Belgrade Fall Festival

In late summer the City of Belgrade sends out its water bills. In 2026 they carried a map of the parade route. The Belgrade Montana Fall Festival posted the same map on September 1 with a note: “Same as last year… and the year before… and the year before that!” The route runs along Main Street and Broadway. On the festival Saturday it carries the Panther Homecoming Parade, the morning centerpiece of the Belgrade Fall Festival. The festival is a free, one-day celebration organized by the Belgrade Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber’s tourism site gives its date as the third weekend of September. The 2026 festival fell on Saturday, September 19, and ran from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Pancakes on Hoffman Street, a parade on Main

The day starts early at Belgrade High School, 303 North Hoffman Street. There the culinary students of the Belgrade Panthers ProStart program serve a pancake breakfast. The Chamber calendar gave the 2026 hours as 7 to 10:30. The festival’s own post that morning said 7 to 10. Afterward the festival passed along “word on the street” that the students had raised more money at the breakfast than in the past. The 2025 listing on Visit Montana credited the breakfast to the senior center.

The parade steps off at 10. The festival page put its length at about an hour. The Chamber’s entry form allowed until 11:30. It runs rain or shine. Nothing is thrown from the floats: candy and giveaways come by hand from walkers alongside each entry. Floats may stand no taller than 14 feet. Riders on horseback bring their own pooper scoopers. Entries follow a yearly theme. The 2026 theme was “Strange Things are Happening in Belgrade...We are BACK in the 80’s.” The official poster that year was by Layla Weiss, winner of the Chamber’s poster contest.

The parade carries no campaign signs. The Chamber’s parade statement says the form has no political or campaign category. It adds that the rule “applies to all political parties, candidates, campaigns, and ballot-issue advocacy, regardless of affiliation.” The parade, in the statement’s words, is “centered around our schools, our students, and the community that supports them.” Homecoming week for the Panthers ends with the festival.

Cameron Avenue and the lot on Quaw

When the parade clears, the festival moves to East Cameron Avenue, where the vendor area is open from 10 to 3. In 2026 the festival had 92 arts, crafts, and display vendors registered. Food-truck spaces and book-author tables were full by mid-August. The Kids Zone is free, and every vendor in it must offer a free activity for children. The Chamber’s tourism site lists a barbecue lunch. The 2025 Visit Montana listing described a community lunch provided by the City of Belgrade, along with a photo booth and music. The program also includes a 5K fun run.

A few blocks off, the classic and custom car show fills the parking lot of St. John Vianney Church at 609 North Quaw Boulevard from 10 to 3.

Raffle tickets go on sale in July. In 2026 the proceeds went to the Belgrade Orchestra Enrichment Council, whose members sold tickets from booths at Murdoch’s Ranch & Home and at Dancing in the Park. Kenyon Noble Lumber & Hardware donated a grand prize package valued at more than $1,700. Spine & Sport Chiropractic gave a bicycle.

Rain came on the afternoon of the 2026 festival. The next day the festival’s page posted that “rainy activities made for some amazing memories!” Four days later it announced that the festival had won two Gallatin’s Greatest categories, Best Local Event and Best Festival/Fair. The post began: “Not factoring in this year’s weather, of course…”

From harvest celebration to homecoming

The Chamber’s tourism site says the festival began decades ago as a harvest celebration. The page is written by Erin Hoppe, the Chamber’s executive director since March 2025. None of the pages gives a founding year.

Weather has visited before. “It was cold and wet,” the Belgrade News wrote of the 2017 parade, “but people still came out.” That year’s parade results included:

• Sweepstakes: Wagner Nursery
• Marching units: Belgrade High School Band
• Club: Shriners
• Youth group: Belgrade Cub Scouts
• Miscellaneous: the Bozeman Saddleites

Jerry and Suzy Gray took Best of Show at the car show. Gary Shanafelt won both the Original-Restored and Motorcycle classes.

The 2017 5K was the second annual. It was hosted by the Heck/Quaw Elementary School Wellness team and drew a record field. The proceeds went to the Belgrade Community Coalition to build walking paths around town. More than a dozen Manhattan Christian cross country runners ran it after the weather canceled their meet in Anaconda. Hammer Blair finished first in 18:14.

A KBZK report, posted in a year it does not state, opened: “COVID may have canceled last year’s Belgrade Fall Festival, but this year, new and traditional favorites are back.” Kristi Gee was then the Chamber’s executive director. “Everything’s the same,” she said. “We are bringing back an event that Belgrade loves.” That year 1,200 pounds of baron of beef roasted all night for a barbecue that opened at 11 a.m. “It’s free,” Gee said. “We do ask for donations if you can.” The car show then filled the north section of the park, typically with 30 to 50 cars. Ali Weisz, described as Belgrade’s local Olympian, had a booth and signed autographs. Main Street closed around 9:30, and Gee urged people to claim their spots early. The raffle that year went to the Belgrade Senior Center.

The poster contest dates from 2024. That year Hoppe, then membership and events director, and Megan Elliott, then executive director, asked Ellie Ayers to make the festival’s first poster. Ayers is a graphic designer from Polson with a fine arts degree from Montana State University. In Hoppe’s account they gave Ayers words like “whimsical, fun but classic.” They also gave her a list of images, “from trains to planes to the panther logo to panther paws.” The poster was planned as the first of an annual contest.

Guard families on a flatbed

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle’s Gail Schontzler wrote one undated account of an earlier parade. It comes from a year when the Belgrade classes of 2005 and 2006 were still building floats. The theme was “Family and Friends for Freedom,” and the town turned out in red, white and blue. Thousands lined the route through downtown.

A flatbed truck carried families of soldiers in the Montana Army National Guard’s 1-163rd battalion. Nearly 700 of those soldiers were training in Texas and expected to be sent to Iraq. Mothers and children sat on hay bales on a float covered with photographs of fathers and husbands. A homemade sign read, “Half my heart is in Iraq.” The high school band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” while cheerleaders cried “Freedom!” for the judges.

The Class of 2005 float put a gum-chewing girl dressed as the Statue of Liberty in front of a replica of the World Trade Center and an Air Force bomber. On the Class of 2006 float, teenagers with towels on their heads popped out of drums labeled Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. A girl dressed as a soldier bonked them with an inflatable hammer. Students in frontier costume danced to advertise the musical “Paint Your Wagon.” The Bozeman Saddle-ites and Boots & Buckskins rode matched horses and carried flags. With an election coming, politicians handed out candy and cards. State Senate candidate Joe Balyeat rode a bicycle with a sign that read “Will Work for Freedom.”

Julie Howes, a Belgrade day care provider, came in camouflage with her grandson, Kolter. She said she had been coming to the festival for at least 15 years. “My folks are here, my cousins are here, my friends are here!” she said. Claire Deibert, ten years old, liked the high-stepping horses best. Her friend Makayla Eickelberg wore a red, white and blue hat.

“My Uncle Sam hat,” she said and smiled.