Variety Show: Tanque Verde Swap Meet’s new Super Sundays
For nearly 40 years, the Tanque Verde Swap Meet has been a place people can come, peruse, and leave with something fabulous and unexpected. Passing by the space during the week, it looks like a wide dusty lot with a few small trees; but Thursday through Sunday the lot on South Palo Verde Avenue comes alive with people browsing and hawking just about anything that can fit into over 800 booths. On the first ever “Super Sunday,” premiering October 21, patrons will see even more of the fabulous and unexpected.
Flashes of gold costumes and streaks of turquoise feathers will decorate a main stage as Danza Azteca Calupulli Tonantzin perform, their feet following drums and their headdresses radiating like suns. The wide bright skirts of Ballet Folklorico Tapatio dancers will paint the air to mariachi. Jimmy and the Jitterbugs will light up the night with swoony Sinatra jazz swing. Meanwhile kids will get face painting and one free carnival ride along with jumping castles, pony rides, and bubble guns. A fleet of international food trucks will be there, alongside a full farmer’s market to seduce visitor’s appetites. With roving carts offering cold brews, the Super Sunday will be a wacky beer garden where you can browse local crafts and funky throwbacks. “We will have everything from the guy scooping Shea butter out of the shell to farm fresh eggs; basket weaving to vintage clothes; pony rides to Aztec dancing,” says Marie DeGain, Community Outreach Coordinator of Tanque Verde Swap Meet.
“Super Sunday came out of the desire to celebrate Tucson’s culture and landscape through food, entertainment and local offerings. It is a free event that cross-pollinates a local, farmer’s and international market in an outdoor festival atmosphere,” DeGain explains. Perhaps its most amazing factor is the same thing that makes it so unique: the diversity of folks who come to perform and sell. Every band taking the stage for Super Sunday will present something danceable and different. Anyone with fifteen bucks and a garage full of unneeded stuff can rent a space to show their offerings. DeGain calls it “local urban recycling”: hundreds of tons of items are saved from the landfill by bringing them here to sell. “The Tanque Verde Swap Meet represents a Tucson forerunner in green business as well as building a model for community, cultural and economic development.”
Sunday, October 21 will be a great expression of that, bringing together food, music, dancing, people and stuff from all over Tucson. It’s the one place where, as DeGain elaborates, “you can get a tattoo and a custom airbrushed jacket, make your own rock video, ride some ponies, and eat hamburgers from the grill – the best people watching around.”
Tanque Verde Swap Meet’s “Super Sunday,” Sunday, October 21, 11am to 3pm. 4100 S. Palo Verde Rd. TanqueVerdeSwapMeet.com. 520-294-4252.
Category: Entertainment, FOOD & DRINK
