San Antonio's Free Weekend Calendar Just Doubled, and It Didn't Come From City Hall
September 17, 2026
September 17, 2026
Ask anyone who has lived in San Antonio, Florida for more than a year what the town's big annual event is, and you'll get the same answer without hesitation: the Rattlesnake Festival, third weekend of October, running since 1967. It's the kind of fact that gets repeated so often nobody checks it anymore. In 2026, that assumption needs an asterisk. The campus a few minutes down County Road 52, the one most residents drive past without a second thought, spent this year quietly building a second calendar of free, open-to-everyone events that has nothing to do with snakes, gopher tortoises, or the third weekend in October.
The Rattlesnake Festival's staying power is real. It began as a small Jaycee project in San Antonio in 1967, grew into a full weekend under the Rattlesnake and Gopher Enthusiasts (R.A.G.E.), passed through local Rotary clubs, and in 2017 landed with the Thomas Promise Foundation, a Zephyrhills nonprofit, after the Rotary Club of San Antonio stepped back from running it. Every hand-off kept the same core: snake and reptile shows, wooden gopher tortoise races, an old-time pioneer village, and proceeds that go toward feeding food-insecure Pasco County students on weekends when school meals aren't available.
That history is worth knowing because it explains why the festival has become shorthand for "the thing San Antonio does." One nonprofit after another kept it alive specifically because losing it would have meant losing the town's only shared calendar date. Which is exactly what made 2026 a change worth noticing: for the first time in a while, San Antonio residents got community days that didn't depend on that single weekend surviving.
Saint Leo University sits inside the same tiny stretch of Pasco County as San Antonio, close enough that most locals treat it as background scenery rather than a place they'd actually go. This year the university started acting like it wanted that to change.
On February 28, the athletics department held its first-ever Lions Bash, sponsored by AdventHealth Dade City, in the parking lot of the Marion Bowman Activities Center. It ran 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., free to attend, with food, music, giveaways, inflatables, and carnival-style games built around a full slate of home athletic events that day.
"This event combines athletics, entertainment, and community into one unforgettable experience you won't want to miss. One Pride, All In!"
That's Marcal Lazenby, Saint Leo's vice president of athletics and wellness, describing what the university was going for. It wasn't a one-off. Two months later, on April 25, the university ran its first-ever Spring Jam Festival in the Bowl, the green space behind the Student Community Center. Ten a.m. to 5 p.m., free and open to the public, with amusement rides, yard games, food trucks, and local vendors. Curtis Burton, the vice president of student affairs, framed it as a new campus tradition meant to welcome "families and neighbors to experience Saint Leo," not just students.
Two brand-new, no-cost, family-friendly gatherings in a single year, both explicitly built for the surrounding community rather than just the student body, is not something San Antonio had going into 2026.
Saint Leo wasn't starting from zero. The university has run smaller public-facing events for years that most non-students never hear about unless they happen to catch a flyer.
There's Taste of Saint Leo, a coffeehouse-style evening that pairs live music with local food and drinks. One recent edition brought in Christian pop artist Father John Kline alongside music minister Lucas Nocera and student performers, all free and open to the public.
There's also a standing fall tradition the university itself describes as a free concert performed by professional musicians "as a gift to the surrounding community," plus a run of smaller faculty and guest performances at Selby Auditorium inside Lewis Hall. One March program featured new music faculty, pianists Jeffrey Chodil and Julian Pernett Castilla, and euphonium player Andrew Sallee, all at no charge.
And every Sunday, Kirk Lawn hosts Sunday Night Worship, open to anyone on or off campus who wants to attend.
None of this required a press release to exist. It required someone to notice it was already happening.
Here's the actual shift. For years, "what's there to do in San Antonio" had one honest answer: wait for October. Everything else meant driving to Wesley Chapel, Dade City, or Tampa for a Saturday out.
Line up the 2026 calendar and that's no longer accurate. Lions Bash in February. Spring Jam in April. Faculty concerts scattered through spring and fall. Taste of Saint Leo in September. The Rattlesnake Festival still holding its spot in October. That's five distinct, no-cost, open-door community dates spread across most of the year, not one date carrying the entire load.
The practical difference is smaller windows of nothing. A resident who used to treat the whole year as a wait for one festival now has a reason to check the campus calendar in February and April too, on top of the date they already had circled for October.
Saint Leo's main entrance is at the traffic light where County Road 52 meets Palm Boulevard. From there, a right at the traffic circle leads to Lewis Hall, home of Selby Auditorium. Parking for public events is in the surface lots near whichever venue is hosting.
A quick reference for the recurring spots:
None of these require you to be a student, an alum, or a parent of one. They require knowing they're there.
If you're already living in San Antonio, this is the kind of thing that's easy to miss simply because the calendar lives on a university site instead of a town one. Worth bookmarking either way. And if San Antonio's small-town pace and its year-round calendar, snake festival included, are part of what's keeping you here, or what's drawing someone you know to look at it more closely, our San Antonio neighborhood guide covers what else the area has to offer, courtesy of Russell Adams Realty, a brokerage that's been paying attention to this corner of Pasco County since long before Saint Leo built a second calendar of its own.
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