The thing about a place like Oxford, a town teeming with culture and community everywhere you look, is that it’s sometimes easy to forget just how lucky we are. The Double Decker Arts Festival is a prime example as it has become as familiar and anticipated among locals and students as football season in terms of what we tout to out-of-towners and those who ask, “What’s so special about Oxford, anyway?”

Double Decker is an annual reminder not only of what this town is capable of, but ultimately what makes it great. It’s an opportunity to showcase our vibrant arts community and culinary scene, staged in the town’s cultural and economic epicenter, where locals and visitors can experience firsthand why Oxford is unlike any other place in Mississippi and the South. It’s a chance to come together as a community with springtime in full bloom and enjoy all our little velvet ditch has to offer. It’s a time to take a step back and appreciate the time and effort so many put into making the festival one of the state’s top events year after year.

Above all, it’s a time to remember not every town can pull off a first-class festival with music, food, art and something for everyone to enjoy. Double Decker is the result of years of vision, hard work and dedication to being a town that values art, fellowship and a sense of community. It’s all the more fitting and exciting that the person whose vision more than 20 years ago made this possible—Robyn Tannehill—is now the city’s mayor-elect

Let Double Decker be a time of fun and celebration. And let it be a reminder of just how lucky we are to experience it year after year.