Scottsdale events, decoded by a local
Scottsdale runs on a season: the town sleeps through the furnace months, then detonates from October to April with the world’s biggest golf party, a nine-figure car auction, Cactus League baseball, and light art floating on a canal. Every guide below is written from ground truth — what it actually costs, where locals park, and when to skip it. Each page has a reading-depth toggle: skim it in 30 seconds or go full rabbit hole. The calendar also reaches across the city line: 53 of these guides cover the Valley events a visitor staying in Scottsdale drives to (a Tempe music festival, the Heard’s Indian Fair, the lights at the botanical garden, a bull ring in Cave Creek), each marked with the drive from Old Town. For the events in Scottsdale this week, filter by month below; for how the calendar shapes a trip, read when to visit Scottsdale.
The season at a glance
Tap a month to filter the guides below. Terracotta bars are event windows.
Arizona Fall League
The 2026 Arizona Fall League runs October 3 to November 14: MLB sends its best prospects to a six-week finishing school in the Valley, and the Scottsdale Scorpions play it out at Scottsdale Stadium in front of scouts, diehards and almost nobody else, for $14 a ticket.
Scottsdale Stadium & Salt River Fields
Arizona Musicfest
A nonprofit concert festival that has grown from four chamber recitals in 1991 into a 30-plus-concert winter season, staged in North Scottsdale's biggest church sanctuaries; the 2026–27 Arizona Musicfest season runs October 23, 2026 to May 8, 2027, with Broadway stars, a festival orchestra of top-tier symphony players, jazz and rock revivals.
Highlands Church, Pinnacle Presbyterian & La Casa de Cristo, North Scottsdale
Arizona State Fair
The state fair has run since 1884 and on its 80-acre Phoenix grounds since 1905: nearly 70 rides, 90-plus food stands, livestock barns and a Coliseum concert series, Thursdays to Sundays for five weeks each fall. In 2026 it runs October 1 to November 1, twenty-five minutes west of Old Town.
Arizona State Fairgrounds, 1826 W McDowell Rd (19th Ave & McDowell), Phoenix · 25 min from Old Town
Arizona Taco Festival
Founded in 2010 and claiming the title of world's first taco festival, Taco Fest turns Salt River Fields into a two-day October carnival of taco makers, a tequila expo, live music and, famously, competitive Chihuahuas. The 2026 edition ran October 17–18; 2027 dates are not yet announced.
Salt River Fields at Talking Stick
USA TODAY Wine & Food Experience
The newspaper's tasting festival: it began in 2015 as the azcentral Food & Wine Experience at Scottsdale Fashion Square, spent six Novembers on the lawns of Salt River Fields, and became the model for USA TODAY's national tour. The 2026 Phoenix stop is Saturday, October 24, noon to 4, at High Street off the Loop 101, $75, twenty minutes from Old Town.
High Street, 5415 E High St, Phoenix · 20 min from Old Town
Buffalo Chip Bull Riding
Twice a week, in a dirt arena behind a saloon on Cave Creek Road, amateur cowboys climb onto real bucking bulls while a crowd of bikers, snowbirds and locals leans on the rail with a beer. Gates open at 6, admission has long been ten dollars cash, and it is the strangest standing event within forty minutes of Old Town.
Buffalo Chip Saloon & Steakhouse, 6823 E Cave Creek Rd, Cave Creek · 40 min from Old Town
Four Peaks Oktoberfest
The Valley's oldest and biggest Oktoberfest fills Tempe Beach Park for three October days with Four Peaks and German beer, brats, polka, wiener dog races and a carnival, all to send Tempe teenagers abroad through Tempe Sister Cities. Twenty minutes from Old Town; Sunday is free.
Tempe Beach Park, 80 W Rio Salado Pkwy, Tempe · 20 min from Old Town
MacDonald's Ranch Pumpkin Patch
Every October the Richardson family's horse ranch on north Scottsdale Road turns its front pasture into a pumpkin patch: a petting zoo, gold panning, a hay-bale maze, two trains and pumpkins trucked in weekly from Arizona farms, among the saguaros below Pinnacle Peak. The 2026 patch runs October 3–31, daily except Tuesdays, 9 to 5, $15 at the door.
MacDonald's Ranch, 26540 N Scottsdale Rd, Scottsdale
NASCAR at Phoenix Raceway
NASCAR's Cup Series races twice a year on the one-mile oval at Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, 45 minutes west of Scottsdale: a March weekend that since 2026 pairs with IndyCar, and a late-October playoff race in the Chase. The next is March 12–14, 2027, with the Cup race on Sunday, March 14; the fall Freeway Insurance 500 is October 24, 2027.
Phoenix Raceway, 7602 Jimmie Johnson Dr, Avondale · 45 min from Old Town
Old Town Farmers Market
A hundred-plus Arizona growers and food makers take over the Scottsdale City Hall parking lot every Saturday morning from October to June, and the 2026–27 season opened October 3 at the new site after sixteen years on Brown Avenue. It is the Valley's best-run farmers market and Scottsdale's weekly small-town ritual.
City Hall surface lot, 75th St & Bennie Gonzales Way (3939 N Drinkwater Blvd), Old Town
Pavilions Rock 'n' Roll Car Show
Every Saturday evening since April 1990, a McDonald's parking lot on Salt River Pima-Maricopa land fills with hot rods, rat rods, exotics and lifted trucks, plus lawn chairs and oldies — the cruise-in cited in the Guinness Book as the longest continuously running weekly car show anywhere, and still going every Saturday in 2026.
The Pavilions at Talking Stick, 9120 E Talking Stick Way
Phoenix Greek Festival
The Valley's oldest ethnic food festival: three October days of lamb, gyros, loukoumades and pastries baked by the parish, Greek dancing from toddlers to the grand finale, and self-guided tours of a cathedral with the Southwest's largest faceted-glass windows, at Holy Trinity on Maryland Avenue in Phoenix since 1960. The 65th ran October 16–18, 2026; 2027 dates are not yet posted.
Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 1973 E Maryland Ave, Phoenix · 20 min from Old Town
Phoenix Pride
Phoenix Pride is the state's largest LGBTQ+ gathering: a Sunday-morning parade down Third Street and a festival that in 2026, after a Chapter 11 filing and a move from Steele Indian School Park to the Arizona Center downtown, ran one day instead of two. Scottsdale has no civic Pride, so this is where Scottsdale goes.
Arizona Center, 455 N 3rd St, Phoenix (2026); Steele Indian School Park, 300 E Indian School Rd, 2003–2025 · 25 min from Old Town
Scottsdale ArtWalk
Every Thursday night since 1975, 7 to 9 p.m., Old Town's gallery district opens its doors for a free art crawl, the oldest continuously running ArtWalk in the United States; the 2026–27 season's themed Gold Palette nights start with Scottsdazzle on December 10.
Main Street & Marshall Way, Old Town Arts District
Scottsdale Día de los Muertos
A free, four-day Day of the Dead celebration on the Scottsdale Civic Center — large-scale community altars, folklórico dance, a Catrina fashion contest, and a headline concert — that has grown since 2017 into the Valley's most polished Día de los Muertos. The tenth edition runs October 22–25, 2026, with the fiesta on Saturday the 24th.
