The Lone Star Festival started off with a big bang from last year’s great event. Along with you, we are feeling the pain of everything that is happening this year. We have had sponsors back off due to inflation. We have had vendors back out due to the high cost of travel (gas & hotel rates going up) and even the supply chain has hit us with delays in getting things delivered on time.

The fact that COVID19 still continues to present problems for all of us in various ways. Another surge is expected this summer, as shown by increased positivity rates over the past two weeks. Add in the inflation problem that has hit all of our pocketbooks, and the still running issue of staff shortages in many businesses, it is clear that we are not out of the woods yet.

In the publishing world, they are seeing less and less book sales over the past three months, along with more and more book bans, they too as well as you, are feeling the sting of our political climate.

All of this must be taken into consideration as I determine if the Lone Star Festival will be successful for each of you this year. We have spent over $10 grand on promotion, fees, and other expenses. We are in the red due to lack of booth sales and lack of sponsorships. Taking all of this into consideration, I feel that for this year, we must take a step back and postpone the LSF event until May 13 & 14, 2023.

What does this mean for you? Simple, your booth payments will be moved over until 2023. You will NOT pay for any additional price increases, extra fees, or anything. We will continue to promote your attendance at the event for the next year at our expense. It is our hope to continue to drive business to you regardless of whether you attend the event in person or not, remains intact as we have done for years with our other events.

We want to make sure that as many of the positive attributes that can happen to make this event as successful as possible for you our vendors come together. There is never a guarantee, but the more opportunities to move things in the right direction, the better.

I know some of you will be extremely disappointed, I get it, there is nothing more heartbreaking for me than to agonize over this for the past week. But, in the long run, I believe this is the best decision for us, and for everyone else concerned. We will reach out to you over the next couple of weeks with any updates that we need to share with you. For now, remember, your fees are automatically moved over to 2023, and YOU WILL NOT pay anything additional!

For those of you that paid for the banquet, those fees will be refunded as soon as we get our refund on the deposit back from the restaurant.

The Texas Authors Institute of History, Inc., the nonprofit producing this event remains focused on promoting Texas Authors, by creating an event like the Lone Star Festival and other programs. This organization will continue to move forward and remains focused on leaving a legacy about and for Texas Authors.