Southeast Tourism Society Selects Double Decker Arts Festival as Top 20 Event

Southeast Tourism Society has named Double Decker Arts Festival one of the Top 20 Events in the Southeast for April 2020. Photo by Tate Nations

Southeast Tourism Society has named Double Decker Arts Festival one of the Top 20 Events in the Southeast for April 2020.

“We are honored to be selected by Southeast Tourism Society as a Top 20 event,” said Visit Oxford executive director Kinney Ferris. “Our office is heavily involved with STS and understands the value of being noticed by this organization.”

The 2020 Double Decker Arts Festival will be April 24-25.

The STS Top 20 Festival and Event Awards have highlighted programs around the Southeast since 1985.

Travel industry experts select 20 events per month and STS publicizes them throughout the United States. The complete list is published on two websites: Southeast Tourism Society and Travel Media Press Room.

“Double Decker Arts Festival will celebrate its 25th anniversary this year and we have worked to plan a special festival for our community and visitors,” said Lee Ann Stubbs, Double Decker Arts Festival coordinator. “Over the past 25 years the festival has grown tremendously and in this anniversary year we are thrilled to have been selected as a Top 20 Event by STS.”

Double Decker Arts Festival was originally inspired by the Double Decker bus that Oxford imported from England in 1994, the festival showcases Oxford as a town that supports the arts and has grown to be one of the champion events in the region.

Before she was mayor of Oxford, Robyn Tannehill organized the first Double Decker Arts Festival in an effort to increase business for the city in what was then a slow time. In the first year of the festival, a bed of an old pickup truck served as the stage for music and there were only a handful of art and food vendors. Today, the event is centered around the historic Courthouse Square and boasts a crowd of more than 60,000 people.

Now in a two-day format, Double Decker will kick-off on Friday evening with Thacker Mountain Radio hosting a live broadcast complete with music. Saturday is an all-day affair featuring nearly 20 art and food vendors while a generous mix of both local and touring musicians take to the stage.

“This will be Lee Ann’s sixth year to plan the festival and each year has offered something new or a change for the better,” Ferris said of her coworker Stubbs.

For 35 years, STS has been spotlighting the best festivals and events in the Southeast with our Top 20 Festival and Events program.

“Our goal is to highlight the efforts of devoted event organizers and provide additional media exposure and accolades for their events,” said Monica Smith, president and CEO of the Southeast Tourism Society. “The Southeast offers so many unique, year-round, opportunities for tourists and festival-goers to create memories and support the tourism industry – a vital economic generator for communities.”

STS, founded in 1983 and headquartered in Roswell, Ga., is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting travel and tourism within 12 states – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Courtesy of Visit Oxford