Free Press Summer Fest began in 2009 as a collaboration between Free Press Houston and Houston concert promoter Pegstar, growing out of discussions about expanding the scale of the paper’s outdoor music events. The inaugural two-day festival was held August 8–9 at Eleanor Tinsley Park, pairing Houston artists with national acts including Broken Social Scene, of Montreal and Explosions in the Sky. Over the following years FPSF expanded into a major annual Houston music festival, usually returning to the downtown park while presenting increasingly large multi-genre lineups. Flooding forced the 2015 and 2016 editions to relocate to NRG Park; the festival returned to Eleanor Tinsley Park in 2017, its final year under the Free Press Summer Fest name.
