Albany County Wyoming Laramie Jubilee Days Festival
For nine days each July, Laramie marks Wyoming statehood once downtown and once out at the county fairgrounds. Laramie Jubilee Days is a week-long celebration of Wyoming statehood, built around PRCA rodeo performances, bull riding, a carnival, a parade, free downtown music and contests. It is not a county fair, and no layer of its own record treats it as one.
A Celebration in Two Settings
The festival’s own site divides its world into rodeo, downtown, carnival and parade. Downtown Laramie carries the street festival side, from carnival and parade to chili cook-off, jalapeño contest and pancake breakfast. The Albany County Fairgrounds carries the arena side. No single downtown street address is published by the festival, and none should be invented; downtown is simply downtown in its schedule. The fairgrounds are a named place the festival does not own.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Laramie Jubilee Days, a week-long celebration of Wyoming statehood |
| Host city | Laramie, Wyoming, which is also the Albany County seat |
| Organiser | Laramie Jubilee Days, Inc. in agreement and letter layers, with a committee form in City layers |
| Main venues | Downtown Laramie and the Albany County Fairgrounds, rented from the Albany County Fair Board |
| Season | The week around July 10, Wyoming Statehood Day, in early-to-mid July |
| 2026 edition | Saturday, July 4 to Sunday, July 12, 2026, in the festival’s own schedule |
| 2027 edition | July 3 to July 11, 2027, in the festival’s own homepage header |
| Admission shape | No single gate; downtown items are printed free, the carnival varies, and three fairgrounds events carry 2026 prices |
The Seat, the Host and a Name That Misleads
Laramie is the seat of Albany County, proven from the Wyoming Statutes alone, whose county-seat list reads, in its first entry, Albany county, at Laramie. The same list supplies the trap this title must avoid: a later entry names Laramie county, at Cheyenne. Laramie County is a different county altogether, seated at Cheyenne, and the city of Laramie has never sat inside it. Here the seat genuinely does host, but that is proven from the festival’s own record placing every edition in Laramie, never assumed from the seat.
The organiser carries two published name forms, recorded unmerged. Laramie Jubilee Days, Inc., a Wyoming non-profit corporation, is the form in the Albany County Fair Board’s May 2024 agreement, which names the corporation as renter of Fair Board facilities for the festival’s rodeos and related events for 2024, 2025 and 2026, and the same form signed a 2025 City Council letter about the Calcutta, under the hand of Shawn Faxon as vice chairman in that layer. City layers instead speak of a Laramie Jubilee Days Committee, which the City supports with staff teams for permits, logistics, inspections and city crews. Support is not authorship: the City is a coordinating partner in its layers, never the organiser, the University of Wyoming partners on the shuttle and nothing more, and the Fair Board is landlord only. Fair Board documents spell the board’s office address several ways, unmerged, the fullest agenda-layer form being 3510 South Third Street, Laramie, WY 82070.
From Equality Days to a Week-Long Jubilee
City of Laramie layers state the founding directly: in 1940, the first Laramie Jubilee Days celebration was held to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Wyoming’s statehood on July 10, 1890. Then known as Equality Days, that first celebration included a fiddlers’ contest, chariot races and a giant parade. The following year it turned into a three-day celebration, renamed Laramie Jubilee Days, and grew over the years into a week of street dances, parades and rodeo.
For a useful comparison, see the Windham County Vermont Guilford Fair Festival for another county festival.
A WyoHistory layer describes the 1940 celebration re-enacting the verdict handed down seventy years earlier by the famous all-woman jury, with a Miss Equality crowned and horse races on the west side of town. Neither 1890 nor 1868 is a festival founding.
How long the run has lasted, the layers answer three incompatible ways. The cancelled 2020 event is billed as the eightieth edition in a Wyoming news layer, the 2021 return as celebrating eighty years in the livestock press, and a 2025 City layer bills the run at eighty-five years. All three are billing forms only, and the direct 1940 statement stands on its own.
The one genuine break is documented precisely. A Governor’s and Health Department release dated May 27, 2020 records that six of Wyoming’s largest rodeo and event producers, this festival among them, collectively decided their events would not take place in 2020; a news layer adds that the festival had been scheduled for July 4 to July 12 that year and names Guy Warpness, the corporation’s designated representative in the 2024 agreement layer, as chairman in the cancellation layers. The event returned in 2021, kicking off on July 3 in downtown Laramie in the livestock paper’s report. A single-year cancellation followed by a held return is an interruption, never a discontinuation.
