The Business of Fiesta San Antonio

Fiesta San Antonio kicks off this week, and while many in the Trinity University community are preparing to participate in the 11-day celebration of culture and tradition, food and fun, some students are learning about the event itself from various perspectives. 

“I feel lucky to go to school in a city with a festival so deeply rooted in tradition,” said Kyra Balyeat ’27, an accounting major from Cincinnati. “It is especially nice that it is something tangible. I can learn about it in a classroom knowing that I can attend the festival myself. It is not something far away or hard to visualize.” 

Last week, Balyeat, about a dozen other students from a variety of majors, and two staff members gathered in the Coates Student Center for a biweekly “Business Bites.” Zoe Thompson ’93 P’25 P’28, the executive in residence at the Michael Neidorff School of Business at Trinity, hosts these gatherings, catered by local restaurants with food that matches the themes, where anyone on campus is invited to break bread and discuss a timely topic. 

“We’re trying to give them another lens through which to view business (like festivals). It’s rarely black and white,” said Thompson, who majored in religion and economics at Trinity and spent her career as an executive with Anderson Consulting, Accenture, and KPMG. Ethical business, she said, takes a hard look at tough questions, such as the intended and unintended consequences of decisions. 

“If you’re really trying to have an enterprise or a bigger-picture view, you have to look at it from a variety of lenses. The liberal arts education is so good at that,” she said. 

Fiesta offers an excellent example to examine. It “has a plot,” Thompson said. It began on April 21, 1891 by the white upper class who decorated carriages with flowers to honor heroes of the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, where General Sam Houston’s troops defeated the Mexican army of General Santa Anna. 

In the most recent Business Bites discussion, the participants read articles about Fiesta and another Texas festival, South By Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, then compared and contrasted the two events.

They learned that Fiesta attracts more than 2.5 million attendees to more than one hundred events. More than 100 nonprofit organizations benefit from the $360-million impact, and Mexican-American culture is integral to the festivities. Yet it’s largely unknown beyond South Texas.

By contrast, SXSW started in 1987 as an indie music festival. As tech companies started calling Austin home, the festival attracted tech moguls, Hollywood superstars, A-list performers, and corporate sponsors. It included movie and tech premieres. In 2021, Penske Media Corporation, based in California, bought a 50% stake in SXSW to save it from collapsing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Attendance in 2025 was down 26% from pre-COVID days. 

Thompson created three groups and had them discuss who the festivals started out serving and who they serve now, what the stated objectives are, the ancillary benefits, and what investment looks like for each. 

After discussion, the students agree that the glitzier, better-known SXSW lost its way from its original aim of discovering musicians to being controlled by corporations, and it gives comparably little back to the community. Fiesta is the opposite – less well known, but rooted in volunteerism and culture. 

“The main theme I learned about was community,” Balyeat said. “It is clear to me that Fiesta is meant for the people of San Antonio.” 

She also understands the value of Business Bites. “I can see how this will be helpful, as it is teaching me to read an article and look at it from different perspectives and themes I might not have thought of,” Balyeat said.