Kitsap County Fair & Stampede

The Kitsap Fair & Stampede opened its 2026 run on Wednesday, August 26, at 10 a.m. on NW Fairgrounds Road in Bremerton. At that hour the barns were already at work. Goats, swine, poultry, miniature horses and cavies went before the judges in showmanship, and an hour later the goats were shown again for market and breed and the cavies for type. The fair runs five days, Wednesday through Sunday. It joins a county fair’s livestock barns, exhibit halls and carnival to a professional rodeo, and its organizers count the start of both at the gate. The Kitsap Fair & Stampede Association, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, now runs it.

Barns, halls and a heritage garden

Animals raised by local farmers and 4-H youth fill the barns, and the barn program covers more than cattle and sheep. The 2026 schedule held a llama show with separate classes for obstacles and “public relations,” a cat show that closed with a costume contest and a “Groom Squad,” a dog obedience class, a Skillathon, Ag Olympics, goat games and a livestock judging contest. In the horse ring riders worked through dressage seat, ranch riding, reining, bareback, pole bending and an Idaho stake race. The Kitsap Junior Livestock Auction met at noon on Saturday in the Swine Ring, behind the horses.

Presidents Hall holds the still-life entries all week: arts, crafts, baking, horticulture, photography, sewing and handmade work, with a Cloverbud Showcase for the youngest 4-H members on Saturday morning. The Pavilion is given to commercial exhibitors. Master Gardeners kept an answer clinic in the Heritage Garden and gave an afternoon class each day. The 2026 classes covered composting, winter weed control and “Herbal Teas, Lotions, & Crystals,” and the last one, on Sunday, was a working demonstration of the water cycle. K-9 demonstrations ran behind Presidents Hall several times a day. Motorcycles ran in the Pavilion parking lot. Pie judging took place Saturday at 1 p.m. behind the antique tractors. In 2026 the Kitsap History Museum kept a Rural Heritage building on the grounds, filled with vintage farming and logging equipment, tools and artifacts.

Kettle corn, corn dogs and funnel cakes made up most of the food. The carnival opened at noon on the first two days and at 11 a.m. after that. The 2026 fair also marked America 250, the country’s anniversary.

Dorrie Berning, the fair manager and COO, credits the people who spent the year preparing. “The Kitsap Fair and Stampede is all about community,” she said before the 2026 fair. “From 4-H exhibitors to community stage performers to local vendors and hundreds of volunteers, our event is great thanks to our community. It’s time for our neighbors to celebrate all that is Kitsap.”

Days after the 2026 fair closed, the barns’ future came into question. On September 3 the association posted that it had learned the day before of a decision by WSU to withdraw 4-H from the Kitsap Fair effective 2027. It said it did “not believe this decision was made in the best interests of our community.” On September 29 the association and WSU Extension issued a joint statement. They would continue working together, and a Memorandum of Understanding would set out WSU 4-H participation in the 2027 Fair.

Music on three stages

Fair or rodeo admission included two Main Stage concerts in 2026: Jefferson Starship on Thursday at 9 p.m. and the country singer Alli Walker on Saturday at 9 p.m. The smaller acts kept the stages busy through the days. Megan & Heidi played two Wednesday sets, Granny Panties played Friday, and Slainte played Sunday and also sang the anthem. Each afternoon a different singer opened the day with the anthem. Hypnotist Kevin Wolfe performed nearly every day, alternating with a magic show. He was a returning act even in 2017, when his comedy hypnosis show played the West Hills Auto Stage. The Thunder Road Stage stands on Fairgrounds Road as part of the Chuters Bar beer garden. Guests under 21 watch from outside the venue, and in 2026 the Olson Brothers Band, Bootlegs and Aaron Crawford played there.

Eight seconds in Thunderbird Arena

The rodeo takes place in Thunderbird Arena. In 2026 the full PRCA-sanctioned performances ran Wednesday through Friday at 6:30 p.m. The association lists the Saturday performance at 5:30 p.m., while the day-by-day fair schedule printed it at 5 p.m. The card included barrel racing, steer wrestling and bull riding. Slack rounds were held on Thursday and Friday mornings at 9 a.m., barrel racing and breakaway roping one day and timed events the next. Trick rider Cortney Clabaugh performed a specialty act in the arena all week. The association’s own description of the riding is “hanging off a horse at speed in a discipline that lands somewhere between gymnastics and horsemanship.” The fair’s site says the Stampede often holds themed nights, among them “Tough Enough to Wear Pink,” “Patriot Night” and “Military Appreciation.” Every rodeo ticket includes fair admission.

