Countless events and celebrations will be taking place over this weekend in honor of the new Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, and Dallas is brimming with excitement even though it won’t be available for use until the end of March.

The official celebration, being put on by the Trinity Trust, includes a concert headlining Lyle Lovett and a street fair allowing pedestrians to walk around the bridge. The Trinity River Levee Run, hosted by the Trinity Commons Foundation, is another complementary piece.

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Bridge-O-Rama is the West Dallas Chamber of Commerce‘s own celebration.

“The point of the bridge is connection,” says Bridge-O-Rama spokesman Jeff Herrington. “There were no events here in the West Dallas community, so Bridge-O-Rama is to showcase the community that is now connected to downtown.”

With more than 50 events to participate in over the weekend, it will be hard to figure out exactly where to go and what to do. But If you’re looking for the events closest to our neighborhood, or wanting to support Cliffites involved in the celebration, here are your best bets:

The Kessler Theater  is hosting the World Music Stage. Featuring sounds from all over the world, the concert will be held March 3 from 1-6 p.m. Headline act, The Relatives, grew up in West Dallas and are critically acclaimed for their gospel and R&B sound. This will be their first ever performance in Dallas.

The Parade of Giants promises to be an amazing event with 15 10-foot-tall puppets created to represent people who have touched West Dallas and made it the community that it is today. Oak Cliff-based artists Nicole Horn and Kevin Obregon each designed one of the puppets. The parade starts at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 3, at Singleton and Herbert and heads east across the bridge at 1 p.m. on March 3. La Reunion is the parade sponsor.

More of a showcase than an event, Spread is promoting a number of West Dallas and Oak Cliff restaurants during the weekend. Those closest to our neighborhood are Smoke; the Foundry, the new bar co-owned by Chris Jeffers and Chris Zielke of Bolsa and Bolsa Mercado fame; Bar Belmont; Burguesa Burger; and a preview of the soon-to-open Chicken Scratch. Also, as part of Spread, Sylvan Thirty will host another of its “Taste of Things to Come” events on Saturday, March 3, 1-4 p.m. to showcase future tenants Cox Farms Market, Matador Meat and Wine, and Pearl Cup Coffee.

The Urban Emergence seminar will be held in Methodist hospital’s Hitt Auditorium on Sunday, March 4, 2-3:30 p.m. City planners, historians and architects will discuss what makes communities such as West Dallas and Oak Cliff up-and-coming. Other neighborhoods worldwide will be showcased for their strides to become popular destinations and gems of their communities, then and now.

A tour of the Western Heights Cemetery, sponsored by the Fort Worth Avenue Development Group, is from 3-4 p.m. Sunday. Western Heights Cemetery is famous as the final resting place of Clyde Barrow.

And don’t forget, as we mentioned previously, at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 4, Bike Friendly Oak Cliff  leads a free bike tour chronicling the major historic moments of the Trinity. The ride will navigate several of the adjacent downtown bridges that span the river. As it turns out, the Houston Street Viaduct turns 100 this year.

Did we leave something out? If you know of any other people or businesses in Oak Cliff participating in the festivities, please let us know.

Also check back to our previous Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge post to learn more about the main celebration and ribbon-cutting ceremony and other events going on this weekend.