sun-drenched day and propel into a chant of Weezer’s unavoidable anthem: “Yeah, it feels like summer to me.”

Various ticket packages are on sale now, starting at $60 for a single day pass to $115 for a weekend with camping and tubing.

_{Read more from the Food Issue | July 2017}