Jamestown’s kite festival returns for free family weekend at Meidinger Park
Meidinger Park Field became Jamestown’s kite hub again as the free three-day festival marked its 32nd year, drawing families and flyers from across North America.
The 32nd annual Kite Festival once again turned Meidinger Park Field into a shared weekend gathering place for Jamestown families and visiting kite enthusiasts, keeping one of the city’s most recognizable summer traditions free and open to everyone.
The festival ran May 29-31 at Meidinger Park Field, 17th Ave. SW and 10th St. SW, with official hours listed from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Jamestown Parks and Recreation and the Wings on Strings Kite Club organized the event, which has grown from a local hobby gathering into a regional draw that North Dakota tourism says attracts flyers from across the United States and Canada.
That reach has helped the festival stay on family calendars year after year. The event’s appeal is rooted in its mix of hands-on activities and spectacle: kids’ kite-building workshops, a vendor show, a Kids Zone with games and jumbo coloring sheets, kite demonstrations, candy drops, prizes and music. The 2026 Jamestown Summer Activity Guide also added a Mobile Literacy & Learning Lab to Saturday’s lineup, giving the park even more of a community-center feel for the day.
Parents and children had plenty to do without paying admission, and the format kept the weekend anchored in the city’s public park system rather than a ticketed venue. For Jamestown, that matters. The festival brings traffic to Meidinger Park Field, but it also reinforces how the parks department uses open space to build events that feel local while still drawing visitors from beyond Stutsman County.
The festival’s staying power reflects a longer history that began in the late 1990s, when co-founder Mike Gee said he and Chris Dodson started it after a shared interest in kites. Organizers later described the event as heading into its 28th year in 2022 and its 30th annual edition in 2024, showing how quickly a modest competition became a fixture on the city’s summer schedule.
Past editions have added lighted night flying when weather allowed, along with inflatable air games, concessions and door prizes. Sponsors have also played a visible role, with previous festival materials thanking the Knights of Columbus, Jamestown Tourism, Midco and Applied Digital for support. The annual return of the kite festival has become part of Jamestown’s Memorial Day weekend identity, tying a free park event to the broader seasonal shift that brings families, tourists and longtime residents outdoors together.
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