What to Expect in the 2026 Edition
Arena Days at the Fairgrounds
The 2026 schedule opens quietly at the fairgrounds, with three free arena fixtures on successive days: the Shirley Lilley Memorial Kids Horse Show at nine in the morning on Saturday, July 4, the Ranch Rodeo at ten on Sunday, July 5, and the Little Pokes Kids Rodeo Series at three in the afternoon on Monday, July 6. Junior Bull Riding follows at seven on Thursday, July 9, and the closing PRCA Rodeo performances run at seven on Saturday, July 11 and half past one on Sunday, July 12; a further PRCA entry is also printed against the evening of July 12, and that duplication stands as printed, not reconciled here. The schedule’s weekday group-headings conflict with its printed dates in places, so every item here is fenced by its printed date, never by its heading.
Downtown Days and the Carnival
Downtown carries the festival’s social weight in 2026. The carnival occupies four days, Wednesday, July 8 through Saturday, July 11. Around it cluster the free fixtures: the Joe Dowler Memorial bull riding Calcutta at Bud’s Bar at six on Wednesday, July 8, a venue the 2026 schedule names without an address; folklórico dancers, a norteña band and the Jalapeño Eating Contest at half past five on Thursday, July 9; and on Saturday, July 11, the Betty Kiser Memorial chili cook-off from eight in the morning and the parade at half past nine, with downtown music also printed free that day.
Statehood Day, Friday, July 10, 2026
The week’s hinge is the anniversary itself. Friday, July 10, 2026 opens with a free pancake breakfast downtown from six to nine. The PRCA and WPRA Slack runs free at the fairgrounds from seven, and the Wyoming Statehood Day Celebration fills the Wyoming Territorial Prison from nine until noon, also free. The carnival then runs from noon to midnight downtown, music plays free across the day, and the evening belongs to Mr. T Xtreme Bull Riding at the fairgrounds at seven.
Planning Your Visit
Dates First, and Only by Year
Each year’s span stands in its own layer and travels nowhere. The festival’s own schedule fixes 2026 from Saturday, July 4 to Sunday, July 12, and its homepage header already carries July 3 to July 11 for 2027. A City layer gives July 5 to July 13 for 2025, within which a visitor layer places that year’s parade on Saturday, July 12 and its carnival from July 9 to July 12.
What Each Part Costs in 2026
There is no single gate price published by the festival. In the official 2026 schedule, the downtown components are printed free: parade, downtown live music, chili cook-off, jalapeño contest, pancake breakfast and Calcutta. The carnival is printed with the single word Varies on each of its four days, left exactly there, never converted into a number. Only three components carry prices, all in 2026 only: Junior Bull Riding costs eight dollars for adults, with children from birth through age twelve free but still requiring a ticket, exactly as the schedule prints it; Mr. T Xtreme Bull Riding costs twenty-seven dollars for adults and eight dollars for a child; and each PRCA Rodeo performance costs twenty-two dollars for adults and eight dollars for a child. No official price exists on this record for 2024, 2025, 2021 or 2027, and resale-platform ranges quoted elsewhere are excluded entire.
Getting Between the Two Halves
The documented transport fact is a shuttle, narrower than visitors assume. The festival’s shuttle page says the festival is partnered with the University of Wyoming to provide free shuttle transportation Thursday through Saturday, among stops named Fairgrounds, SafeRide and Parking. Every time there is estimated and subject to change, and the service is never a daily one.
Parking, Camping and the Honest Gaps
Parking money is unverified for every year: no parking price or term appears in any first-party or City layer on this record, and the City’s generic permit rules are city mechanics in their layer, never festival terms. Camping is unverified entire, public and exhibitor alike. A template-layer claim that the fairgrounds offer camper hookups comes from an excluded source and is not used here, and camping forms belonging to a different Laramie event at the Territorial Prison in September are that event’s paperwork.
A Sample 2026 Week, Day by Day
- Open at the fairgrounds on Saturday, July 4, 2026, with the free Kids Horse Show at nine, then give Sunday to the free Ranch Rodeo at ten and Monday afternoon to the Little Pokes riders at three.
- Build Thursday, July 9 around the jalapeño contest at half past five downtown, then cross to the fairgrounds for Junior Bull Riding at seven, where every child through age twelve needs a ticket even though entry is free.
- Give Friday, July 10 to Statehood Day entire: breakfast downtown at six, slack at seven, the Territorial Prison celebration from nine to noon, carnival from noon, and bull riding at seven.
