Big Hat Days opens in Old Town Clovis, kicking off rodeo season

Big Hat Days opened Saturday in Old Town Clovis, and the Clovis Chamber of Commerce said the 88th annual festival again ranked as the largest two-day event in Central California, with more than 140,000 visitors and hundreds of craft and food booths.

That scale is what has made Big Hat Days more than a street fair for Clovis. The festival has grown from a small street celebration that began in 1938 into a two-day spring anchor that fills the historic core of the city and sets the tone for Rodeo Month.

Visit Fresno County said the event returned to the heart of Old Town Clovis in April 2026 on behalf of the Chamber, reinforcing how closely Big Hat Days is tied to the city’s identity and its western heritage. YourCentralValley reported that the opening day in Old Town Clovis led into the rodeo and highlighted the Central Valley’s western roots, a connection that gives the festival its hometown pull year after year.

For Old Town businesses, the weekend matters because the crowd is the product. More than 140,000 visitors moving through the streets creates a short burst of exposure for merchants, food sellers and nearby storefronts that depend on spring foot traffic. With hundreds of craft and food booths spread through the area, the festival functions as a concentrated market as much as a community celebration.

Big Hat Days also serves as the unofficial opening bell for one of Clovis’ busiest cultural stretches. The 105th Clovis Rodeo was set for April 23-26, 2026, giving the city a two-week span in which western tradition, downtown commerce and local tourism all converge. In that sense, Big Hat Days is not just a nostalgic nod to Clovis history. It is a recurring economic engine that keeps Old Town visible, busy and central to the city’s spring calendar.