Fair Days Parade

West Main Street in Monroe closes to traffic at 8 a.m. on parade day, and the closure is the signal to claim a piece of curb. On the morning of the 2026 parade, the Monroe Chamber of Commerce, which runs the event, told its followers the street shuts early “so you can snag your spot,” and promised a day running from “Kettle Corn to Cowboy Hats.” The side streets around the route close as well: North Blakeley, West Hill, North Kelsey, and 179th Avenue SE. The city’s notice gave the closure as 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.; a Chamber listing gave 3 p.m.

The first business of the day is the Fair Days Market, which opens at 9 a.m. at 201 W. Main St. That building is the Monroe Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center, formerly the old Union Bank Building. The Chamber announced it as a new location for 2026, though some listings for the same day still placed the market at the Wagner Performing Arts Center. The market stays open until 1 p.m.

At 11 a.m. the parade steps off. It holds West Main between 179th Avenue SE and Blakeley Street for two hours, rain or shine. The Chamber counts more than 10,000 spectators along the route and more than 100 floats and performances. Admission is free, and the event is listed as kid friendly and pet friendly, with restrictions.

Pirates, pipers, and the horses of Ixtapa

The 2026 lineup included:

• the Monroe High School marching band and cheerleaders
• drift and drag cars from Evergreen Speedway
• the Seattle Seafair Pirates
• the Keith Highlanders Pipe Band
• the Washington State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution
• the Evergreen State Fair, Brookdale Senior Living, the Monroe School District, and the Boys & Girls Club
• several princesses and a number of equestrian teams

Among the horses rode the Horses of Ixtapa Monroe. The Snohomish County Tribune describes them as a troupe of trained dancing and prancing horses, often Aztecas and Friesians, associated with the Barajas family, who own Monroe’s Ixtapa Family Mexican Restaurant. The paper’s preview of the 2026 parade ran a photograph by Jim Scolman showing a group of knights in the 2019 parade.

Entries are judged, and the scoring favors the curb. Out of 80 possible points:

• use of the theme is worth 40
• spirit is worth 20
• interaction with the crowd is worth 20
• a delay in a performance costs 10

The Chamber awards first, second, and third place and a Chamber’s Choice Award. In mid-September 2026 it congratulated Platinum Dance Center, a Monroe dance studio, on its first-place trophy from the parade.

Ninety-one parades and the fair’s theme

The parade belongs to the Evergreen State Fair’s festivities, and each year it borrows the fair’s theme. Entrants are asked to decorate to it. The 2026 theme was “Barn in the USA,” which the city’s visitor writer Richard Porter called a nod to “The Boss.” The fair ran August 27 to September 1 and September 3 to 7, 2026, at Evergreen State Fair Park. Porter listed its program as Skykomish Indian culture, lumberjack events, quilting, canning, and “some deeply, deeply fried foods.” That year marked 117 years of the fair.

The city also folded the parade into its America 250 program, and its calendar billed the 2026 edition under both themes. The Chamber announced that parade as the 91st annual. Janelle Drews, the Chamber’s executive director, is its contact. The City of Monroe, the fair, and the school district are listed as parade partners, and the parade is paid for in part by the city’s hotel-motel tax fund.

Porter summed up the procession on West Main as “your quintessential small-town parade with candy, floats, souped-up cars, equestrians, flag-waving, and lots of hometown cheer.”