Ozarks at Large’s Jack Travis reports that Fayetteville's Upper Ramble will see more action this year, and spoke with the director of the Downtown Fayetteville Coalition to learn more.
2026 marks year three of the Downtown Fayetteville Coalition and Kelly Rich's third year as director. She says the coalition is an infant organization, but just like a baby, it's grown quickly. This year, Fayetteville will host three new events: the Fayetteville Arts Fair, an American Semiquincentennial celebration — that's America 250 — and Hogs & Dogs: Rumble in the Ramble pep rally for the Arkansas Razorbacks and Fayetteville High School Bulldogs.
These new events are in response to community input from business owners and residents alike.
"Through our organization, we've been tasked with experimenting. We want to see what the community wants to support. So we've been playing around with the previous First Thursday season. We did some Sundays on the Square. We still just haven't seen the support and attendance that we'd like to hit. And truthfully, a lot of our businesses on the square are getting a little event fatigued. So we've decided to try and program the Upper Ramble. There was 100% support with moving some of these events down to the Ramble."
Business owners on the downtown square reported that the frequent road closures were impacting sales. Rich says they weren't against the events on the square — they just needed some breathing room.
"We want to not only organize what the locals want to come and attend, but what will benefit our businesses most. That's how we judge the success of an event. It's nice to know how many people came. We don't necessarily make money at our events. We judge the success by the economic impact. So we really listen to feedback from our businesses of what they want and what they feel will support them in a positive economic way. And so trying to come up with new concepts, things that we feel will appeal to Fayetteville first — these are definitely local-focused events — but potentially have the appeal to draw from around the region."
For example, the Fayetteville Arts Fair, taking place April 19, was a direct grab from the city's arts and culture master plan, which the community helped design. The new event will give attendees a chance to browse and purchase fine art, which may be more expensive than what you're used to finding at one of the region's many craft fairs.
"We've invited all of our local galleries to come in and represent. And for those that might be either current art collectors or thinking about it, we'd love to be able to create an opportunity of education and a low-risk opportunity to expose our local community to these artists and maybe plant the seed of a future collector, and really just wanted to highlight the talent of the region and Fayetteville especially. But we'd really love to be able to nurture and create future art collectors. And this is a great opportunity to expose that to these locals that might not normally head to all of the local galleries because that can be a little intimidating at times. This is kind of a low-risk opportunity to expose — and hopefully, like I said, we expect to have some long-term collectors and maybe even pique some interest of some future artists as well."
The America 250th anniversary celebration will be a Fayetteville-ified Fourth of July event taking place the evening prior, on July 3. Plus, BITE Northwest Arkansas will be returning for a premium experience.
"They're going to come down. Most people probably know them from the LPGA BITE Northwest Arkansas. We're doing a Fayetteville version, and so they'll be coming in to partner up with us on that one. Very excited. That'll be a ticketed add-on experience. The main event will be free and open to the public, but then there'll be a ticketed portion on West Avenue that they'll be running.And then of course, the Hogs & Dogs is really exciting."
Hogs & Dogs: Rumble in the Ramble on Sept. 18 will get the town stoked to support hometown teams: the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Fayetteville High School Bulldogs.
"It's a really cool opportunity. The timing worked out really well — it is not only a home University of Georgia weekend game, so we'll really be able to — it's the first SEC home game, I believe, of the season. And then it's also a bye weekend for the high school. So we were able to bring in Fayetteville High School when normally they'd be busy on a Friday night and really highlight the true community of not only our local school, but also our local university. Both of them will be on site with some pep rally, and we're going to be doing a wing competition and just a lot of fun opportunities to highlight what makes Fayetteville special. The timing worked out really well. And yes, we're hoping to engage some of the fans — we have reached out, we will see if it comes to fruition — for the mascot to come. We were going to do a little arm wrestling competition between the mascots. Anything to hype up the weekend, and it should be a really fun opportunity to spotlight Fayetteville and to welcome our visiting fans as well."
You can visit downtownfay.org or ExperienceFayetteville.com for more information about these new events and a full slate of activities happening in downtown Fayetteville and beyond.
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