Austin Enchanted Forest

Had to give this 5 stars. This place is so neat! I went for the silent disco. What is a silent disco you may ask? Only one of the most unique things I’ve ever been to! You walk in and get a set of headphones. They have 2 different DJ’s on 2 different channels. One is blue and one is green it lights up on the side of the headphones. You can switch stations on the headphones. You can only hear the music if you have your headphones on though. When you take them off you can hear talking and wind chimes. This place is BYOB. Which is really neat you just show them you have it with you at the door and they let you in with it. I recommend buying your tickets in advance because the line gets really long and they make people wait when it gets packed. They will only let people in once the headphones are returned.

Blown away.
Completely.
SAVE THE AUSTIN ENCHANTED FOREST!!!
This place is one of the most unique collections of arts and artists that I have yet to witness… And that is coming from a gal who considers art to be her lifeline.
The City wants them gone. Help them stop this crazyness. Austin NEEDS a unique space like this to thrive.
Support.

Perhaps I’m just getting old and don’t «get it».
We went for the faerie thing tonight and I can only say it was a bunch of suck.
First, they were charging $ 15 a person to get in. My sweetie and I laughed and started to leave, so he dropped it to $ 10 a person. We wandered in along the paths looking at some not bad art and some things that could only be described as trash. Then we arrived at the vendors area… nothing I was interested in, mostly stuff you might find on a blanket down on Guadalupe… if that good. Then it was over to the stage area.
The guy who was ‘performing’ we we first got there was playing a drum machine over another prerecorded track and then playing drums over that. He had NO RHYTHYM. None. He was full of SUCK.
So we wandered around some more. There were some drums being played at a geodome for a bit that weren’t bad. More halfway decent art and a lot more trash.
Then someone called Medicine Man took the stage. Weak drumming… weaker rhymes. Not as much suck as number one, but still full of SUCK!!!
Perhaps the Haunted Trail thing might be cool… this place looks like it has potential, but THIS event FAILED!

Okay, for what they DO, as a hippie-​diy-​crafty-​back-​to-​nature-​freak show, sure, it’s 5 stars. But will I ever be coming back? No.
Part of sxsw is going to some venue you never heard of, not once even in passing, and hoping for the best. I came with an open mind, but this just really isn’t my scene. It’s like a Renaissance Festival, crossed with Burning Man, crossed with a protest rally.
It’s the woods. There’s art booths everywhere. They have electricity. We figure anywhere between one individual and two dozen people actually sleep here. But what do I know? Either this is totally your scene and you will love it, or you’ll watch your step and pray that they don’t have exploding propane tanks of bonfire artistry.

We went to the Enchanted Forest during ACL weekend to see the String Cheese Incident and had an absolute blast! Stumbling around drunk in the woods with all my hippie friends = WIN. I love how there’s this dense little forest smack in the middle of Austin. Just another reason why I love living here!
Bonus: Divine Foods is serving up fabulous food right inside the gate and I eat there whenever I’m on the southside.

Best «Haunted House» ever. You walk through this path in the woods and get scared and creeped-​out in various ways. Totally fun and a great date night. My tips are:
1. You can eat there at Divine Foods. So make an evening of it
2. Get there early and park in Office Max parking… but if you don’t get there early (right after sundown), the line gets huge.
3. Check out the life-​size Rube Goldburg mouse trap. Traveling show from SF that just happens to be here as well.
4. Wear some sort of steel reinforced glove and arm sling. My girl somehow gave me carpel arm syndrome… switch arms, got two cases of it.
Great Halloween date night. I HIGHLY recommend it… $ 10 per person for the enchanted forest and the mousetrap is run on donations.
Oh, and don’t carry an open flame… a couple of the scary demons to whom we spoke were downright flammable.

Enchanted [in October «Haunted”] Forest + LIFE SIZE MOUSETRAP = Need I say more?
Friggin’ amazing/​ridiculous.

The Enchanted Forest (EF) Is the most unique space’s/venue/forest in Austin. It’s goal is to be an Art Mecca for everyone. And lucky for the art community here in Austin, the fine folks at the EF, love all things art. The forest is made up of, well, a forest. With yes real trees, and all sorts of what have you’s and mysteries all about the 3 acres of land. The Enchanted Forest throws both Art Outside in March and Austin Haunted Forest in October annually. Through out the year a few other eclectic events tend to happen, and Austin is always better for it.