Douglas County Fairgrounds to host Colorado 150 Freedom Festival in 2026

More than 2,000 people are expected to converge on the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock for a June 26-27 Freedom Festival that organizers are positioning as both a Colorado 150 celebration and a national 250th anniversary event, putting local traffic, parking and nearby businesses in the spotlight.

The two-day gathering will take place at 500 Fairgrounds Drive, just east of I-25 and Plum Creek Parkway at Exit 181, a location that turns the fairgrounds into a visible gateway for visitors coming into Castle Rock. Douglas County says the fairgrounds host more than 800 events each year and are designed for civic, recreational, entertainment, business and youth activities, a mix that reflects the county’s shift from its rural agricultural roots to a more urbanized role in the Denver metro area.

Rocky Mountain Voice says the festival will include more than 30 speakers and a lineup built around general admission to all weekend events. The schedule also includes a rodeo, a Family Fun Fest with food trucks, the Back the Blue Bash, the Mountain Majesty Gala and a drone show. Organizers say tickets are now live for the event.

Among the speakers already announced are Nick Shirley, listed as the first speaker and keynote for the Mountain Majesty Gala, and Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, who is scheduled to speak on the main stage Saturday afternoon and deliver the invocation later that night at the gala. Rocky Mountain Voice also says DataRepublican is among the featured speakers, while House Speaker Mike Johnson, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are expected to appear.

The festival lands in the middle of a broader statewide push to mark 2026 as a dual anniversary year. Colorado’s official America 250-Colorado 150 commemoration says the year marks both the state’s sesquicentennial and the nation’s semiquincentennial, and Gov. Jared Polis has directed state agencies to fold those goals into their 2026 planning. State leaders have also set aside a separate Colorado Day celebration at the Capitol on Aug. 1, 2026.

For Castle Rock, the Freedom Festival is more than a weekend schedule. It places Douglas County squarely in the conversation about who gets to shape Colorado’s civic and political identity in its 150th year, while bringing a concentrated burst of visitors into one of the county’s busiest corridors.