Xtreme Bulls, a bulls-only PRCA performance, closed the fair on Sunday at noon. The association reported a sold-out crowd watching riders on Korkow Rodeos bulls, “on the final road to the NFR and the PRCA Columbia River Circuit finals.” Afterward it asked followers to name their favorite part, offering Anthony Lucia, Dusty the clown and the trick riding as choices.

The order of these events has changed over the years. In 2017 Xtreme Bulls opened the week on Wednesday night with a $10,000 purse. Three nights of rodeo followed in eight events, with amateurs riding alongside PRCA members, and the Kitsap Destruction Derby closed the last day in the arena. By 2019 the rodeo had moved to Wednesday through Friday and Xtreme Bulls to Saturday, with the derby on Sunday. The derby now runs on its own dates through the season, and in 2026 they were July 11, July 26 and September 12. On September 25, 2026, the arena held an end-of-summer concert by Joel Gibson Jr., $10 at the gate.

The arena itself was raised by its users. In the late 1950s the Chief Kitsap Stampede sold stock certificates at $1 apiece and built Thunderbird Arena, which held 12,000 spectators when it was finished. In the late 1970s portions of it were condemned. Covered grandstands were added later, and the arena now seats 5,000. It is used year-round for the derby, a draft horse show, monster trucks and other events. The Stampede marked 75 years of rodeo in 2024.

From Sidney Hill to Central Valley

The first official Kitsap County Fair was held in 1923 in Port Orchard, about 15 miles from the present grounds. A photograph in the Kitsap County Historical Museum archives shows its opening parade circling the racetrack. Those fairgrounds stood at the top of Sidney Hill near the courthouse. Another museum photograph, from 1929, shows a game of auto polo. Players raced around the arena chasing a large ball in carts built from cut-down automobile chassis. The fair had 1,000 exhibitors that year.

Accounts of when the fair left Port Orchard differ. The museum says it stayed until about 1930 and then moved to Bremerton “to provide a more central location.” A 2017 Kitsap News Group account says it was held in Port Orchard from 1923 to 1929 and then moved to Roosevelt Field in Bremerton. A 2023 account places the move to Bremerton in the 1950s. The museum, the 2017 account and the association all agree that the fair came to its present grounds in Central Valley in 1958. In 2019, to mark “60 Years of Rides, Ribbons & Rodeo” at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds, fair admission was free.

The county ran the fair then. In 2017 Jim Dunwiddie, director of Kitsap County Parks and Recreation, said preparation began right after the previous fair ended. On “Super Saturday,” two weeks before opening, more than 300 volunteers came out. “Volunteers put fresh paint on many of the buildings and clean up the fairgrounds,” he said. “These are the people who make sure we’re ready to open.” Many fair board members, he added, took vacation from full-time jobs to work the fair week. The board chose a theme each year from suggestions sent in by supporters, and the 2017 theme was “Hold on to Your Hat.” That year the fair counted more than 6,000 exhibitors and annual attendance of 80,000. The whole complex counted more than 211,000 visitors a year across all its events.

The hundredth fair

The fair celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2023. A restored 1930s U.S. mail truck was on the grounds. Becky Bauer, an author who had attended nearly every year since the move to Bremerton, spoke about the Pavilion. “When I come in here to do bazaars and stuff, this pavilion is still an extremely nice place to sell things. It’s like home sometimes,” she said. Some visitors complained about the return of admission charges and about what they called a growing lack of local, community-driven business. “It’s not near as populated, from what I’ve seen,” said Joe Gavasso of the Fraternal Order of Eagles.

The poultry returned that year in large numbers. A nationwide bird flu outbreak in 2022 had kept many birds home. “We had all our entries submitted, and kids that did not have market birds suddenly could not bring any birds,” said Diana Costa of the Kitsap Bird Nerds. In 2023 close to 200 birds came. “Both barns filled, no threat of disease this year, no COVID restrictions,” Costa said. Ten-year-old Brody, one of the exhibitors, explained what showing birds meant to him. “I have a love for chickens and hanging out with them,” he said. “I hang out with a yellow chicken on the couch watching TV sometimes.”