Best Neighborhood Festival

House in the Park is the real deal. From infants to grandparents, hundreds of friends and families end up in a trance, grilling and jamming to bass and beats. You'll find yourself sucked into the DJ pavilion, shoulder-to-shoulder with neighbors you've never met, moving or sweating for three hours, just dancing. With plenty of water stations and no lines for restrooms - in August, in Atlanta! - it may be hot AF, but you'll never miss another House in the Park. less...

To avoid the stifling heat of summer, Atlanta crams a full six months of outdoor civic togetherness into the three spring months. The festival season’s two biggies, Dogwood and Gay Pride at Piedmont Park, are justifiably well-regarded. But for those looking for a real neighborhoody festival experience, the INMAN PARK FESTIVAL can’t be beat. Some of the event’s charm is just lucky geography — it’s fun to meander through the ’hood’s winding, shady streets. But the organizers deserve credit — by controlling the quality of the arts, entertainment and even the food, they’ve deftly grown it into a huge festival while avoiding corporate-carnival blandness. less...

We know it’s won several years in a row, and we like to vary our picks when possible. But the INMAN PARK FESTIVAL proves it’s special every single April. There’s no better place to browse booths filled with modestly priced rustic art, plants, handmade jewelry and kitsch. The neighborhood’s elegant Victorian homes make the scenery awesome. The crowd’s diverse. The music’s great, and very varied. And unlike most neighborhood fests, the three-day Inman Park event takes place under the leafy shade of narrow tree-lined streets. What really sets the festival apart, though, is its opening day parade, which features colorful floats, grinning politicos and, of course, the Feed and Seed Marching Abominable Marching Band.
www.inmanpark.org/festival.

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