Dallas Days

Folding chairs go out along Jefferson and Main Street long before eleven o’clock on the Saturday of Dallas Days. Many are set in place well ahead of their owners. In 2025 the parade chair noted that the Main Street crowd held off until just before the start, then arrived all at once: people of all ages, many of them children. The parade rules say the procession starts promptly at 11:00 a.m. and ends “noonish+.”

The parade is the center of a free weekend that fills downtown Dallas from Friday morning through Sunday afternoon. In 2026 it ran July 24 through 26. Concerts and vendors occupy the Courthouse Lawn and the Main Street Stage. On Sunday the program moves to Dallas City Park for a morning car show and Art in the Park. Food, shopping and some activities cost money. Admission does not.

The Courthouse Lawn and the Main Street Stage

The stages host concerts and dancing every day. The bands range from classic rock and country to local indie acts. On the Friday evening of the 2026 festival the Spry Band started at 6 p.m., and the event’s page announced, “Music is back downtown! Grab a chair and head down.” The same evening brought line dancing. On Saturday evening the page posted “Time for some Beef Chicken!!” with guitar and music-note emoji.

The courthouse stage has started careers. Tim Isaac of Dallas made his concert debut there in July 2024, performing as Lil Timmy. By May 2025 he was 16 and had changed his name and moved toward pop country. His first headline tour ended at Dallas Days on July 25, 2025. “If you saw me in concert last year, you’d probably think I was an entirely different artist,” Isaac told the Itemizer-Observer.

Food trucks and a beer garden run all day Friday and Saturday. The trucks, booths and downtown restaurants sell barbecue, burgers, tacos, desserts and local treats. The beer garden serves locally brewed beer and regional wine to guests 21 and over, with ID checked. Outside food is allowed in public areas, but outside alcohol is not. A local vendor market keeps the same hours, and the kids’ zone has games and inflatables.

The 2026 weekend also had smaller contests. A beard contest was held Friday at 3:00 p.m., open to anyone “growing it for years” or wearing “a legendary mustache.” A Young Entrepreneur Market inside the air-conditioned Dallas Event Center let children run their own booths. Children on decorated bicycles rode past the information booth for prizes. A dunk tank stood next to the IO and City Hall, and on Friday evening the city manager sat in it. There was also a pie-eating contest. On Saturday a cornhole tournament charged $15 to enter, and part of the proceeds went to Muscular Dystrophy.

Saturday at eleven

Each year’s parade has a theme. In 2025 it was “Dallas in Wonderland,” and the awards were named to match. The Down the Rabbit Hole Award went to the best decorated mode of transportation, “classic cars, horses, giant semis” included. The Which Path Do I Take Award went to the best walking entry, and the Tea Party Award was the judges’ choice. The parade chair, Brian Dalton, singled out a float built on the theme by Karma Coffee. On parade morning in 2026, the event’s page posted the hashtag #starsstripesandbirthdaylights.

Dalton’s after-action report gives the 2025 parade in close detail. About 62 entries and some 500 people formed up down Washington Street and angled back on Mill, ending near Lyle Street. Horses and other large animals staged at the City Shops, where the city opened the gate at 6:00 a.m. Three horse groups took part, and a scout color guard led off. In a paragraph the report itself flags for fact-checking, it credits Keara J. with a balloon-twisting crew on the Square and sidewalk chalk set out along the whole route. A clown also entertained the children.

An announcer’s stand borrowed from the county fairgrounds held David Shien, calling the parade for at least the fourth year in a row, with Dalton beside him passing information sheets on each entry. When the two arrived about 10:30, the sound man, Quinn, was playing something “akin to elevator music.” At their request he switched to John Philip Sousa marches, which the report says “really livened up the crowd.” Organizers discouraged candy throwing from vehicles because children run into the street to collect it. The parade started on time, finished about 12:30 under a high near 80 degrees, and the police reported no incidents. The last unit in line was a city street sweeper bearing a sign: “THE END.”

Dalton measured the parade against one benchmark. In 2007, the largest parade of the century so far, it had 1,233 participants by actual count and 150 entries.

Krazy Dayz, Summerfest, Krazy Dayz

The pages do not record when the celebration began. They do record its names. It was Krazy Dayz first, then Summerfest for many years. In 2019 a community vote brought back Krazy Dayz, and the Itemizer-Observer reported that “the vote wasn’t even close.” That year the festival, along with the city’s other community events, passed from the Dallas Area Visitors Center to the city of Dallas.

Sheila Peirce, the city’s recreation and event coordinator, supported the change. “That’s what I knew it as, Krazy Dayz, when I was a kid,” she said. “It kinda just brings back that feeling of when you are a kid and you go to the parade.” For 2019 she booked a family comedian, a children’s musical performer and a circus show. She gave most of the Mill Street block by the Polk County Courthouse to children’s games and put a beer garden on the courthouse lawn, with an after party there on Saturday night. People “felt that before, it was the same thing, the same thing,” Peirce said. She hoped someone would help her bring back the fun run and walk.

Cancellations and a rescue

In June 2020 the city canceled its summer events. A press release said Krazy Dayz, Red White BOOM! and the summer concert series were postponed until 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision rested on Gov. Kate Brown’s order, since the expected crowds would exceed the size limits.

The 2021 festival went ahead with very little planning time and no parade. That November the planning committee sought about 15 more volunteers and laid out a new route for the parade’s return. It would start at Washington and Jefferson and turn west on Oak Street, “much like the abbreviated parade we had during the year that the Levens Street bridge was under construction.” It would then cross Main to Southwest Church Street, which kept it clear of the food court and stage.

In early 2022 the city canceled the parade again for lack of volunteers. The Chamber of Commerce voted to take it over. At a meeting at the Civic Center, Tara Townley of the Chamber announced that it would run on July 30, the first since 2019. “When we saw the post from the city which the city has graciously run, we realized, ok, we can do this,” she said. The meeting chose the theme “A Moment in Time.” The audience member who proposed it explained, “It feels like we’ve been stuck in the same moment due to COVID-19.” Townley added, “A moment in time could be when you found Sasquatch.”

In 2024 an independent committee of volunteers took on the whole weekend, with support from the city, the Dallas Downtown Association and the Chamber. The festival became Dallas Days, and the Downtown Association’s Promotions Committee took charge of the parade. The 2025 online parade listing named the Dallas Area Visitors Center as organizer. The city’s website gives the event as “Dallas Days (formerly Krazy Dayz).” In his 2025 report, Dalton wrote that the committee had “stepped up to the plate in 2024 to pick up the old Summerfest/Krazy Dayz banner and keep the party going.”