Flaming Gorge Days

On the Saturday of Flaming Gorge Days, parade entries stage on Flaming Gorge Way from eight until half past nine in the morning, and the parade starts at ten. It is free to watch. The 2026 parade took as its theme “America’s 250th Anniversary: 1776–2026.” The festival’s own pages put the route on Flaming Gorge Way, while the Sweetwater County tourism listing gave it as Uinta Drive. Directly after the parade, classic cars and motorcycles line Evers Park for the car and bike show, which Larry Erdmann runs.

The city and the county tourism board gave the 2026 dates as Friday and Saturday, June 26 and 27. The festival’s website counted three days, June 25 to 27, because the opening contests began on Thursday.

Evers Park and Expedition Island

Most of the daytime program is held at Evers Park, four acres at 370 South Second East. The park has a baseball field, horseshoe courts, a splash park, picnic areas with a triple grill, and a large open lawn. The vendor fair fills the park on both days with local crafts, artisanal goods, and food vendors. In 2026 it was scheduled from 1 to 7 p.m. on Friday and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, and every space was taken. Alishae Blazich handled the vendors. In 2024 the fair opened on a Friday afternoon with 65 vendors, and people cooled off in the splash park and the river nearby.

The horseshoe courts see steady use over the weekend. Lisa Nussbaum’s Saturday competition starts singles at nine and doubles at one, and each entry comes with a T-shirt. The Jr. Cowgirls & Cowboys Travel Basketball Club runs a three-on-three tournament on Friday and Saturday. From four to six on Friday the Sweetwater County Library holds a free foam party for children.

Some events take place elsewhere in town. Pickleball opens the festival at Edgewater Park at 7:30 on Thursday morning. Gloria Tomison’s 2026 draw had men’s and women’s doubles on Thursday, mixed doubles on Friday, and a doubles division for players 70 and over on both days. Also on Thursday, Rolling Green Country Club held its first annual golf classic, a two-person scramble with a blind draw for a four-person scramble. On Friday evening, from four to eight, up to ten disc golf teams played the Wolverine Disc Golf Course under John Barry, with cash for the top two teams.

The weekend ends at Expedition Island Park. This 7.1-acre park near Evers Park has river access, picnic shelters, the Greenbelt Pathway, and an interpretive nature trail. The Saturday concert there is free and was set for 6 to 9 p.m. in 2026. The bill had Atlas Falls, described by the organizers as “a high-energy blend of modern rock, country rock, and crowd-favorite hits,” and WY5, “Wyoming’s own,” playing country and classic rock. In earlier years the stage brought nationally known acts to Green River. KUGR named Papa Roach, the Eli Young Band, Styx, and Ned LeDoux among the most memorable performers of recent years.

Beards for a dam

The accounts of how the festival began do not fully agree. WyoHistory.org says that in 1957 and 1958 residents of Green River celebrated “Flaming Gorge Days” to mark the start of construction on Flaming Gorge Dam. Congress had funded the dam on April 11, 1956, under the Colorado River Storage Project Act. Participants wore old-time clothes, and the men grew beards, “the hirsute male custom of range and mining days,” according to the Sweetwater County paper Wyoming Trails. In April 1958 the same paper ran an item headed “Beards Needed For Self-Defense in Green River.”

The festival took its name from the canyon. John Wesley Powell came down the Green River by boat in 1869 and named the canyon for “a flaring, brilliant, red gorge that may be seen from the north a score of miles away.” The dam was finished in 1964, across the Utah line. On August 17 of that year Lady Bird Johnson stopped at Green River to dedicate the reservoir and ate at a buffalo barbecue in town.

In 2015, committee president Deli Frantzen told the city council that the festival’s history ran “from 1956 to the present day.”

KUGR, the local radio station, tells a different story in a 2026 retrospective. In its account Green River once held Mickey Finn Days, which TRN’s Al Harris described as little more than a large beer festival. The buckets of beer sold there paid for the Fourth of July fireworks while the town had only about 4,000 people. As Green River grew, city leaders ended Mickey Finn Days and needed another way to pay for the fireworks, and that search eventually led to Flaming Gorge Days. The KUGR piece gives no year for the change.

The ledger in 2015

By 2015 the concerts had become the festival’s largest expense and its largest risk. On February 24 of that year the Flaming Gorge Days Committee went before a city council workshop to ask for money. Frantzen said bad weather at the concerts over the previous couple of years had caused most of the losses. The committee wanted an additional $100,000 from the city, which had already budgeted $24,000.

Dawn Trujillo, who handled sponsorships with Holly Moffitt, said that by that point in most years she had promises from about 75 percent of sponsors. That year she had 18 percent, which she blamed on oilfield layoffs. She also gave the council the previous year’s turnout:

• 252 dodgeball players
• 92 volleyball players
• 220 basketball players
• 60 horseshoe pitchers on each of two days
• 83 parade entries

The vendor festival in the park already had a waiting list.

Committee member Drew Varley said the committee had always run on a cash-in, cash-out basis and that sponsors had brought in $70,000 the year before. Council Member Ted Barney said he backed the festival but wanted more accountability. Frantzen explained that on concert nights two people collected the ticket and beer money together and took it to Trona Valley Credit Union. The 2015 lineup she announced was Black Jack Billy and Love and Theft for country night, and 1000 Foot Krutch and Black Stone Cherry for rock night.

Robert Berg, manager of the Artic Circle, told the council that Flaming Gorge Days weekend brought his two busiest days of the year and that he had to add staff to cover it. Council Member Gary Killpack proposed a one-time payment of $75,000 on top of the budgeted amount, with the city accountant reviewing the books.

Bids, a nonprofit, and 2026

The festival was canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic and revived in 2022. At that time it was organized by a committee made up of the URA Main Street Director and volunteer residents and business leaders. On June 6, 2023, the city canceled that month’s festival, saying several essential plans had not been completed. It had explored a scaled-down version with former committee members before deciding against it. SweetwaterNOW later reported that the 2023 festival was canceled for lack of funding.

For 2024 the city asked for bids. The only bidder was Adelska, a Denver event company, which the council approved unanimously in March for $26,625, pending legal review. Killpack objected to several clauses, including an 18 percent late-payment rate and the city carrying the liability. He voted yes anyway. “Time is of the essence and I’ll put my trust in you guys,” he said.

Council Member Sherry Bushman later said the city ended its contract with DESCA, and that she and Tony Neimic stepped in to keep the event going. Bushman said that on the city’s advice she formed a nonprofit, Green River Flaming Gorge Days Incorporated, in August 2025. On October 14, 2025, the council held a workshop to review the summer’s festival and meet the new committee.

In early December the committee announced it had dissolved. The city’s account was that it had been drafting a service agreement but had not yet received documents confirming the nonprofit status, and that the committee chose to dissolve before an agreement reached the council. Bushman’s account was that city delays had caused the committee to miss its own planning deadlines.

At the December 16 council meeting, Bushman read a statement. “This was an act of kindness that kind of turned ugly, unfortunately,” she said. “I lost personal money in this.” She thanked the former committee and added, “I do hope that the city does move forward with the event and all the activities that we have already had in place.”