Courtesy of TwentyX Ent
Audio By Carbonatix
Dallas, it’s time to make your emo primo proud. Get out your black eyeliner and sweep your bangs to the side. Cucuy Fest is back.
The Latin alternative festival is returning to Sons of Hermann Hall on Oct. 26 for its final Texas tour stop. Unlike its sister concept Carne Asada Festival, this music festival is for the emos.
“Cucuy Fest is the emo primo to Carne Asada Fest,” Cucuy Fest founder Sonia Kilo says with a chuckle. “I knew I had to give it its own identity and not try to force it into the Carne Asada Fest bubble.”
Kilo is the mastermind behind TwentyX Ent, the production company that has driven Dallas’ beloved Carne Asada Fest to prominence. Carne Asada Fest celebrates familial bonding, and Cucuy Fest uplifts the ones who were left out.
“Sometimes at the carne asada [grill party], they don’t play a lot of music for your emo primo, and they’re kind of just bored,” she says. “This is the time to let your emo primo shine.”
Cucuy Fest is a first-gen Latino’s identity reclamation. The music festival reframes the taboo that 2000s emo kids navigated. It’s born from the culture clash first-generation Latino children experienced.
“If you listened to any type of rock music, or you wore black clothes, that meant you didn’t believe in God, which in Latino families, that’s a really big taboo,” Kilo says.
The 18-and-up event is inspired by tall tales told to Latin children, the music that is a soundtrack to their roots and the music their jet-black box-dyed hair emulated.
“Carne Asada Fest, to me, was a playlist, and when I realized I really couldn’t play a lot of alternative rock bands at it, I had to give them their own life,” the founder says.
Costumes are highly encouraged at Cucuy Fest.
Courtesy of TwentyX Ent
Whereas Carne Asada Fest’s playlist is full of Tejano’s Bobby Pulido, hip-hop’s MC Magic and reggaetón’s RKM and Ken-Y, Cucuy Fest’s is all My Chemical Romance, Paramore and Fall Out Boy.
Over 900 costume-clad attendees packed Deep Ellum’s eerie 114-year-old Sons of Hermann Hall for the inaugural Cucuy Fest. Twenty X production staple DJ Uneeq mashed “Fall For You” by Secondhand Serenade into cumbias. An all-girl mosh pit also ensued.
“That’s what Cucuy Fest really is,” Kilo says, “It’s just being able to be there in the moment and hear these creations of these Latin DJs mixing some of our favorite emo songs, rock, alternative songs, with some of our favorite Latin cumbia artists.”
Emo Renaissance Faire
Gone are the days where emo primo was the black sheep. Early-aughts emos are now parents, and they aren’t shaming their children for their love of distorted guitars and discontentment. Cucuy Fest champions the emo renaissance.
“These kids that are now kids to 35, 36-year-olds are getting to be more experimental with their quinceañeras,” Kilo says. “I have seen My Chemical Romance-type quinceañeras; it’s really cool to see. It’s really cool to be a part of this and I’m happy that I get a spot in what’s happening.”
Cucuy Fest taps into all the spooky vibes, starting with its name. El Cucuy is a mythological boogeyman-like child eater who prefers disobedient children. Kilo is embracing the folktale.
“I don’t want Cucuy Fest to always be sequels of the same thing, I would like them to be a universe,” Kilo says.
Sons of Hermann Hall will be transformed into a creepy circus this year. There won’t be a haunted house, but there will be plenty of photo opportunities. Get there early: Alma Azul Tattoos will be onsite again offering flash tattoos.
“If you got to get a flash tattoo at Cucuy Fest in 2023, you got the coolest souvenir,” Kilo says.
Cucuy Fest debuted in Tyler on Oct. 5 and in San Antonio on Oct. 12. Texans drove up to two hours to witness Latin EDM DJ RayBurger headline those two cities.
In Dallas, DJ School alumna Solsis, gothic cumbia queen DJ Alaska, DJ Uneeq and DJ Geezuz will be on the bill. Pitbull’s Globalization’s DJ Mark Cutz will headline. Tickets are available online. Costumes are highly encouraged.
“We have to give praise to the DJs, who are very much artists and musicians in their own right,” Kilo says. “Cucuy Fest, we are this cool event, but these people come out to see the DJs.”
