One of summer’s most popular evenings is making a big change for 2024. White Linen Night, a street festival that takes place on 19th Street in the Heights, will now be a ticketed event.

Held annually on the first Saturday in August — this year that’s Saturday, August 3 — White Linen Night came to Houston from New Orleans. Although it now takes place throughout the neighborhood, its roots have always been on 19th Street, where the nonprofit 19th Street Merchants Association established the event after Hurricane Katrina. As part of the evening, the street is closed off to vehicular traffic which allows people to walk freely among their friends and neighbors.

Beginning this year, $10 tickets will be required to access the the party on 19th Street that takes place between Yale and Ashland. Previously, admission had been free.

Casey Barbles, who’s working with the Merchants Association through her company The Feel Good Group, tells CultureMap that the $10 tickets are designed to help offset the costs of putting on the event, which had grown too large for the association to absorb without assistance. The funds help ensure enough security, portable restrooms, medical personnel, and other necessities when 20,000 people gather for an evening.

“The goal is to ensure there’s more safety measures so people have a little more space to enjoy everything on offer,” says. “It’s a perfect evening of mingling. You get to shop, there’s food, there’s drinking. It’s a lot more enjoyable when it’s not shoulder-to-shoulder.”

Attendees can still expect all of the components that have made White Linen Night so popular. The street’s merchants will open their doors to the community. Area restaurants will offer food and drink specials. Food trucks will be on site, as will local musicians. Barbles and the Feel Good Group are curating a street market with more vendors from across the city.

“It’s a sight. The energy is wonderful,” she says. “The Heights, in general, makes you feel like you’re not in a massive city. It has a really special air to it. We feel like our own small town within a very large city.”

Any money raised after paying the night’s expenses will help fund more events on 19th Street throughout the year, Barbles adds. As a Heights resident, she wants to preserve the small town atmosphere of 19th Street. Selling tickets, and ensuring the street’s merchants get a financial boost from attendees during a slow time of year, will help.

“This event is a huge piece of the heart of this community,” she says. “Without it being supported, it would be sad to see it turn into something it’s not. By purchasing tickets, you are supporting 19th Street, local communities, small businesses — to help keep the Heights the Heights.”

To be clear, White Linen Night events held in other parts of the Heights, such as on White Oak, are not connected to the 19th Street Merchants Association. Those other events may, or may not, charge for admission at their own discretion.

Courtesy of Clique MRKT

White Linen Night takes to the streets on August 3.

While the event doesn’t have many rules beyond the usual expectations of being an adult and not causing trouble, Barbles strongly encourages first-time attendees to follow the implicit instructions in the event’s name by wearing all white.

“You want to wear all white. You will stick out like a sore thumb if you do not join the crowd,” she says. “Linen is a good idea, because it breathes. It’s hot, but when the sun sets it’s a perfect evening.”

For tickets and more information, visit the White Linen Night on 19th Street website at wlnon19th.com. Tickets are currently priced at $10 but they may rise close to the event or on the day-of.