International Festival comes back to Lawton

These days, it seems like everyone is traveling from one country to the other. Even amidst the chaos of the world, it’s important to just breathe and enjoy life while it’s here.

One way to do that and celebrate different world cultures is by attending the International Festival Friday through Sunday at Elmer Thomas Park.

Jason Poudrier, Arts & Humanities Administrator, said this year marks the 45th International Festival in Lawton.

“It’s put on by a wonderful committee of private citizens that represent several different historical cultural groups,” Poudrier said. “We have the Filipino American Association, American Indian Club, Mexican Folkloric dancers. We have all these amazing cultural groups that come together once a month to meet to plan a festival in which they get to share their culture with Southwest Oklahoma and everybody who comes to the festival. We have our international students who often come out and participate in a parade of nations.”

There will be many new things happening this year, including a scavenger hunt and escape rooms, Poudrier said.

“With the escape rooms, one of them has a pyramid theme,” Poudrier said. “Another one has a mermaid theme. It kind of goes along with the International Festival idea.”

Some of the performances are returning with some new talent.

“We have an all new group that we’ve never had before, which is All Funk Radio Show,” Poudrier said. “They’re an amazing band. We heard them play down at Wichita Falls and we’re excited to have them. By popular demand from last year, we had Mariachi Las Altiñas, and they were just amazing. It’s an all female mariachi band and they were just so amazing.”

Other than the activities and live music, there are many other cool things to do.

“We’ll have over 40 vendors out there selling all kinds of wonderful cuisine,” Poudrier said. “We also have our display and sales vendors. We’ll also have our drink and beer booths set up.”

Some things guests will surely enjoy are the entertainment and food.

“What makes the International Festival (what it is) is really the entertainment and the different cultural groups sharing the knowledge and the beauty of their culture with the community,” Poudrier said. 

The festival is free and open to the public.

For more information contact Poudrier at (580) 581-3470 or at [email protected], or visit https://www.swokarts.com/events-one/international-festival.