"Join us at 12:30pm at the Fair on Saturday to toast to our history and to the generations to follow." That line from the welcome page of this year's festival program is the only new ritual added for the 30th anniversary. The toast happens at Roberta McKercher Park in Hailey, not on Main Street in Ketchum. That's a fair hint about where the festival actually spends its time.
The Big Sheep Parade on Sunday, October 11, at noon in Ketchum is the part everyone photographs. It comes at the end of a five-day festival that runs October 7 through 11, with an early dinner on Tuesday the 6th. If you go through the printed schedule one day at a time, most of that week happens within a short drive of downtown Hailey.
The Count Behind the Parade
From Tuesday through Saturday, the 2026 program lists 33 scheduled sessions at Hailey addresses and 12 in Ketchum and Sun Valley combined. That count leaves out the Festival Welcome Center hours.
| Day | Hailey sessions | Ketchum and Sun Valley sessions | What anchors Hailey's day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tue, Oct 6 | 1 | 0 | Farm to Table Dinner at The Sage School |
| Wed, Oct 7 | 2 | 1 | Cooking With Lamb at St. Charles Church, dinner at The Sage School |
| Thu, Oct 8 | 9 | 4 | Wool Fest workshops, Ck's Real Food, cheese making |
| Fri, Oct 9 | 8 | 5 | Sheepdog Trials open, Wool Fest across three venues |
| Sat, Oct 10 | 13 | 2 | Folklife Fair, Lamb Fest, Trials, Wool Fest |
Ketchum's sessions come in the evening and at the very end of the week. Friday's For the Love of Lamb and the Sheep Tales Gathering are in Ketchum, and so is Saturday's 7:30 p.m. concert with Molly in the Mineshaft at The Argyros. Hailey hosts the daytime. The festival notes that details are still evolving and subject to change, so check the official schedule before you build a day around one session.
The first meal of the week is local too. The Tuesday, October 6 Farm to Table Dinner with American Lamb at The Sage School, 1810 Quigley Farm Road, is billed for "Early Birds and Locals," the evening before the festival officially opens. The same dinner is on the schedule again Wednesday and Thursday.
Bullion Street Is the Wool Fest's Busiest Door
Wool Fest is the hands-on part of the festival, and its busiest venue is Emmanuel Episcopal Church at 101 2nd Ave. S. Every listing for that church adds the same note: enter off Bullion St. Over Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the church hosts 11 workshops. Jan Bittenbender of McCall teaches The Coolest Hatband and Welt a Bowl. Tammy Jordon of Lincoln, Montana, runs needle-felted pumpkins and snowmen. Sylvia Smith of Kalispell teaches spinning-wheel classes and Fiber Prep Basics. Doris Florig of Avery, California, leads Natural Dyes from the Forest and a Saturday afternoon called Make A Sock Monkey.
The rest of Wool Fest stays within a few downtown addresses:
- Sun Valley Museum of Art, 314 2nd Ave., Hailey: Becky Utecht of Ogilvie, Minnesota, teaches Block-printed Wrist Warmers and an Introduction to Skinnfell. Tammy Jordon teaches felted journals, Drop and Turkish Spindles, and a Needle Felted Ugly Sweater or Mittens session.
- The Grange, 609 S. 3rd Ave.: Anna Anderson of Superior, Montana, teaches nuno felting on Friday, Power Tool Felting an Artistic Scarf that afternoon, and Forest Folks plus a Wine Bottle Gift Bag on Saturday.
- The Fabric Granary, 122 S. Main St.: Hailey's Susan Coons teaches a Peaceful Lamb Ornament on Friday and an America's 250th Celebration project on Saturday.
The cooking classes follow the same pattern. Chef Sydney Liepshutz of In the Kitchen with Sydney teaches Cooking With Lamb on Wednesday at St. Charles Church, 311 S. 1st Ave. On Thursday morning, Chef Chris Kastner holds his class at his own Ck's Real Food, 320 N Main Street. That afternoon, fromager Kendall Russell of Lark Meadow Farms teaches cheese making in the St. Charles Borromeo parish hall. For most of the week, the festival's teaching happens on 1st, 2nd and 3rd Avenues and on Main Street in Hailey.
Buttercup Road, Friday Through Sunday
The National Point Qualifying Sheepdog Trials are the longest-running event of the week. They go from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on October 9 and 10 and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. for Sunday's finals at 2400 Buttercup Road. The finals overlap the Ketchum parade, so you'll have to choose between them on Sunday morning.
The practical details for the field:
- Getting there: Take McKercher Boulevard east from Main Street to Buttercup Road, turn north, and follow the signs and volunteers to parking.
