Spring Fest 2026 began Thursday outside of the Doudna Fine Arts Center, featuring food vendors, artisan booths, live music, dancing performances and activities for kids.

Formerly known as the Celebration of the Arts, Spring Fest has been around since 1977. It was previously run by former Patron Services Director Dan Crews, and it is now run by Doudna Fine Arts Center Director of Programming, Publicity and Promotion Dennis Malak.

Spring Fest 2026 was scheduled from Thursday through Saturday, and it was located on Seventh Street in between Doudna and Buzzard Hall.

Malak said he enjoyed putting on the event.

“Putting on this event was extremely fun. I enjoy the energy from the citizens and students who show up with such curiosity about all we have to offer, and I’m also always excited to see all the artists we have come out and show off their creative pieces,” said Malak.

Vendors present at the event included those selling clothes and offering jewelry construction.

Debbie Meadows, a jewelry maker and 2008 Eastern graduate with a bachelor’s degree in general studies, was at the event as one of the vendors.

“When it pertains to making jewelry, I’ve been doing that for about 10 years. I’m also a fan of EIU and glad to be here at spring fest,” Meadows said.

She said creating these jewelry pieces provided joy for her.

“The freedom to be creative and free with my visions has brought me an immense amount of joy. It just never gets boring because there’s always ideas that come to you,” Meadows said.

There were nine food trucks at the event, including one owned by Crystal Beech of Crystal’s Freeze Dried Goodies.

This was Beech’s first time at Spring Fest, but she’s been making freeze dried foods since 2021, she said.

From an early age, food has sparked curiosity within her.

“Since I can remember, I always loved food and creativity. When it came to food, I’d always see something by itself and conjure up some idea to make something cool out of it. That’s when we got into the act of making freeze dried foods,” said Beech.

The process of making these foods involves multiple steps.

“In order to make these foods, we use a machine the size of a dryer that removes the ice molecules from whatever food we are freeze drying and along with that comes vacuum pressure which ultimately helps expand the sugar that’s in the foods,” said Beech.

Airband is a Greek Week event that is held on campus annually. It is typically held alongside Spring Fest, but it was held separately this year.

“We were going to do Airband along with Greek Week, but Greek Week moved their festivities up to two weeks earlier than anticipated. In addition to that, we had already had our festival dates finalized,” said Malak.

Tyrone Naylor can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].