Festival History:

The International Festival of Owls originally started as a "hatch-day" party for Alice the Great Horned Owl in 2003.  Alice is a permanently injured, human-imprinted owl who started her working career at the Houston Nature Center.  Since she was the only live animal at the center she quickly became the center of attention. She began working at the International Owl Center in 2015 and is now semi-retired. The "hatch-day" party idea served several purposes:

Taught people about owls
Provided a fun, family-friendly activity at the end of winter
Raised money for the Houston Nature Center/International Owl Center
Promoted tourism during an otherwise slow time of year

The first festival was a wonderful success, even with little advertising.  It turns out that no one else was doing anything like it in North America.  The only thing close was a one day Burrowing Owl Festival in Cape Coral, Florida. Our festival rapidly grew into the only full-weekend, all-owl festival in North America.  People started coming from all over North America to attend. Then we created the World Owl Hall of Fame to bring recognition to owls and humans doing amazing things to make this world a better place for owls.  This brings award winners from all over the world to Houston, and gets equally widespread media coverage. The 2017 festival attracted over 2,300 people (which is pretty good considering that Houston isn't exactly close to any major population centers and only has a population of 979!) Festival attendees have come from all over the United States, Canada, Jamaica, England, Finland, Italy, The Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Nepal, Taiwan, Japan, Kenya, and South Africa. The International Festival of Owls is held annually the first weekend in March, which is about when Alice the Great Horned Owl hatched in Antigo, Wisconsin.  It takes place throughout Houston MN. The Festival was operated by the Friends of the Houston Nature Center until 2015 when it was taken over by the International Owl Center. The Owl Center is an outgrowth of the Festival itself.