- What it costs: Entry and parking are bundled per vehicle per day. It's $10 for a car with one person and $20 for a car with two or more passengers. Online sales close October 6. After that, you pay the parking attendants on site, and the festival says cash is best for Trials entry.
- What to bring: A lawn chair, since there's no seating. Coolers aren't allowed, and both the accessible and general parking areas are a short walk from the field.
- Your dog: Leashed dogs are allowed at the Trials. This is the only major festival event where that's true.
The dog rule affects how you plan Saturday. Dogs aren't allowed at the Folklife Fair or the Big Sheep Parade. If your dog comes along for the day, the Trials are the stop to bring them to, and the Fair is the stop to leave them home for.
Saturday at Roberta McKercher Park
The Sheep Folklife Fair is free and runs 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, October 10. It brings more than 80 vendors, sheep camps on display, spinning and weaving demonstrations, and Kids' Fluff crafts all day. Sky Ranch Miniature Horse & Donkey Rescue, a Hailey organization, is bringing "Curly" and "Cooper" on leash. On Saturday, the Festival Welcome Center moves from The Argyros to the Fair. That's another sign of where the festival centers itself.
Saturday at the park, hour by hour:
- 10:00 a.m.: The Fair opens. Shearing demonstrations start and repeat every half hour until 3:30.
- 10:30 a.m.: Music begins on the stage. Each cultural group performs twice in rotation, so you'll hear all of them if you stay a few hours.
- 11:00 a.m.: Lamb Fest opens and runs until 4 p.m. "or until the food runs out."
- 12:30 p.m.: The 30th-anniversary toast.
- 1:00 to 1:30 p.m.: The afternoon Wool Fest sessions start downtown at The Fabric Granary, Emmanuel Episcopal, The Grange and the museum's Hailey space.
Lamb Fest's lineup is mostly from the valley. Better Ask Brenda is serving lamb sliders and ice cream. KB's Burrito has lamb tacos and lamb quesadas, and La Parrilla is bringing breakfast burritos, lamb tortas and cheese burritos. Sawtooth Brewery has Moroccan lamb hand-helds, and South Valley Pizzeria is making lamb pizza.
The Fair page doesn't publish a parking plan. The regular Mountain Rides Valley Route is fare-free and connects Bellevue, Hailey, Ketchum and Sun Valley, with a stop at Main & McKercher. Mountain Rides starts a new schedule on October 5. On the weekend preview schedule, southbound buses stop at Main & McKercher hourly from 7:28 a.m. to 10:58 p.m. Use that version rather than a timetable saved from September.
What Moved Since Last Year
The calendar shifted by one day. The 2025 festival ran October 8 through 12, and this year's runs October 7 through 11. The Fair is still on Saturday at Roberta McKercher Park. The Saturday-night concert changed from Sheep Bridge Jumpers in 2025 to Molly in the Mineshaft this year. The program already lists dates for the 31st festival, October 6 through 10, 2027, one day earlier again.
Some of downtown has changed since the last festival, too. Jane Drussel's Jane's Artifacts closed on April 30 after four decades. First Lite now occupies that storefront at 106 S. Main Street, a short walk from The Fabric Granary's workshop room at 122 S. Main.
The Same Blocks, Two More Times This Month
After the sheep leave, Hailey's October calendar comes back to the same few downtown streets twice more.
On Monday, October 26, at 4:30 p.m., the city holds a ribbon cutting for the Bullion Pathway. Mayor Martha Burke's October newsletter calls it a "signature project" for bike and pedestrian safety from Main Street to Hop Porter Park. The Idaho Mountain Express has reported the details. It's a 12-foot-wide multi-use path along West Bullion Street that narrows to 8 feet along the park frontage. Disease-resistant hybrid elms line the stretch from Main Street to the park, and honey locusts go in front of Hop Porter. The project costs about $1.5 million and is mainly funded by the Hailey Urban Renewal Agency. Separately, the Hop Porter Park stage got a renovation of roughly $250,000, with a new roof, support structure and concrete wall. The plantings include May Night salvia, echinacea, blue oak grass and catmint. Landscape architect Mark Sindell of GGLO told the Express they will be "really nice for pollinators and for people year round."
Four days later, on Friday, October 30, Halloween Hoopla brings costumed characters to Main Street from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. The Key Club costume contest runs from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. at the Hailey Library.
From the Sage School dinner on October 6 to the Hoopla on October 30, Hailey's October calendar runs through downtown Hailey and the field off Buttercup Road.
If you're planning your week around the Trials, the Fair, or a Wool Fest seat on Bullion Street, and you'd like a local who has watched this festival grow for nearly two decades to compare notes with, Erika Rixon is happy to talk about Hailey in October, sheep included. Let's Connect.