Discover Eatonville’s signature festival honoring its most famous daughter and much more.
More than half a century before construction began on Magic Kingdom® Park at Walt Disney World® Resort, celebrated author Zora Neale Hurston grew up in historic Eatonville, just 30 minutes from Orlando's tourism districts. Today, the historic town — one of the first self-governing African American communities in the U.S. — honors Hurston’s memory with the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts, aka The Hurston, and the annual ZORA! Festival Season.
Eatonville’s signature event includes January’s Outdoor Festival of the Arts, October’s HATitude Cultural Flair, and many other things to do. Here’s what you can expect from these multifaceted celebrations of education, culture and the arts that you can only experience here.
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ZORA!® Festival Season
Zora Neale Hurston Mural in Historic Eatonville
First presented in 1990, the ZORA! Festival Season is a multi-disciplinary, intergenerational series of events that include public talks, conferences, movie screenings, arts education programming and more. The celebration takes place primarily in Eatonville and throughout Orange County.
Kicking off on Hurston’s birthday (January 7), the ZORA! Festival Season offers a wealth of enriching programs. The celebration’s main event is the open-air Outdoor Festival of the Arts in Eatonville, traditionally held during the last weekend in January. Stay tuned for additional details on January 2025 programming as it’s announced.
More ZORA!® Festival Season Events
Courtesy ZORA!® Festival
Cultural Heritage Group Tours
From February through August, the Association to Preserve Eatonville Community hosts a series of paid Cultural Heritage group tours available by reservation. Check back for more information about 2025’s tours.
HATitude Cultural Flair
Coming to the Winter Park Events Center on Oct. 19, 2024, HATitude Cultural Flair supports the ZORA! Festival’s after-school and summer academic programs for K-12 students.
Additional Events
The full 2025 ZORA! Festival Season will be announced soon.
Eatonville and The Hurston Museum
Murals in Historic Eatonville
If you can’t make it to Orlando during ZORA! Festival, note that historic Eatonville and The Hurston are worth visiting whenever you’re in Orlando.
Eatonville was one of hundreds of communities founded by and for African Americans in the southern U.S. between the 1880s and 1930s, and one of a handful remaining. Encompassing about 20 acres, the town is home to several buildings that were constructed between 1882 and 1946.
In addition to honoring its namesake, The Hurston provides information about the community and displays work by legendary and emerging artists of African descent. Also available from the museum are tour brochures for the Zora Neale Hurston Trail, which ties Hurston’s writing to 16 sites related to Hurston’s life and 10 markers with her writing.
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Nate Shelton is a native Floridian and longtime Orlandoan who enjoys everything that makes life worth living. (Especially cats.) He’s a content senior manager at Visit Orlando.
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