Texas Events

State Fair of Texas, Dallas

25 September to 18 October 2026 at Fair Park, open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday: the fair held since 1886, the auto show since 1913, Big Tex since 1952, over two million visitors, and a new fried food every year.

Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

2 to 21 March 2027 at NRG Stadium: the largest rodeo and livestock show in the world, a record 2,735,695 people in 2025, opened by the trail rides, the parade and the World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest, with concerts every night.

SXSW, Austin

15 to 21 March 2027, as a campus of downtown venues while the convention centre is rebuilt to 2029: music, film and television, and innovation conferences and festivals founded in 1987, badges from $995 to $1,495.

Fiesta San Antonio

Ten days in April, since 1891: the Battle of Flowers and Flambeau parades, the River Parade on the River Walk, and more than a hundred events for three million people commemorating the Alamo and San Jacinto.

Bluebonnet season

March and April, when the state flower lines the highways of the Hill Country and Central Texas; the bats return to Bracken Cave and Congress Avenue Bridge in March and fly until October.

Juneteenth, Galveston

19 June, the federal holiday born in the city where General Granger's order freed Texas's enslaved people in 1865.

Whooping cranes, Aransas

November to March, when the Texas flock winters in the refuge's marshes and is watched from tour boats.

The fair, rodeo and SXSW dates and prices are the operators' own; Fiesta's, the cranes' and the bats' seasons are the encyclopaedia's.