But this is the Walker, which means the event won't simply be featuring LOLcats for the sake of lulz. The festival (full name: Internet Cat Film Festival) is partly about its feline films, certainly, but it's just as much about the people who come out to watch them. Much of the event, Schultz says, revolves around a question: Can digital cat videos -- the most quintessentially Internet-y thing in the world -- translate to a space that's decidedly analog? With the Walker's previous Open Field projects, Schultz notes, "we were interested to see, as a social experiment, if an online community would come together IRL around the thing they were passionate about -- around the thing they found fun."

The film festival will ask the same question, with a species-specific twist: Can cat videos be just as appealing in the open air, experienced with others, as they are in the glare of a glowing screen? "We're sharing on the Internet," Schultz says. "The question is, would we come together to share?"

The answer, so far, seems to be "yes." The Walker's call for cat video submissions was met with over 10,000 entries -- some duplicates, yes, but many more unique, not-many-views-yet affairs that combined artistry and quirk in equal measure. And as far as attendance goes for tonight's screening of the Composite Cat Video, Schultz says, "we're estimating that we'll probably have 5,000 people." Which is a big shift from the small crowd they'd initially expected. "When we started out on this, we thought, 'Well, maybe we'll just get a laptop and a bigger monitor,'" Schultz says. Once the submissions started pouring in and they realized the enthusiasm for the event, though, they changed course, setting up the screens-and-speakers combo the museum reserves for its outdoor film and musical performances. So "the Internet videos will never look or sound better, we hope, than they will on Open Field."

The festivities tonight will feature not just the screening of the cat films themselves, but also the awarding of -- yep -- the People's Choice award for best video. Nicknamed -- yep -- the "Golden Kitty." Walker staff broke the video submissions down according to various categories (or, as they call them, CATegories) like comedy, documentary, animated, and foreign. Their jurors kept whittling those choices down until they had a final list of seven videos. They then put the final choice to a public, online vote ... and the results of that will be announced tonight.

As far as the festival is concerned, though, the real suspense will come in the form of the people who attend it. "We've heard that people are planning on traveling from afar for the event," Schultz says. A few will dress up. And many will, of course, bring their cats.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.