The Festival of the Arts is returning to downtown Palo Alto this weekend for its 31st year and is expected to bring more than 150,000 people.

University Avenue will be closed from High Street to Webster Street to make room for the festival, which lasts from 10 a.m to 6 p.m on Saturday, Aug. 25, and Sunday, Aug. 26.

Tasso Street will be closed at Lytton Avenue from 1 a.m. on Saturday to 7 p.m. on Sunday for Italian street painting, which is in its 10th year at the festival.

Emerson, Bryant and Cowper streets will be opened Saturday at 8 p.m. for through traffic. All roads will re-open at about 9 p.m. Sunday.

It may be easier to take public transportation to the festival, and the event's host, MLA Productions, recommends visitors to use 511.org to plan their public transportation route.

More than 300 artists from around the U.S. will come to showcase and sell their work at the festival. It will include the "Wild and Whimisical" sculpture garden and a kids' arts studio.

Vendors such as Big Ed's Buzzard BBQ, Kara's Cupcakes and Oaxacan Kitchen will be present. Several bands and musicians will perform, including The Hitmen, a seven-piece band playing classics and hits from '70s to the present, and the Cocktail Monkeys, who play rock, pop, disco and R&B.

The Palo Alto Weekly will be taking "cover shots" of festival-goers with "faux" Weekly newspaper covers and posting them on Facebook. The growing gallery can be seen at facebook.com/paloaltonline. The Weekly's booth is on Tasso near Lytton.

More information is available at Festival of the Arts.

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