Scottsdale Civic Center
Scottsdale Fashion Week
Relaunched in 2016 by an Old Town events producer after the original series faded in 2010, Scottsdale Fashion Week is a four-night runway circuit that changes venue nightly — a shopping center, a rooftop pool, a sushi restaurant, a car dealership — every fall. The tenth-year edition ran October 8–11, 2026; the 2027 dates are not yet announced.
Rotating — Scottsdale Quarter, Hotel Adeline, Roka Akor, Mercedes-Benz of Scottsdale (2026)
Scottsdale Motorsports Gathering
Arizona's original cars-and-coffee: on the first Saturday of every month, 7 to 10 a.m., the private club Scuderia Southwest fills the lots of Market Street at DC Ranch with its members' Ferraris, Porsches and race cars, and anyone may walk in free. Running since 2001, it anchors a week of Scottsdale car mornings that includes the Penske museum and Fourtillfour.
Market Street at DC Ranch, 20789 N Pima Rd, Scottsdale
Spook-Track-Ula
Every October the Paradise & Pacific Railroad at McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park runs after dark through fog, skeletons, man-eating spiders and jack-o'-lantern saguaros. A $15 wristband buys unlimited train and carousel rides in a timed slot; 2026 stretched it to every night of the month and added a jump-scare walk through haunted train cars and a gentle storybook train for the small ones.
McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park, 7301 E Indian Bend Rd, Scottsdale
Spooktacular Hot Air Balloon Festival
Spooktacular 2026 runs Friday to Sunday, October 23–25, 5 to 9 p.m.: more than 20 hot air balloons inflate on the Salt River Fields outfield and double as trick-or-treat stations, glowing from about 5:45 to 8:30 p.m., with 4,000 pounds of candy, a free Kids Zone, a haunted Spook Trail and costume contests, aimed squarely at families.
Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, 7555 N Pima Rd, Scottsdale
Taste of Cave Creek
On two mid-October weeknights, 25 to 30 of Cave Creek's restaurants set up booths in the courtyards of Stagecoach Village and sell $5 to $7 tastes to about 8,000 people, with bands in the gazebo and a beer garden. It is the north Valley's small-town food night, forty minutes from Old Town; 2026 ran October 14–15.
Stagecoach Village, 7100 E Cave Creek Rd, Cave Creek · 40 min from Old Town
Uncorked Arizona Wine Festival
Twice a year the touring Uncorked wine festival takes over the Salt River Fields outfield in Scottsdale with 100-plus wines and bubblies, a DJ, food trucks and, for VIPs, batting practice on a big-league diamond. The fall 2026 edition ran October 10; the next is spring 2027, expected on an early-April Saturday.
Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, 7555 N Pima Rd, Scottsdale
Scottsdale Polo Championships
Self-billed as 'The World's Greatest Polo Party': a November day at WestWorld where high-goal polo shares the field with car shows, fashion runways, DJs and Scottsdale in its full peacock mode. The 2026 edition, the event's 15th anniversary, is Saturday, November 7.
WestWorld of Scottsdale
Canal Convergence
Scottsdale's signature public-art event: ten free November nights of large-scale light art floating on and suspended above the Arizona Canal, drawing 100,000-plus to the Waterfront. Canal Convergence 2026 runs November 6–15 under the theme 'Western Nature.'
Scottsdale Waterfront, Arizona Canal
Carefree Fine Art & Wine Festival
Thunderbird Artists has run juried fine-art festivals on Easy Street and Ho Hum Road in downtown Carefree since 1994, three times a season: a November edition reworked in 2026 as the free Garden Art Experience, then the winter show January 15–17 and the spring show March 12–14, 2027, each with about 165 artists and a wine tasting.
Easy Street & Ho Hum Road, downtown Carefree (101 Easy St) · 38 min from Old Town
Charles Schwab Cup Championship
PGA Tour Champions ends its season with its top 36 players, no cut and a $3 million purse at Phoenix Country Club, the 1899 club at 7th Street and Thomas that hosted 42 Phoenix Opens. It has been in Phoenix since 2017 after four editions on Desert Mountain's Cochise course in north Scottsdale, and the 2026 edition is November 12–15, twenty minutes from Old Town.
Phoenix Country Club, 2901 N 7th St, Phoenix · 20 min from Old Town
Christmas at the Princess
A luxury resort that turns itself into a full-scale holiday theme park: 17 million lights, an ice rink in the desert, light shows, a Ferris wheel, s'mores and Santa. Christmas at the Princess 2026 runs November 20, 2026 to January 2, 2027, the biggest holiday production in Arizona.
Fairmont Scottsdale Princess
Dreamy Draw Music Festival
Dreamy Draw, the country, Americana and indie festival on the Scottsdale Civic Center, has run each early November since 2023, with The Lumineers, Vampire Weekend and Father John Misty headlining 2025. As of October 19, 2026, no 2026 dates, lineup or tickets had been announced.
Scottsdale Civic Center, 3939 N Drinkwater Blvd, Scottsdale
Fountain Festival of Fine Arts & Crafts
Twice a year the Fountain Hills Chamber of Commerce closes the Avenue of the Fountains and lines it with 400 to 500 juried artists, a VFW beer garden and a stage, while the town's fountain goes off on the hour behind them. The next editions are November 13–15, 2026 and February 26–28, 2027; it is free, and it is enormous.
Avenue of the Fountains, Fountain Hills
Fountain Hills Thanksgiving Day Parade
While the rest of the Valley is still in the kitchen, Fountain Hills closes the Avenue of the Fountains at 9:30 on Thanksgiving morning for a chamber-run parade of floats, bands, veterans, classic cars and dance teams that ends with Santa's first appearance of the season. It has run since 1984, it is free, and it is thirty minutes from Old Town over Shea. The 2026 parade is on Thursday, November 26.
Avenue of the Fountains, downtown Fountain Hills · 30 min from Old Town
Glendale Glitters
The West Valley's holiday lights: more than two million bulbs on about sixteen blocks of historic downtown Glendale around Murphy Park, free, nightly from Thanksgiving weekend to New Year's Day. The 33rd Glendale Glitters opens with a two-night kickoff festival on November 27–28, 2026, and the lights stay on through January 1, 2027, 35 minutes from Old Town.
Murphy Park, 58th and Glendale avenues, Historic Downtown Glendale · 35 min from Old Town
Gold Palette ArtWalk
Several times a season the Scottsdale Gallery Association upgrades its weekly Thursday ArtWalk into a themed Gold Palette night, with earlier hours, live music, artist demonstrations and complimentary wine. The 2026–27 Gold Palette ArtWalks are December 10, 2026 and January 14, February 4, March 4 and April 8, 2027.
Main Street & Marshall Way, Old Town Arts District
Goodguys Southwest Nationals
Three thousand hot rods, customs, muscle cars and classic trucks fill WestWorld for a November weekend: the Goodguys network's Southwest anchor and the most approachable car event on Scottsdale's calendar. The 29th Southwest Nationals is November 20–22, 2026.
WestWorld of Scottsdale
Hidden in the Hills Artist Studio Tour
For six days around Thanksgiving, about 150 artists in the Desert Foothills open their home studios to anyone with a map; the 2026 Hidden in the Hills tour runs November 20–22 and 27–29. It is Arizona's largest and longest-running studio tour, free, self-guided and run by the Sonoran Arts League since 1997.
