Astoria's Summer 2026 Has Two Peaks. Here's How Residents Are Pacing Them.
July 23, 2026
July 23, 2026
Most summers in Astoria have one gravitational center, and it is almost always the Regatta. This year the calendar sits differently. A century mark falls on a single Saturday in July, and the Regatta lands three weeks later, which means the town gets two full-town weekends instead of one. If you live here, the interesting question is not whether to show up. It is how to pace the stretch between them so the second one still feels fresh.
The short version: July 18 is the hinge, the week that follows is quieter than it looks on paper, and the first full weekend of August closes the loop. What follows is a resident's read on the shape of it.
The Astoria Column turns 100 this year, and the celebration is built around a single Saturday split between two locations. From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. the festival runs at Heritage Square in downtown Astoria, free and open to the public with activities for all ages. The pairing everyone is planning around is the re-dedication event at the column at 2 p.m. on the same afternoon, which means the natural rhythm is downtown first, Coxcomb Hill second, and back down for whatever is left of the afternoon.
The performer list is worth reading before you go, because it tells you which hours will feel like which city. Astoria has a rich multicultural history, reflected in the diverse group of performances scheduled for the day, with Nordic and Scandinavian dancers, a ukulele orchestra, a bluegrass band, a Chinese drum team and a reggae band. The Mulan Drum Team, an all-women Chinese drum group, will play at both the downtown location and at the re-dedication ceremony at the top of Coxcomb Hill, so if you can only catch one act twice, that is the one to time.
Two smaller details reward residents specifically. Caricature artist Matt Schlosky will be onsite to do portraits that feature the Astoria Column, along with arts and crafts activities, free hamburgers and hotdogs while supplies last, ice cream, and a traveling typist who will create custom poems on the spot for guests. The typist and the caricaturist are the kind of thing you don't circle back for at 3:45 p.m. Do them early.
A practical note on the hill: the rededication runs at 2, downtown programming runs until 4, and parking near the Column at midday on a centennial Saturday will not be normal parking. Locals are treating the walk or shuttle as the default, not the fallback.
Two Astoria businesses made commemorative releases for the centennial, and both are the kind of thing that disappears by Labor Day. Worth grabbing while the shelves are stocked:
The exhibit runs all year, so it is the least urgent of the three. It is also the best rainy-Tuesday plan of the summer once the crowds have thinned.
The instinct after a big Saturday is to assume the following week goes quiet. It does not. On July 22, the Clatsop County Historical Society is hosting a 100-year party for the monument at the Liberty Theater starting at 6 p.m., an evening of history and community. That is a Wednesday. It is also the same day the county fair opens.
The Clatsop County Fair is held each summer at the Clatsop County Fair & Expo Center in Astoria, and showcases livestock exhibits, 4-H and FFA projects, community competitions, live entertainment, local vendors, fair food, carnival attractions, and activities for all ages, with a history dating back to 1905. This year it runs Wednesday, July 22 through Saturday, July 25 at 92937 Walluski Loop. Admission structure is worth knowing before you go: free for ages 6 and under, $10 for ages 7 to 54, $5 for ages 55 and up, with a $40 family cap.
The overlap on July 22 is the interesting scheduling puzzle. Liberty Theater at 6 p.m. is a formal, sit-down evening. The fair is a stand-up, walk-around evening. Doing both in one night is possible if you take the fair Wednesday afternoon and the Liberty in the evening. Locals with kids seem to be splitting it across days.
Then comes the second peak. The Astoria Regatta runs August 5–8, 2026, a time-honored community tradition that is the oldest celebration in Oregon's oldest city and one of the oldest festivals in the West, with four days of events on land and sea, parades, food, and unique traditions. Since 1894, the Regatta has been a tradition for people throughout Clatsop County, including Knappa, Astoria, Warrenton, Gearhart, Seaside, and Cannon Beach.
The shape of the four days, at a glance:
| Day | Anchor events |
|---|---|
| Wed Aug 5 | Coronation, festival opens |
| Thu Aug 6 | Maritime memorial and Admiral's reception |
| Fri Aug 7 | Astoria Yacht Club sailboat race, 6:00–7:30 p.m.; Family Fun Night at Englund Marine with the Kiwanis Kids Parade at 6:30 p.m. |
| Sat Aug 8 | Grand Land Parade, Highwater Boat Parade, Yacht Club race 1:00–3:30 p.m., Regatta Square Block Party at 1132 Exchange |
The Yacht Club specifics are worth having in advance. The 2026 Regatta sailboat races run Friday, August 7 from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, August 8 from 1:00 to 3:30 p.m., and the club hopes to hold both races on the Columbia above the bridge on the waterfront nearest downtown Astoria, though weather conditions and tides may make racing below the bridge near the West Mooring Basin preferable. If you plan a viewing spot ahead, plan two.
The Saturday block party is the ground-floor version of the day for people who do not want a parade route. The Regatta Square Block Party features food, beverages, and a family fun zone. It is also where a lot of locals actually cross paths, which is different from the parade experience.
Both peaks sit on top of a weekly cadence that keeps the town moving between them. The Astoria Sunday Market, at the heart of downtown, combines local arts and crafts, fresh produce and protein, prepared foods and music, featuring up to 150 vendors offering locally-made products. It runs from Mother's Day through the second Sunday in October, so every weekend of this stretch has an anchor whether or not a festival is happening.
If a house guest lands mid-week and you need a plan that is not a festival, the Downtown Historic District walking tour is the honest answer. Offered Sundays from 2:00 to 4:30 p.m. by the Lower Columbia Preservation Society, the point-to-point tour begins at the Astoria Nordic Heritage Park and concludes at the Flavel House Museum, traversing roughly ten blocks over 90 minutes. A resident who lives in one of those ten blocks will still learn something. That is the test.
Looking further out, the Liberty Theater keeps the fall momentum going with Pink Martini on Saturday, September 5 at 7:30 p.m. and Iron & Wine on Thursday, October 15 at 7:00 p.m., both worth booking before the centennial crowd realizes they are on sale.
The reason to think about the summer this way, rather than as a list of things to attend, is that the Column centennial is not a repeat. The Regatta will happen again next August, and the Sunday Market will be back next May. July 18, 2026 is a Saturday that does not come around again in this century. Treat it as the anchor and the rest of the summer schedules itself.
If you are thinking about what your Astoria address looks like in a market this active, or what a season this crowded says about how the town is trending, Jenny Frank is happy to talk it through. Let's Connect.
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