MIBBB Fest brings back flying disc dog tournament in Des Moines
Flying discs and full-speed catches return to Des Moines as more than 20 Summit Disc Dogs teams turn a UFO-era legend into a real dog-sport showcase.
The discs will be flying again at the Des Moines Field House, where hypercharged dogs will leap, sprint and snatch catches out of the air as MIBBB Fest brings back Sparky’s Revenge Flying Disc Dog Tournament. The free, family-friendly event is set for Sunday, June 21, 2026, at 11 a.m., with more than 20 competitive teams from Summit Disc Dogs expected to fill the field.
This is not just spectacle for spectacle’s sake. The tournament returned to MIBBB Fest after debuting in 2025, and it has quickly become one of the festival’s most crowd-grabbing draws because it puts elite canine athleticism right in the middle of a playful local story. Steve Edmiston, one of the festival’s co-founders, put the joke at the center of it: after nearly eight decades, “the dogs get to go after the flying discs.”
The format is fast and deliberately bracket-like, built around timed pitch-and-catch rounds that reward speed, placement and clean catches. A halftime skills exhibition will add advanced techniques and freestyle routines to the mix, giving spectators a look at the tricks and timing that separate casual backyard games from serious disc dog work. The festival will also include a local pet-and-people merchandise vendor and a community partner in Prison Pet Partnership of Gig Harbor.
Behind the fun is a sport with real structure. Summit Disc Dogs comes in as the March Season 2026 World Champion in the K9 Toss & Fetch Worldwide League, a reminder that many of these handlers are competing in an organized circuit, not just tossing a toy for applause. K9 Frisbee Toss & Fetch says the 2026 season includes seven five-week seasons, plus World Championship Week in September, and its 90:/5 format uses two 90-second rounds per week with the five highest scoring catches counted. Teams also must play at least three weeks in any season during the prior 12 months to qualify for the 2026 Worldwide Championship.
The event’s name reaches back to the Maury Island Incident, the 1947 Pacific Northwest flying-saucer tale that local UFO-history sources tie to the early “men in black” mythology. Historical accounts place the original claims on June 21, 1947, exactly 79 years before this tournament date, and the legend’s long, strange afterlife gives Sparky’s Revenge its bite: a joke, a reenactment and a legitimate disc dog showcase all at once. When the dogs launch into those first airborne catches at the Field House, the old story gets rewritten in the only way MIBBB Fest knows how.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
