Festival Of The Arts Coming To Oklahoma City, Followed By Several Weekend Events

The Festival of the Arts makes a return to Oklahoma City on Thursday, while many other events are set to follow in the weekend after.

Festival of the Arts organizers say they expect half a million people coming to downtown Oklahoma City for the event, which will be completely free for guests.

Jody McAnally, the Festival of the Arts co-chair, said the festival will have some changes from previous years.

"We've changed some things up this year, which is fantastic," McAnally said. "Because it's Thursday, we've gone from six days to four, and this year, we're going cashless."

McAnally said if you bring cash, there's a kiosk that you could go to to exchange money in order to get a MasterCard you can use at all of the festival grounds or anywhere MasterCard is accepted.

Another addition to the festival is the number of youth selling their art.

"It's gotten so popular that we doubled in size this year," McAnally said. "The kids, the young artists get to sell their own art and see what it's like to actually be at an arts festival. It's an incredible program."

While Festival of the Arts is running, several other events will be taking place across Oklahoma City.

Riversport OKC will be hosting the US Olympic Trials on Friday and Saturday, and events of the Oklahoma City Memorial marathon will begin on Friday, with the full marathon happening on Sunday. One of the events will be the Health & Fitness Expo at the the Oklahoma City Convention Center, which begins Friday at 11 a.m.