Private studios across Cave Creek, Carefree and North Scottsdale
Kierland Fine Art & Wine Festival
Kierland Commons closes its Main Street for a free, juried art festival with an Arizona-only wine garden twice a year; the next editions are November 7–8, 2026 and February 6–7, 2027, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It ranked among Sunshine Artist's top shows in its 2022 debut year and #11 nationally in 2023.
Main Street, Kierland Commons, 15205 N Kierland Blvd, Scottsdale
Las Noches de las Luminarias
On 26 select nights from Thanksgiving weekend to January 3 the Desert Botanical Garden lines its trails with more than 8,000 paper-bag luminarias, every candle lit by hand, and stations musicians among the cactus. It began in 1978 with 700 bags and is the one December ticket Scottsdale visitors should buy first. The 2026–27 season runs November 27, 2026 to January 3, 2027.
Desert Botanical Garden, 1201 N Galvin Pkwy, Papago Park, Phoenix · 15 min from Old Town
Orme Dam Victory Days
Every November the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation throws a three-day party for a dam that does not exist: a parade down Fort McDowell Road, an all-Indian rodeo, an intertribal powwow, a carnival and a Yavapai village, on the river bottom Orme Dam would have flooded. The 44th was November 14–16, 2025; it is free and the Nation invites everyone.
Fort McDowell Rodeo Grounds, 9500 S Rodeo Dr, Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation · 35 min from Old Town
ZooLights
Since 1992 the Phoenix Zoo has lit its Papago Park trails every winter, and the count is now about five million lights on more than two miles. Nightly from the night before Thanksgiving to mid-January, $35, some 300,000 visitors a season, fifteen minutes from Old Town. The 2026–27 season runs November 25, 2026 to January 15, 2027.
Phoenix Zoo, 455 N Galvin Pkwy, Papago Park, Phoenix · 15 min from Old Town
Railroad Park Holiday Lights
Holiday Lights 2026 runs nightly November 27 to December 30 (dark December 24–25) at McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park, where the Paradise & Pacific Railroad's miniature trains run through more than a million lights: the Scottsdale holiday tradition families have lined up for since the park opened in 1975. Tickets go on sale October 27 and sell out.
McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park, 7301 E Indian Bend Rd, Scottsdale
Red Mountain Eagle Powwow
The 38th Red Mountain Eagle Powwow is Saturday and Sunday, November 7–8, 2026: the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community hosts a two-day intertribal powwow on its ballfields at McDowell and Longmore: grand entries, Grammy-winning Northern Cree as host drum, roughly $35,000 to $40,000 in prize money, a hundred-odd vendors. It is free, ten minutes from Old Town, and it asks a few things of visitors.
Salt River Ballfields, 1839 N Longmore Rd, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
Scottsdale Film Festival
Since 2001, Scottsdale's homegrown film festival has spent ten days each fall screening award-winning world cinema — the films that win festivals abroad and otherwise never reach an Arizona screen. It usually runs in early November; we could not confirm the 2026 dates.
Harkins Shea 14 & area theaters
Scottsdale Hanukkah Menorah Lightings
Scottsdale has no single civic Hanukkah event. It has a handful of free public menorah lightings run by Chabad houses and the Valley of the Sun J, at a shopping center and on Paolo Soleri's bridge over the canal. The dates move every year with the Hebrew calendar (December 4–12 in 2026), and no page puts them in one place. This one tries.
Scottsdale Quarter; Soleri Bridge & Plaza on the Scottsdale Waterfront; synagogues along Shea Boulevard
Scottsdale Memorial Day and Veterans Day Commemorations
Three times a year Scottsdale stops at the Civic Center to remember: a 10 a.m. Memorial Day ceremony at the Memorial for the Fallen, the Fire Department's reading of the names from 6 a.m. on September 11, and an 11 a.m. Veterans Day program on the Memorial Lawn. All three are free, short and civic. Next up: Veterans Day, Wednesday, November 11, 2026.
Civic Center Memorial Lawn and Scottsdale Memorial for the Fallen, 3939 N. Drinkwater Blvd. (northeast of City Hall)
Scottsdazzle
Scottsdale's umbrella holiday celebration, November 28 to December 31 in 2026: a month-plus of tree lightings, carriage rides, sing-alongs and light displays across Old Town, proof the desert does Christmas its own way.
Old Town & Scottsdale Waterfront
Tempe Fantasy of Lights
Downtown Tempe's holiday season comes in two free Saturday nights: a lighted street parade down Mill Avenue that ends at the city tree lighting, November 28, 2026, and a parade of lit boats around Tempe Town Lake with fireworks off the Mill Avenue bridge, December 12, 2026. The parade dates to 1994, the boat parade to 1999, twenty minutes from Old Town.
Mill Avenue and Tempe Beach Park, 80 W Rio Salado Pkwy, Tempe · 20 min from Old Town
World of Illumination
A mile-long animated light show you drive through at 3 miles an hour with the radio tuned to its soundtrack, built each winter in the parking lots of Tempe Diablo Stadium and Camelback Ranch in Glendale by a Phoenix company that started in 2017. One ticket covers the car, from $39.99. The 2026–27 Tempe show, Reindeer Road, runs November 13, 2026 to January 3, 2027, Tuesday through Sunday.
Tempe Diablo Stadium, 2200 W Alameda Dr, Tempe (also Camelback Ranch, 10710 W Camelback Rd, Glendale) · 22 min from Old Town
APS Electric Light Parade
On the first Saturday of December about a hundred lit floats, marching bands, fire trucks and pro sports mascots roll 2.3 miles down Central Avenue and 7th Street in the dark. Phoenix Parks and Recreation has staged it since 1987 with APS as title sponsor, it is free, and the curbs fill hours ahead. The 39th edition is December 5, 2026.
Central Avenue from Montebello to Camelback, then 7th Street to Indian School, Phoenix · 25 min from Old Town
Arizona National Livestock Show
The largest livestock show in the Southwest fills the Arizona State Fairgrounds in Phoenix every December 27 to 31 with about 3,000 pigs, sheep, goats and cattle shown mostly by kids from 35 states, plus a ranch rodeo and stock dog trials. Admission is free. The 79th show runs December 27–31, 2026, 25 minutes from Old Town.
Arizona State Fairgrounds, 1826 W McDowell Rd (19th Ave & McDowell), Phoenix · 25 min from Old Town
Decadence Arizona
The Valley's biggest New Year's Eve party: two nights of electronic music on the grounds of Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, 6 p.m. to 3 a.m., with the countdown set at midnight on the 31st. The 12th edition, Sands of Eternity, is December 30–31, 2026 with Disclosure, Chris Lake, Slander and Zomboy; it is 18 and over and 45 minutes from Scottsdale.
Phoenix Raceway, 7602 Jimmie Johnson Dr, Avondale · 45 min from Old Town
Fiesta Bowl
The Fiesta Bowl is the Valley's New Year's football game: founded in 1971 at Sun Devil Stadium, moved to Glendale's dome in 2007, and now a College Football Playoff quarterfinal on December 30, 2026. The nonprofit that runs it, and the free parade down Central Avenue on January 2, 2027, is headquartered on Camelback Road in Scottsdale.
