Waterloo Park

Don’t go. The land has been bought by a construction company and you can’t access it. All there is is a small patch of trash filled greenery and a trash filled Waller Creek. Waterloo Park, like the City of Waterloo, is no more.

The scene of many weekend get togethers for UT students and Austinites. You really never know what your going to find so is worth swinging by to see what is up and get a flavor of Austin.

I work across the stret from Waterloo and probably walk through it every day, sometimes eat lunch there. It’s a great park nestled in downtown, a great live music spot for festivals, and home to many bums!

Great event space for our annual Disc Golf Tournament benefiting the Ronald McDonald House of Austin.
Proud to say that the Waterloo Disc Golf Club has had this event every year for over 34 years and the Waterloo park has always been our great place to set up a temporary course for players to compete on and raise money for a great charity.
October 2011 was our last year in the OLD version of the park, and we are pleased to be the LAST OFFICIAL Event in the park before the remodeling begins.
Over the years we have always done what we could to improve the park and its surroundings, but we are glad (though sad some) that the park will be closed for a great renovation.
We look forward to returning to this park in about 2 – 3 years after it is completely changed and improved.
In the mean time we will continue to have our events elsewhere and raise money.
Thank you Waterlooooooo Park for another great event space for the Waterloo Disc Golf Club.

This is a GREAT location for a festival/​outdoor event. Bravo to Fun Fun Fun Fest 2010 for using this location to it’s full potential.
Sure, the area is a little dusty and there are some potential ankle-​snapping rocky paths and hills… but come on… it’s not THAT bad. SXSW is usually a total cluster and my legs want to fall off just walking from show to show… but at Fun Fest everything was perfect distance from each other, it was organized perfectly and even the port-​a-​pottys were clean. Very impressive!
There are nice shaded areas to relax in… and how cool is it that you can get some festival food, sit on a hill and watch 2 bands at one time? I’ll tell ya… it’s VERY cool!
If you get a chance to check out an event here remember these tips:
1) Bring a blanket/​towel to sit on. This park has that scraggly dirt/grass/bark/sand…aka stuff that sticks to your ass. When stuff sticks to your ass you look LAME.
2) If dust isn’t your thing, bring a bandana or scarf… not a surgical mask like a lot of people brought. Surgical masks make you look CRAZY.
3) Make sure your phone has a flashlight app on it… this place gets SUPER dark at night and you don’t want to fall down in front of everyone. Falling down in front of everyone makes you look like a NERD.
4) Plan on parking in one of the ¾ convenient parking garages across the street. Parking all the way downtown and walking 4 blocks when you don’t have to makes you look like an IDIOT.
I can’t wait till Fun Fun Fun Fest 2011!

This is not a review for Fun Fun Fun Fest (which I attended) but for the park as a festival location. Wish I could rate a 2 ½ stars.
Good:
1. Good small hills throughout to get a good vantage point.
2. A handful of big trees to provide shade on the aforementioned hills.
3. Capital building lit up at night in the background.
4. Several accessible parking garages right across the street.
Bad:
1. 30% dry stringy grass (rules said no blanket only towels, damn me for following the rules when others did not.) And shouldn’t a park have at least some nice grassy areas?
2. 20% rocks and stray bark mulch
3. 50% dry dust/​dirt (a cheap bandanna with the FFF Fest logo would have been a neat freebie gift)
4. Park really isn’t big enough to have the stages placed far enough away so that you don’t have bands battling to be heard. For example Dirty Projectors at the Orange stage could hardly be heard since GWAR was playing on the Black stage at the same time.
#3 really was personally a big deal to me. I can deal with sitting on the cold hard ground, but breathing in dust and dirt for 3 days straight and having it coat me in layers detracted from my experience. I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting too old.

FUN FUN FUN FEST!!! Weird Al shredded my face off. Probably the best surprise of 2010 this year.
I was VIP’ed so I am missing tonight due to my over indulgence of Heineken Light. If you think Heineken is bad… don’t even fuck with the light…
Very gorgeous park in the middle of our fine city and I will gladly go back to events held here. Beautiful big trees and I think that it would make for a good place for a picnic date. Very accessible by bus or by car and it appears like it would be a good place to have a doggy play date. :)
I dig it.

This poor park had been so overlooked for so long. I’m really happy that it’s been put to so much good use in recent years with all the great festivals. Of course, my favourite being Fun Fun Fun Fest!
Location is GREAT for festivals. Easily accessible by bus or car. Very near several parking garages, so if you do decide to drive down you can usually find a spot without too much trouble (as long as you’re willing to pay). A pretty easy bike ride too, if you’re up for it. And, for out of town festival goers there are plenty of hotels within close proximity.
I love that festivals here do not get as crazy big as ACL. I can bring my kids & let them go separate ways & not worry about them getting lost in a crowd. Really the only down side in my opinion is the inevitable dust that is kicked up & inhaled by the crowds every year, but there’s just not much that can be done about it. Even if this park had more grass, it would be trampled. Only other option would be to throw down more concrete & who the hell wants that?

I love parks. I love walking through parks. So I loved that this park was so close to the hotel I was staying at, but there really isn’t too much to see in this park, although if we had more time I would have liked to actually walk the so-​called «trails» they were talking about. Not a very populated park, so I don’t think it is used too often… yet we heard festivals are held here, it was pretty sparse with visitors when we were there on a friday afternoon.
But there are some small trails to walk through, but the grass is not very pretty, and there is actually quite a bit of trash throughout this park, but there is a small creek rippling through and little bridges, which creates some nice photo ops at least. And for basically being right on the edge of downtown and behind the capital essentially, it is a nice calm spot the sort of breaks up all of the large buildings around this area, but there was too much trash here for me to love it… Austin, take care of your parks!!!

I give it an A-​Ok for last years Fun Fun Fun Fest. While the bands were awesome and I even saw some friends from San Diego, the park itself left a little to be desired. We either sat in the grass and just laid around listening to music, which in itself is great, or we stood in the dark at night, trying to see the bands from afar because it’s not fun to stand in the dark with hundreds of other people.
That’s probably me just being cranky, but then again, it ain’t no Coachella. Again, I’m probably a snob.
However, I am coming back this year… and guess what! I hope to have an even better time than last year. I will keep you on the up and up and tell you how it goes.

This is where almost all great Austin Festivals take place. Year-​round you can enjoy things such as the Hot Sauce Festival, Ice Cream Festival, Don’t Mess With Texas Festival, and even a day long celebration of SPAM! Next weekend, it will play host to the Lone Star Jam.
Like any outdoor festival space, this park has its upsides and downsides. Parking is easier here than most due to the near by government parking garages that are empty and free on weekends. You have to come expecting to use portable bathrooms and ready to sit out in the constant Texas heat. The location is great and easy to get to. I have enjoyed many fun days at Waterloo Park.

Waterloo Park is a field of green in the midst of concrete. This smallish 10-​acre park sits smack dab in the middle of Austin and is a nice piece of grass for a lazy walk, a 100-​yard-​dash or a promenade with your pet.
Waterloo plays hosts year-​round to many events and fiestas, most notably Pride fest and, hilariously enough, an annual Disc Golf Tourney. (It’s been held at Waterloo since 1977… whoa.)
I truly enjoy my trips to Waterloo, although I wouldn’t mind a few more trees to cower under in the sun-​beating heat of summer. The park is well-​maintained and less crowded than Town Lake. It’s accessible from Red River, 15^th, Trinity, or 12^th.
Waterloo’s Wonderful.