- Finish on Saturday, July 11 with the chili cook-off at eight, the parade at half past nine and the PRCA performance at seven, saving Sunday’s half-past-one PRCA show as a softer farewell.
Not This Festival
Comparisons here are mostly corrections. The Albany County Fair shares the very same fairgrounds yet belongs to a different organiser, the Albany County Fair Board, and runs from July 22 to August 1 in 2026, beginning some ten days after Jubilee Days ends; shared ground is a landlord-and-tenant fact, and neither event’s dates, contests or prices may enter the other’s record in either direction. Cheyenne Frontier Days is staged at Cheyenne, in Laramie County, from July 17 to July 26, 2026, and no layer found makes Jubilee Days its preliminary, feeder or satellite. The Laramie County Fair and the Wyoming State Fair at Douglas are likewise separate events entire. Freedom Has A Birthday, Laramie’s separate July 4 celebration at Washington Park, and Laramie Brewfest, a separate downtown event, are not this festival, and neither are the town of Albany, Wyoming or Albany County, New York.
Checklist
- Anchor planning to the 2026 span, July 4 to July 12, and treat the July 3 to July 11, 2027 header as a headline to confirm nearer the time.
- Budget only for the three priced 2026 arena events, and keep carnival spending unplanned, because the festival prints that cost simply as varying.
- Collect a ticket for a free child at Junior Bull Riding anyway, since the 2026 schedule makes the ticket the condition of the free entry.
- Ride the free shuttle only between Thursday and Saturday, noting the last Fairgrounds departure at twenty minutes to ten.
- Leave parking and camping arrangements open, because neither a parking price nor any campsite term for this festival exists on its own record.
Beyond the Festival Grounds
The festival leaves a visitor in a county seat with its own layered story. Courthouse layers place the Albany County Courthouse at 525 Grand Avenue, Laramie, serving a county created on December 16, 1868, whose lawmakers chose Laramie City as seat. The Wyoming Territorial Prison, which lends one free morning to the 2026 celebration, also hosts different events in other seasons, and sharing that venue merges nothing.
Why a Statehood Week Endures
This festival celebrates a date, the tenth of July, 1890, when Wyoming entered the Union. Its endurance rests on a civic machine rather than a single promoter: a non-profit corporation renting public grounds, a city lending crews and permits, a university running shuttle buses, and volunteers staging everything from a children’s horse show to a chili cook-off named for a neighbour. The billings may disagree on the count, yet the layers agree on the thing itself, a free street party wrapped around arena sport, returning each July to the seat of Albany County.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Laramie Jubilee Days the Albany County Fair?
No. The county fair is the Fair Board’s own event, at the same grounds from July 22 to August 1 in 2026, while Jubilee Days runs under its own corporation and committee forms and ended on July 12 that year.
Does one ticket cover the whole festival?
No single ticket exists on the festival’s own record. Downtown components in 2026 were printed free and the carnival as varying, and only Junior Bull Riding, Mr. T Xtreme Bull Riding and the PRCA performances carried the 2026 prices set out above.
Can I camp at the fairgrounds during the festival?
Nothing on the festival’s own record says so. Camping is unverified entire, public and exhibitor alike, the only hookup claim in circulation comes from an excluded template layer, and camping paperwork attached to the Territorial Prison belongs to a separate September event there.
Which Laramie is the county seat, and of which county?
The city of Laramie is the seat of Albany County, under the Wyoming Statutes’ first county-seat entry. Laramie County is a separate county seated at Cheyenne, so a Cheyenne rodeo is never an Albany County event.
What to Expect From the Next Albany County Wyoming Laramie Jubilee Days Festival
How often is Albany County Wyoming Laramie Jubilee Days Festival held?
It is an annual festival, staged once each summer across nine days in early-to-mid July. The documented spans run from July 6 to July 14 in 2024, July 5 to July 13 in 2025 and July 4 to July 12 in 2026, each fenced to its own layer.
When is the next Albany County Wyoming Laramie Jubilee Days Festival?
The festival’s own homepage header already publishes the next edition as July 3 to July 11, 2027. No prices, programme lines or shuttle details for 2027 appear on this record, and nothing beyond those dates is yet published.
Will the dates change?
They drift within July as the calendar turns, because the week is built around the fixed point of Statehood Day on July 10. Expect the 2027 edition in that same frame, its exact shape settled only by the festival’s own schedule.
Closing
Come for the parade and the PRCA arena nights, stay for a statehood morning inside a territorial prison, and let the gaps in the record stay gaps, never mistaking the fairgrounds’ next tenant for the festival itself.