State Farm Stadium, 1 Cardinals Dr, Glendale; parade on Central Avenue, Phoenix · 45 min from Old Town
Stroll in the Glow
Fountain Hills' holiday opening night: the chamber of commerce lights the Avenue of the Fountains and the town Christmas tree at about 5:45, Santa arrives on a fire truck, and hot-air balloons glow in Fountain Park from 6 to 8. It is free, thirty minutes from Old Town over Shea, and the 37th edition is Saturday, December 5, 2026.
Avenue of the Fountains, Fountain Hills · 30 min from Old Town
Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market
The Southwest's biggest vintage market: more than 160 dealers of furniture, salvage, denim and handmade goods filling 120,000 square feet of WestWorld twice a year since it outgrew a Phoenix backyard in 2011. The spring 2027 market is April 16–18; the same team's holiday edition is December 12–13, 2026. General admission is about $10.
WestWorld of Scottsdale, 16601 N Pima Rd, Scottsdale
Miracle of the Roses Pageant and Our Lady of Guadalupe Feast
Before Scottsdale had a Christmas parade, a light show or a single resort holiday package, the Mexican-American families of the barrio were staging the story of Juan Diego and the roses every December. The big version, with a candlelit procession to Scottsdale High, died out decades ago. A smaller one still runs on the second Saturday of December inside the adobe church those same families built by hand.
Old Adobe Mission, 3817 N. Brown Ave. (pageant); Our Lady of Perpetual Help, 7655 E. Main St. (feast-day Mass)
Phoenix Festival of the Arts
A free December art fair run by the nonprofit Phoenix Center for the Arts since 2012, normally 150-plus artists, food trucks and local bands on the lawns of Hance Park. The 15th edition changes shape: one day, Saturday, December 12, 2026, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., on the Center's own campus at 3rd Street and Moreland, a block off the light rail and 25 minutes from Old Town.
Phoenix Center for the Arts, 1202 N 3rd St, Phoenix (Margaret T. Hance Park in most years) · 25 min from Old Town
S'edav Va'aki Indian Market
A two-day market of more than 100 Native artists, O'odham food and dance on the grounds of the Hohokam platform mound at 44th Street and Washington in Phoenix, 15 minutes from Old Town and across the street from a light-rail stop. The 49th market, formerly the Pueblo Grande Indian Market, runs December 12–13, 2026, 9 to 4, for $10.
S'edav Va'aki Museum, 4619 E Washington St (44th St & Washington), Phoenix · 15 min from Old Town
Tempe Festival of the Arts
Downtown Tempe closes Mill Avenue twice a year, the first weekend of December and a weekend in mid-March, for 350-plus juried artists, three beer gardens, an Arizona wine tasting, live murals and a kids' block, all free. It began in 1968 as a sidewalk sale by three merchants and is one of the oldest art fairs in the Southwest. The next editions are December 4–6, 2026 and March 12–14, 2027.
Mill Avenue, Third to Seventh Street, Downtown Tempe · 20 min from Old Town
Arizona Car Week
Arizona Car Week 2027 runs January 22–31: the largest collector-car marketplace on Earth, with three-plus Scottsdale auctions, a concours, rallies and dozens of gatherings that together sell a quarter-billion dollars of cars in ten days.
WestWorld, the Westin Kierland, Scottsdale Civic Center & beyond
Arizona Concours d'Elegance
Car Week's quiet Sunday: roughly 100 hand-picked collector cars judged on the Scottsdale Civic Center lawns, revived in 2024 and now the classiest thing on the January calendar. The 2027 Arizona Concours, honoring 80 years of Ferrari, is Sunday, January 24.
Scottsdale Civic Center
Arizona Fine Art Expo
Every winter since 2005 a 44,000-square-foot white tent goes up at Scottsdale Road and Jomax and more than a hundred artists move in to paint, carve, blow glass and sell for ten weeks; the 2027 Arizona Fine Art Expo runs January 15 to March 28. It is the younger of Scottsdale's two big-tent art seasons, and the one visitors mix up with the other.
26540 N Scottsdale Rd (SW corner of Scottsdale & Jomax), the big white tent
Arizona Indian Festival
Each February, Arizona's tribal nations gather at Scottsdale Civic Center for a free two-day festival of traditional dwellings, dance, food and art, organized by the tribes themselves through the Arizona American Indian Tourism Association. The 2027 Arizona Indian Festival is February 6–7.
Scottsdale Civic Center
Barrett-Jackson Auction
A nine-day collector car spectacle at WestWorld each January, part auction, part car museum, part live TV set, that has anchored Scottsdale's Car Week since 1971. Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale 2027 runs January 23–31.
WestWorld of Scottsdale
Bonhams Scottsdale Auction
The London auction house's one-day Scottsdale sale, 60 to 80 blue-chip cars crossing the block at a Kierland resort, is the most relaxed way to watch serious money change hands during Arizona Car Week. The next Bonhams Scottsdale sale is set for Friday, January 29, 2027.
The Westin Kierland Resort & Spa
Celebration of Fine Art
For ten weeks every winter, about a hundred juried artists move into big white tents off the Loop 101 and make art in front of you; the 2027 Celebration of Fine Art runs January 16 to March 28, daily 10 to 6. It is Scottsdale's longest-running open-studio show, since 1991.
The big white tents, Hayden Rd & Mayo Blvd (by the Loop 101)
Hashknife Pony Express
Since 1958 the Navajo County Sheriff's Posse has carried real, postmarked U.S. Mail 200 miles on horseback from Holbrook to Scottsdale, the oldest officially sanctioned Pony Express ride in the world. The 2026 ride ran March 26–28; the 2027 dates had not been announced as of October 2026.
A 200-mile ride from Holbrook, finishing in Scottsdale
Parada del Sol Parade
The 73rd Parada del Sol, billed as the world's largest horse-drawn parade, rolls through Old Town Scottsdale on Saturday, February 6, 2027, from 9:30 a.m. to noon, followed by the free Trail's End street festival.
Scottsdale Road, Old Town
RM Sotheby's Arizona
The highest-priced cars of Arizona Car Week cross the block not in Scottsdale but on the lawn of the 1929 Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, where RM Sotheby's has sold since 1999. The 2026 sale made $63 million in one day, led by a $9.3 million Ferrari Enzo. The 2027 sale is January 29, eighteen minutes from Old Town.
Arizona Biltmore, 2400 E Missouri Ave, Phoenix · 18 min from Old Town
Rock 'n' Roll Arizona
The Valley's big January running weekend sends its half marathon through Old Town Scottsdale and down the Indian Bend Wash Greenbelt — a flat, fast course with bands every mile that has produced world-class times since 2004. The 2027 race weekend is January 16–17, and registration is open.
Old Town Scottsdale & the Indian Bend Wash Greenbelt (course); start/finish in Tempe
Scottsdale Martin Luther King Jr. Community Celebration
Arizona voted down a King holiday in 1990 and lost a Super Bowl over it; a few years later a small Scottsdale nonprofit started its own King celebration, and it has run every January since, with Ossie Davis, Julian Bond, Martin Luther King III and Mary Frances Berry among the keynotes. The 2027 dinner is expected in mid-January, around MLK Day on January 18; date and speaker not yet announced.
Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, 7380 E. Second St. (2026)
Waterfront Fine Art & Wine Festival
Thunderbird Artists' juried festival lines the Arizona Canal walkway with 125 artists' booths, Arizona wineries and distilleries, and live music for three days each winter — the Waterfront doing exactly what it was redeveloped to do. The 16th edition is January 29–31, 2027.
