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Mark your calendars: The 12th annual Texas Tribune Festival — our signature annual ideas conference featuring big names from politics, policy and the media — is coming back better than ever. Yep, that means in person, in downtown Austin, just as you remember it.
The official dates are Sept. 22-24, but we’ll actually kick things off with our Franklin Barbecue feast on Wednesday, Sept. 21. We’ll have light pre-game programming on Thursday the 22nd before our opening session that night at Austin’s historic Paramount Theatre. We’re planning a jam-packed schedule all over downtown Austin on Friday the 23rd and Saturday the 24th. TribFeast, our dinner fundraiser to support our nonprofit newsroom, will be Friday night, along with political trivia and a film screening. Our closing session will be Saturday night back at the Paramount. It’s going to be amazing.
As we speak, we’re hard at work curating a can’t-miss mix of one-on-one interviews and panel discussions designed to inform, engage and motivate you to be a more active, productive citizen. We’ll drill down on education, health care, infrastructure, the power grid, criminal justice, voting, foster care, abortion and gender identity. We’ll pore over the work of the never-ending 2021 Legislature, look ahead to the 2022 general election and preview the agenda of the 2023 session. We’ll focus on the aftermath of the pandemic, the comeback of the economy and the persistent debate around equity. As usual, we’ll divide our focus between Texas and the world beyond our borders. There’s never been so much to think about — and to talk about.
You’ll recall that the last two TribFests were virtual. We had amazing conversations with the likes of Anthony Fauci, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, Stacey Abrams, John Cornyn, Eric Holder, Samantha Power, Margaret Spellings, Arne Duncan, Adam Kinzinger, Amy Klobuchar, Robert Gates, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Cecile Richards, Dan Crenshaw, Julián Castro, Susan Rice, Will Hurd, Gloria Steinem, Andrew Yang, Vanita Gupta, Darren Walker, Brené Brown, Maggie Haberman, Wesley Lowery, Bob Woodward, Ashley Parker, Jon Meacham, Maria Hinojosa, Amna Nawaz and Yamiche Alcindor.
With the public health emergency on the wane, we’re all-in on getting everyone together IRL. We’re excited to greet you in the shadow of the Texas Capitol. But if you can’t make it or don’t feel comfortable coming, we’ll have an online, on-demand option as well. Stay tuned for details on that and much more over the next few months.
Tickets for #TribFest22 go on sale in early May, when we announce our first batch of speakers. As usual, we’ll have discounts for Tribune members, students and educators, as well as opportunities to upgrade your Festival experience. Sign up for updates today. We’ll see you in September!