Scottsdale Waterfront & Southbridge
Scottsdale Western Week
The city's branded nine-day celebration of its cowboy roots (Pony Express arrival, Gold Palette ArtWalk, the Arizona Indian Festival, and the Parada del Sol parade and Trail's End Festival), all free, all in Old Town. In 2027 it builds to the 73rd parade on Saturday, February 6.
Old Town Scottsdale, Scottsdale Civic Center & the Waterfront
Arizona Matsuri
The Valley's festival of Japan, free since 1984: two late-February days of taiko, martial arts, tea ceremony, bonsai, a cosplay contest, a beer and sake garden and thirty-odd food stalls on the lawns of Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix, run by a volunteer coalition of the city's Japanese and Japanese American organizations. The 43rd is February 27–28, 2027.
Steele Indian School Park, 300 E Indian School Rd, Phoenix · 25 min from Old Town
Arizona Renaissance Festival
A permanent 50-acre Tudor village on US 60 below the Superstition Mountains opens every weekend from early February to early April: 16 stages, three jousts a day in a 5,000-seat arena, 200-plus artisan shops and turkey legs. The 39th season runs February 6 to April 4, 2027, an hour east of Old Town.
Arizona Renaissance Festival grounds, 12601 E US Highway 60, Gold Canyon · 60 min from Old Town
Arizona Strong Beer Festival
The Arizona Craft Brewers Guild's one-day festival of the state's breweries, held since 2023 on the outfield lawn at Salt River Fields on the Scottsdale border, is the largest single-day beer festival in Arizona and the opening act of Arizona Beer Week. The 25th edition was February 14, 2026; the 2027 date is not yet announced but has landed on a mid-February Saturday for years.
Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, 7555 N Pima Rd, Scottsdale (Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community)
Arizona Sun Circuit
The Arizona Sun Circuit 2027 runs February 27 to March 7 at WestWorld: ten days, eleven arenas and nearly 2,000 horses at the largest American Quarter Horse Association show on the planet, with free admission and free parking.
WestWorld of Scottsdale
Cactus League Spring Training
Spring training 2027 runs February 19 to March 23, and big-league baseball moves into the neighborhood: the San Francisco Giants at walkable Scottsdale Stadium, and the D-backs and Rockies at Salt River Fields, the Cactus League's two best afternoons.
Scottsdale Stadium & Salt River Fields
Concours in the Hills
Every February about a thousand Ferraris, hot rods, race cars, military trucks and helicopters park on the lawns around the Fountain Hills fountain for a free, come-as-you-are concours that raised a record $467,000 for Phoenix Children's in 2026. It is the Valley's biggest one-day car show, thirty minutes east of Old Town on Shea, and the next one is February 20, 2027.
Fountain Park, 12925 N Saguaro Blvd, Fountain Hills · 30 min from Old Town
Devour Culinary Classic
Local First Arizona's two-day tasting festival puts more than a hundred Arizona chefs, winemakers, brewers and distillers on the trails of the Desert Botanical Garden each late February, fifteen minutes from Old Town. It is the Valley's most serious food event, it is $150 a day, and it sells out. The 2027 edition runs February 27–28.
Desert Botanical Garden, 1201 N Galvin Pkwy, Phoenix · 15 min from Old Town
Hoop Dance Contest
For two days each February the Heard Museum's outdoor stage in midtown Phoenix hosts the only world championship of Native American hoop dance: more than a hundred dancers in five age divisions, from tiny tots to seniors, scored on precision, timing, showmanship, creativity and speed, with $25,000 in prize money. The 37th is February 6–7, 2027.
Heard Museum, 2301 N Central Ave, Phoenix · 25 min from Old Town
Innings Festival
C3 Presents' baseball-themed festival on the south shore of Tempe Town Lake: three days of rock and alternative headliners the last weekend of February, timed to the first pitch of Cactus League spring training, followed a week later by the country-leaning Extra Innings. Mumford & Sons, Twenty One Pilots and blink-182 topped 2026; 2027 is set for February 26–28.
Tempe Beach Park & Tempe Arts Park, 80 W Rio Salado Pkwy, Tempe · 20 min from Old Town
Phoenix Chinese Week
Phoenix's free Lunar New Year festival, two February days of lion and dragon dances, martial arts, folk music, food trucks and a children's pavilion run by the volunteer nonprofit Phoenix Chinese Week since 1991. The 36th was February 14–15, 2026, at Heritage Square; 2027 dates are not yet posted, and the Year of the Goat begins February 6, 2027.
The Square PHX (Heritage Square), 113 N 6th St, Phoenix · 25 min from Old Town
Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show
The largest Arabian horse show on the planet — 2,000+ horses, 11 days, every February at WestWorld, February 11–21 in 2027, and the event that quietly shaped modern Scottsdale more than any other.
WestWorld of Scottsdale
WM Phoenix Open
The best-attended golf tournament on Earth, part PGA Tour event and part 700,000-person desert festival, held every February at TPC Scottsdale's Stadium Course. The 92nd edition runs February 8–14, 2027, with Jason Aldean headlining the Thursday Birds Nest.
TPC Scottsdale, Stadium Course
Arizona Aloha Festival
A free, two-day festival of Hawaiian and South Pacific culture on the lawns of Tempe Beach Park: hula, Tahitian and Samoan dance on two stages, about 30 food booths of plate lunch and shave ice, an Island Marketplace and ukulele lessons, run entirely by volunteers since 1995. The 2027 festival is March 20–21, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., 20 minutes from Scottsdale.
Tempe Beach Park, 80 W Rio Salado Pkwy, Tempe · 20 min from Old Town
Arizona Bike Week
Five days each April when WestWorld becomes the Southwest's motorcycle capital: demo rides, stunt shows, custom bike builders, charity rides and arena-sized rock concerts. The 2027 rally runs Wednesday, March 31 through Sunday, April 4; the 2026 rally ran April 8–12.
WestWorld of Scottsdale
Cactus Reining Classic
The Cactus Reining Classic 2027 runs March 12–20 at WestWorld of Scottsdale, and admission is free every day: one of the top ten reining events in the world, the qualifier for a million-dollar purse, and a co-owner named Taylor Sheridan.
WestWorld of Scottsdale
Cave Creek Rodeo Days
A PRCA rodeo run by volunteers since 1977 in a town that incorporated to stay rural: a Saturday parade down Cave Creek Road, a dance at the Buffalo Chip, then an all-bulls night and pro performances under the lights at Memorial Arena. Cave Creek Rodeo Days 2027 is March 24–27.
Cave Creek Memorial Arena, 37201 N 28th St, Cave Creek
Ostrich Festival
Chandler's Chamber of Commerce has thrown a festival for the ostrich since 1989, the bird that made Dr. Chandler's ranches famous before World War I killed the plume trade. Now six days over two March weekends with national headliners and 35-plus rides, but no ostrich races, it moved in 2026 from Tumbleweed Park to Rawhide at Wild Horse Pass, 35 minutes from Old Town.
Rawhide Western Town and Event Center, 5700 W North Loop Rd, Chandler (Gila River Indian Community) · 35 min from Old Town
Greening of the Fountain
Every March 17 at noon, Fountain Hills pours several 55-gallon drums of food coloring into the pump system and its 560-foot fountain throws a column of emerald green over the town, a tradition that began as a bar bet in 1979. The Saturday before, the town stages the free Irish Fountain Fest in Fountain Park with pipe bands, Celtic rock, a beer garden and two greenings.
Fountain Park, 12925 N Saguaro Blvd, Fountain Hills · 30 min from Old Town
Goodguys Spring Nationals
The Goodguys hot rod circuit opens its national season every March at WestWorld, where a couple thousand pre-2000 hot rods, customs, muscle cars and trucks park on the grass for two days of show rows, AutoCross and a swap meet. The 17th Spring Nationals is March 12–13, 2027; the same club's November Southwest Nationals closes the year on the same grounds.
WestWorld of Scottsdale, 16601 N Pima Rd
Heard Indian Fair & Market
The largest and oldest Native art market in Arizona and the second largest in the country: more than 600 juried Native artists set up on the Heard Museum's grounds in midtown Phoenix on the first weekend of March, after a Friday awards night that hands out $180,000 in prizes. It is 25 minutes from Old Town and the best day of the year to buy directly from the maker. The 2027 fair runs March 6–7.
Heard Museum, 2301 N Central Ave, Phoenix · 25 min from Old Town
M3F Fest
A two-day music festival in a central Phoenix park that hands 100 percent of its proceeds to Arizona charities, more than $6 million since 2004. It began that year as the McDowell Mountain Music Festival at WestWorld in Scottsdale, run by a construction company; in 2027 it is Joji, Fisher and Sammy Virji on March 5–6.
Steele Indian School Park, 300 E Indian School Rd, Phoenix · 25 min from Old Town
Mecum Glendale
Mecum Auctions' only Arizona sale: five days in March at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, with more than 1,300 to 2,000 collector cars crossing the block for about $47 million in 2026, on ESPN, two months after Barrett-Jackson. The 2027 sale is expected March 16–20, 35 minutes from Old Town, with $30 daily admission and kids free.
State Farm Stadium, 1 Cardinals Dr, Glendale · 35 min from Old Town
Parada del Sol Rodeo
Scottsdale's PRCA rodeo has bucked across town for 70 years, from a dirt lot where Fashion Square now stands to Rawhide to WestWorld; the 2027 Parada del Sol Rodeo runs March 4–7 in the WestWorld Equidome.
WestWorld of Scottsdale
Persian New Year Festival (Nowruz)
Every March thousands of Persian-Americans and their neighbors take over a slice of Old Town for an afternoon-into-night Nowruz party: a bazaar, a tea house, Persian food and beer, live music and dance, with a famous Iranian-American comedian as host. The organizers count about 15,000 people. The 2026 edition was March 7; the 2027 date, expected on an early-March Saturday, is not yet announced.
Scottsdale Waterfront (2026); Scottsdale Civic Center (2025)
Phoenix Scottish Games
Arizona's Highland games since 1964: caber toss and hammer throw, pipe band and Highland dance championships, 30-odd clan tents, whisky tasting and a Friday-night tattoo, run by the Caledonian Society of Arizona at Gilbert Regional Park since 2022. The society cancelled 2025 to rebuild and promised a 60th games; 2027 dates are not yet posted.
Gilbert Regional Park, 3005 E Queen Creek Rd, Gilbert · 35 min from Old Town
Phoenix St. Patrick's Day Parade
Downtown Phoenix's Irish parade marches down Third Street at 10 a.m. on the Saturday nearest March 17 and empties into an all-day Irish Faire at Hance Park, home of the Irish Cultural Center, with three stages, step dancers, pipers and corned beef. The 44th parade is March 13, 2027; the parade is free and the faire is $20.
Third Street from Oak Street to Margaret T. Hance Park, 1202 N 3rd St, Phoenix · 25 min from Old Town
Scottsdale Art Week
The newest bet on Scottsdale's calendar: a four-day international art and design fair — 120+ galleries from around the world, with Ferrari as marquee partner — that's trying to make March in Scottsdale what December is to Miami. The third edition runs March 18–21, 2027.
WestWorld of Scottsdale
Sun & Sounds (Sunday A'Fair)
Scottsdale's free Sunday concerts on the Civic Center lawn, called Sunday A'Fair since 1988 and renamed Sun & Sounds in 2025, now run on March Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. in the West Bowl: Arizona bands, a bar, artist vendors, dogs and blankets. The 2027 dates had not been posted as of October 2026; 2026 ran March 8 to 29.
Scottsdale Civic Center, West Bowl, 7380 E 2nd St, Scottsdale
Tour de Scottsdale
Arizona's biggest road ride loops the McDowell Mountains from WestWorld each spring — revived in 2024 after a five-year hiatus, now benefiting the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy, with 54- and 28-mile routes for 2027.
WestWorld of Scottsdale (start/finish)
Country Thunder Arizona
Arizona's biggest country music festival: four days and nights on an alfalfa ranch outside Florence, with about 30,000 people a day and a campground that is the real event. The 2027 edition is April 8–11 with Florida Georgia Line on Saturday and Megan Moroney closing Sunday; it is an 80-minute drive from Scottsdale and most people stay.
Canyon Moon Ranch (now listed as AZ Talio Ranch), 20585 E Water Way, Florence · 80 min from Old Town
Maricopa County Fair
The county's own fair, a seven-day spring version of the State Fair on the same Phoenix fairgrounds with $10 admission, a Butler Amusements carnival, 4-H and FFA livestock barns, monster trucks and sea lions, run by a volunteer nonprofit that puts the money into youth scholarships. The 2027 fair runs April 2–11, open Friday to Sunday and Thursday to Sunday, 25 minutes from Old Town.
Arizona State Fairgrounds, 1826 W McDowell Rd (19th Ave & McDowell), Phoenix · 25 min from Old Town
Pat's Run
The Pat Tillman Foundation's 4.2-mile run through Tempe, in honor of the Sun Devil and Cardinal who left the NFL for the Army and was killed in Afghanistan in 2004, ends on the 42-yard line inside Mountain America Stadium. About 30,000 people did it in April 2026, which makes it one of the largest races in the country and the Valley's biggest single morning of running.
Mountain America Stadium, 500 E Veterans Way, Tempe · 20 min from Old Town
Phoenix Film Festival
Arizona's largest film festival: 250-plus independent features, documentaries and shorts over eleven April days on seven screens at Harkins Scottsdale 101, the multiplex at Mayo Boulevard and the Loop 101 that is in Phoenix by a few hundred yards. The International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival runs inside it. The 27th edition is April 1–11, 2027.
Harkins Scottsdale 101, 7000 E Mayo Blvd, Phoenix · 25 min from Old Town
Scottsdale Art Auction
Every April since 2005, three dealers turn the Legacy Gallery building at Scottsdale Road and Main into the biggest Western art sale in the Southwest: 460-plus lots of Remington, Fechin, Will James and the living Cowboy Artists, more than $16 million in 2026, and 30 artist records set in two days. The next sale is April 9–10, 2027.
Legacy Gallery, 7176 E Main St, Old Town
Scottsdale Jazz Festival
An April jazz festival born when a Phoenix bandleader met Herbie Hancock at the first International Jazz Day — now the finale of a week of concerts, moved in 2026 from the Civic Center lawn to Talking Stick Resort's pool stage, with headliners like Spyro Gyra and Kermit Ruffins. The 2027 festival is expected on an April Saturday; the date was not confirmed when we checked in October 2026.
Talking Stick Resort (2026); Scottsdale Civic Center East Bowl (2024–25)
Arizona Restaurant Week
Twice a year, ten days in May and ten in September, hundreds of Arizona restaurants offer three-course menus at $33, $44 or $55, and Scottsdale's dining rooms fill in the two months they would otherwise be empty. Fall 2026 ran September 18–27 with nearly 300 restaurants; spring 2027 is expected in mid-to-late May.
Restaurants across Scottsdale and the state
Phoenix Fan Fusion
Arizona's largest pop-culture convention: three days of celebrity panels, autographs, an exhibit hall, gaming and cosplay at the Phoenix Convention Center, June 4–6, 2027. It began in 2002 as a six-hour comic show with 432 people at an Ahwatukee hotel, was Phoenix Comicon for a decade, and is 25 minutes or one light-rail ride from Scottsdale.
Phoenix Convention Center, 100 N 3rd St, Phoenix · 25 min from Old Town
June Days in Old Town
The City of Scottsdale's answer to the empty first month of summer: thirty-plus June activities and deals across Old Town, from stadium tours and history talks to a frozen-dessert tournament and yoga mornings, built for the people who stay. June Days returns for all of June 2027; the lineup posts in late May.
Old Town Scottsdale — 30+ businesses and venues
Scottsdale Juneteenth
Scottsdale's Juneteenth has been run three ways in seven years: a city celebration from 2020, a free Civic Center festival after the city made it a paid holiday in 2022, dropped in 2025 when the council dissolved its diversity office, and taken over by the Arizona NAACP in 2026. The 2027 dates are not yet announced; expect a Saturday near June 19.
Scottsdale Civic Center and Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts
Scottsdale 4th of July
The city of Scottsdale doesn't run its own fireworks, so since 2014 a privately produced Fourth at WestWorld has filled the gap with an air-conditioned barbecue, a pro rodeo, a slider-eating contest, and the biggest fireworks show inside city limits. The next one is Sunday, July 4, 2027.
WestWorld of Scottsdale
Tempe 4th of July
Tempe's Fourth of July is the Valley's oldest fireworks show, started by the Kiwanis Club of Tempe at Goodwin Stadium in 1952 and famous for the years it was shot off the Mill Avenue bridge over Tempe Town Lake. Since 2025 the City of Tempe runs it at Tempe Diablo Stadium; the 2026 edition sold out at $2.50 a ticket, and the 2027 venue is not yet announced. Twenty-odd minutes from Old Town.
Tempe Diablo Stadium, 2200 W Alameda Dr, Tempe (Tempe Beach Park on Tempe Town Lake in lake years) · 22 min from Old Town
Night Trip Festival
Insomniac's house-and-techno brand put a one-night, club-style festival inside WestWorld's air-conditioned North Hall on August 16, 2025 and again on August 29, 2026, the only large music event Scottsdale hosts in the depth of summer. A 2027 date had not been announced as of October 2026.
WestWorld of Scottsdale, North Hall, 16601 N Pima Rd, Scottsdale
Arabian National Breeder Finals
The people behind February's giant Arabian Horse Show run a second, September show in WestWorld's air-conditioned Equidome: 250-plus horses, $100,000 in prizes, free admission and a Saturday-night party with a live band. The 2026 show is done; the next one is September 15–18, 2027.
WestWorld of Scottsdale, Equidome
West's Most Western Rodeo
Since 2024 Rodeo Scottsdale has staged a second pro rodeo each September in WestWorld's air-conditioned Equidome — three sold-out performances of PRCA bull riding, broncs, and roping in the only month the city otherwise sleeps. The 2026 edition ran September 11–13; the 2027 dates are not yet announced.
WestWorld of Scottsdale, Equidome
Barrett-Jackson Fall Auction
In October 2024 and 2025 Barrett-Jackson ran a second, four-day Scottsdale auction at WestWorld. For 2026 it took its fall sale to the Las Vegas Convention Center instead (September 10–12), and there is no October Scottsdale date on its calendar; the next Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale is January 23–31, 2027.
WestWorld of Scottsdale, 16601 N Pima Rd, Scottsdale
Carefree Enchanted Pumpkin Garden
For five Octobers a four-acre cactus garden in downtown Carefree filled with sculpted pumpkins by Ray Villafane — free, lit at night, with a beer garden under the sundial. It has not run since 2019. This is what it was, and why people still ask.
Carefree Desert Gardens, 101 Easy St, downtown Carefree (by the sundial)
Frys.com Open at Grayhawk
For three Octobers Scottsdale had two PGA Tour stops: the Phoenix Open at the TPC and the Frys.com Open on Grayhawk's public Raptor course, won by Mike Weir, Cameron Beckman and Troy Matteson before Fry's took it to California in 2010. This page also covers the rest of Grayhawk's tournament record, from Greg Norman's 1997 world final to the NCAA finals of 2021–2023.
Raptor Course, Grayhawk Golf Club, 8620 E Thompson Peak Pkwy, Scottsdale
Cave Creek Wild West Days
For about fifteen Novembers, Cave Creek's merchants closed one side of Cave Creek Road to cars, ran a horse-and-wagon parade past the saloons, staged gunfighter competitions at Frontier Town and mutton bustin' at the Buffalo Chip, and called it Wild West Days. The last edition we can document is 2019; the website is dead and the town's 2026 calendar does not list it.
Cave Creek Road, from Frontier Town to Harold's Corral, Cave Creek · 40 min from Old Town
Enchant Christmas
For two holiday seasons, 2022 and 2023, the touring Enchant spectacle turned the Salt River Fields outfield into a ten-acre, four-million-light maze with an ice-skating trail and a 100-foot tree, then left. Its 2026 tour plays Los Angeles, Las Vegas, St. Petersburg and Washington, and the ballpark's holiday slot has gone dark.
Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, 7555 N Pima Rd, Scottsdale
Grand Prix of Scottsdale
For three Novembers, 2015 to 2017, costumed teams raced hand-built 1920s-style mini racers around a half-mile street circuit on the Scottsdale Waterfront, free to watch and absurd on purpose. The fourth edition was postponed in 2018 for a 'barricade shortage' and never ran again.
Scottsdale Waterfront and Goldwater Blvd, Old Town Scottsdale
Ironman Arizona
For twenty years the Valley's full-distance triathlon put 2,000-odd athletes into Tempe Town Lake at dawn, out the Beeline Highway three times and around the lake for a marathon, with the last finishers crossing near midnight. The final Ironman Arizona was November 16, 2025; Ironman says there is no race in Arizona for the foreseeable future, so there is no 2026 edition.
Tempe Beach Park and Tempe Town Lake, 80 W Rio Salado Pkwy, Tempe · 20 min from Old Town
Thunderbird Balloon Classic
A hot air balloon race born in 1975 on the runways of a Glendale business school that had once been an Army airfield. It left campus in 1989, landed at Scottsdale's WestWorld, ranked among that venue's headline events into the 2000s, and was cancelled after 2006. Nobody has written its history. This page lays out what is documented, what isn't, and exactly where the missing pieces are filed.
WestWorld of Scottsdale (Scottsdale years); first held on the Thunderbird campus in Glendale
Carefree Christmas Festival
For a decade a volunteer-run festival hauled 35 to 40 tons of real snow into a cactus garden and ran an electric light parade and fireworks down Easy Street for three free December days. The light parade ended after 2016, the town rebranded it Christmas in Carefree, and since 2021 only a one-night tree lighting remains.
Carefree Desert Gardens and Easy Street, 101 Easy St, downtown Carefree · 38 min from Old Town
Gooding & Company Scottsdale Auction
For thirteen Januaries a white tent beside Scottsdale Fashion Square hosted Car Week's most elegant sale — a $48 million Ferrari-heavy auction that went online in the pandemic and never came back.
A tent at Scottsdale Fashion Square
Native Trails
For a decade and a half, Scottsdale's winter Thursdays and Saturdays had a ritual: free noontime performances of Native American song and dance at the Civic Center, presented by the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. It quietly ended in the late 2010s — and left a template its successor built on.
Scottsdale Civic Center
Russo and Steele Auction
For twenty Januaries, 2001 to 2020, Russo and Steele was Scottsdale Car Week's rowdy hometown alternative: an 'auction in the round' for muscle cars and European sports iron, founded by Drew and Josephine Alcazar, that survived a tent-flattening storm in 2010 and lost its venue in a 2019 lawsuit before going quiet after its 20th sale.
Scottsdale Rd & Loop 101 (2001–2016, 2020) and Salt River Fields at Talking Stick (2017–2019)
Street Eats Food Truck Festival
For eleven winters the lots and lawn at Salt River Fields filled with 55 to 70 food trucks, $2 samples, eating contests and two stages, presented by Phoenix New Times. The last edition we can document ran January 28–29, 2023; no 2024, 2025 or 2026 festival was announced.
Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, 7555 N Pima Rd, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
Scottsdale ATP Tennis Tournament
For nineteen tournaments between 1986 and 2005, Scottsdale had a stop on the men's pro tennis tour, held at the Scottsdale Princess from 1987 on and best known as the Franklin Templeton Classic. John McEnroe won the first one, Ivan Lendl beat Stefan Edberg in the 1989 final, and Andre Agassi won it four times. Jim Courier, Mark Philippoussis and Lleyton Hewitt took titles too, and in 2005 Wayne Arthurs became the oldest first-time winner in tour history here. Tennis Channel bought the event that year and moved it to Las Vegas. The Princess also hosted a women's tour event, the Arizona Classic, in 1990 and 1991.
Stadium court, Scottsdale Princess resort, 7575 E. Princess Dr (1987–2005); a temporary stadium in 1986
Scottsdale National Indian Arts Exhibition
For about fifteen winters, 1962 to 1976, a juried show at a Scottsdale Road hotel drew Native artists from across the country, from Acoma potters to Oklahoma painters, and handed Charles Loloma first prize seven years running. In 1971 the Arizona Republic called it the largest and finest Indian arts show in the world. This is what can be pieced together, and what still can't.
Executive House Arizonian hotel (now The Scott Resort), 4925 N. Scottsdale Road
Sunshine Festival
In 1951, a farm town of 2,000 people threw a winter festival to sell its only unlimited resource — sunshine. Renamed Parada del Sol two years later, it became the founding act of every Scottsdale event that followed.
Downtown Scottsdale (now Old Town)
Fountain Hills Fine Art & Wine Affaire
For eighteen springs Thunderbird Artists, the festival company based in Fountain Hills, ran a 125-artist juried fine-art and wine show on the north side of the Avenue of the Fountains each March, a boutique counterpart to the chamber's enormous Fountain Festival. The last edition we can document was March 4–6, 2022; the show is absent from the producer's calendars since.
Avenue of the Fountains, north side between La Montana Dr and Saguaro Blvd, Fountain Hills · 30 min from Old Town
National Festival of the West
Mary Brown started the National Festival of the West in 1991 at Rawhide, and for two decades it was Scottsdale's March gathering of the cowboy West: a Western film festival, cowboy poetry, a chuck-wagon cook-off, a Mountain Man rendezvous, gunfight re-enactors, a big Western trade show and three stages of cowboy and country music. It moved to WestWorld in 2001, back to Rawhide in 2005 just before that town left for Chandler, and was at WestWorld again by 2010, drawing Michael Martin Murphey, Larry Gatlin, Lynn Anderson and stars of the old TV Westerns. Brown handed it on in 2011, and it appears to have ended around 2013.
Rawhide Western Town (1991–2000 and 2005), then WestWorld of Scottsdale (2001–2004, and again by 2010)
Phoenix Lights Festival
PHXLIGHTS is the Valley's spring electronic music festival, run by Relentless Beats since 2015 and named for the lights seen over Phoenix in March 1997. It has moved between Rawhide, Wild Horse Pass and Phoenix Raceway; the last edition was April 4–5, 2025 at Rawhide in Chandler, it did not run in 2026, and as of October 2026 no 2027 date is posted.
Rawhide Event Center, 5700 W North Loop Rd, Chandler (the 2025 site) · 35 min from Old Town
Scottsdale Arts Festival
For almost fifty years the Scottsdale Arts Festival filled the Civic Center lawns for three days each March with juried artists, two music stages and food. The 49th, in March 2019, was the last held in person. The 50th went online in 2020, the 51st was canceled in 2021, and since 2023 the festival's web address has forwarded to Scottsdale Arts' Civic Center events page.
Scottsdale Civic Center
Nirvana Food & Wine
For three Aprils, 2017 to 2019, Sanctuary Camelback Mountain's executive chef Beau MacMillan threw a resort-wide festival of chef parties on the north face of Camelback: Robert Irvine, Scott Conant, Todd English and Stephanie Izard, $150 Champagne-and-fried-chicken nights, a rosé brunch at the Wrigley Mansion. The 2020 edition was postponed by COVID and never rescheduled, and it has not returned.
Sanctuary Camelback Mountain, 5700 E McDonald Dr, Paradise Valley · 15 min from Old Town
Scottsdale Culinary Festival
For four decades the Scottsdale Culinary Festival was the Valley's big spring food event, a volunteer-run fundraiser for the Center for the Arts that grew into a week of chef dinners, wine tastings and a two-day picnic. The last one ran in April 2019; a 2020 relaunch was lost to the pandemic, and in 2023 the organizers said it would not return.
Scottsdale Civic Center, plus dinners at Valley resorts and restaurants
The Tradition at Desert Mountain
For thirteen springs one of the senior tour's majors was played on a Jack Nicklaus course in the far north of Scottsdale, and Nicklaus won it four times. The Tradition left Desert Mountain after 2001, spent 2002 at Superstition Mountain, and now lives in Alabama. This is the Scottsdale chapter: the winners, the snow, and what the record still doesn't say.
Cochise Course, Golf Club at Desert Mountain
Mighty Mud Mania
For 44 summers the City of Scottsdale dug pits in the grass at Chaparral Park, filled them with tons of mud and let thousands of kids dive in. It began in 1976 as a stain-remover stunt, outlived the sponsor by four decades, and quietly ended after 2019. If you grew up in Scottsdale, you probably lost a shoe in it.
Chaparral Park, 5401 N. Hayden Road
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“Gone but not forgotten” entries cover events that shaped Scottsdale but no longer run. They’re kept here as local history.