64th Annual Lake Geneva Jaycees Venetian Festival

The 64th annual Lake Geneva Jaycees Venetian Festival 2026 runs Wednesday, August 19 through Sunday, August 23, 2026, across Flat Iron Park, Library Park, and Seminary Park in downtown Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

Five days, one carnival, 110 or so craft vendors, a water ski show, live music every night, and a lighted boat parade on Sunday that ends with the largest fireworks display on Geneva Lake.

The venetian festival 2026 is a highlight of the year for locals and visitors alike.

Official Venetian Festival schedule · Carnival wristband info · More Lake Geneva events

Venetian Festival 2026 at a glance

The 3 parks sit in a row along the north shore of Geneva Lake, so you can cover the whole festival on foot without moving your car once. Get directions to Flat Iron Park.

Quick answer: what is the Venetian Festival?

The Venetian Festival is Lake Geneva’s biggest summer event and one of the longest-running festivals in southern Wisconsin, put on by the Lake Geneva Jaycees since 1963 under their motto, “Leadership Through Community Service.”

The name comes from the finale. On Sunday night, boat owners string lights across their hulls and run a slow parade past the downtown waterfront, the way Venice does its own lighted processions. Fireworks follow over Geneva Bay.

The 4 days leading up to that are a classic Midwestern lakefront festival: carnival rides in Seminary Park, a beer tent with a band every night, a craft fair filling Library Park, and a schedule of daytime events that skews toward kids and families.

If you have 1 night to give it, take Sunday. If you have 1 afternoon, take Saturday.

When is the Venetian Festival in 2026?

August 19 to 23, 2026. It lands on the third full week of August, which is its usual slot.

Here is how the 5 days are shaped, according to the Jaycees’ published schedule:

Wednesday and Thursday are the quiet days. Saturday and Sunday are the ones that fill the parking lots by early afternoon.

What does the Venetian Festival cost?

Walking the grounds is free. So is the craft fair, the car show, Touch a Truck, and standing on the lakefront for the boat parade and fireworks.

You pay for 3 things:

• The Entertainment Pavilion, which is the beer tent. $5 cover after 6:00 PM daily. Strictly 21 and over, and the Jaycees are blunt about it: no ID, no admission, no exceptions. Last call is 11:45 PM.
• Carnival rides. Individual tickets, or a $40 all-you-can-ride wristband on wristband days.
• Food and drink, priced the way festival food usually is.

Saturday’s Terry Byrne Band set from 3:00 to 6:00 PM is free admission, which makes it the cheapest live music of the weekend.

Worth knowing: the $5 cover kicks in at 6:00 PM, not when the band starts at 8:00. If you want to sit down in the pavilion at 5:30, you get in free and keep the seat.

When are the carnival wristband days?

The $40 unlimited-ride wristband is good on 3 windows in 2026:

• Wednesday, August 19: 5:00-10:00 PM, sold until 10:00 PM
• Thursday, August 20: 5:00-10:00 PM, sold until 10:00 PM
• Saturday, August 22: wristbands valid until 5:00 PM

Friday and Sunday are individual-ticket days.

Rides split across 2 locations. The bigger rides are at the main carnival, and the rides for younger kids are in Seminary Park, about half a block away behind the hotels. Plenty of visitors never find the second set. If you’re there with small kids, go straight to Seminary Park first.

Wristbands can be bought online through the official carnival page for the whole run of the festival, which beats standing at the booth on a Saturday.

The lighted boat parade and fireworks: Sunday, August 23

This is the reason the festival has lasted 64 years.

At dusk on Sunday, decorated and lit boats run the waterfront in front of Library Park and the Riviera. The 2026 theme is America 250. Awards go to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place plus Best in Show. The fireworks over Geneva Bay start immediately after the last boat passes.

Sunset in Lake Geneva on August 23 is around 7:35 PM, so the parade generally gets moving near 8:00 PM and fireworks follow within the half hour. Treat those as estimates and plan to be settled by 7:00 PM.

If you own a boat and a string of lights, you can enter. Sign-ups run through the official fireworks and boat parade page, coordinated with the Lake Geneva Cruise Line.

Bonus from the Jaycees: find a Jaycee near the waterfront and they’ll hand out free glow sticks for kids.

Where to watch the fireworks

The organizers say anywhere along the downtown waterfront works. That’s true, and some spots are better than others.

A local move: park once in the afternoon, do the craft fair, eat early, then walk the shore path west 10 or 15 minutes and turn around. You end up with a viewing spot away from the densest part of the crowd and a much easier walk back to the car.

The water ski show

The Wonder Lake Ski Team performs at 6:00 PM Sunday in front of Riviera Beach, right before the evening turns over to the parade.

It’s free, it’s from shore, and it runs about an hour, which puts you in position for the parade without moving. Details on the official water ski show page.

The Arts and Crafts Fair

The Jaycees’ craft fair is in its 31st year and takes over Library Park along the lakefront, just west of downtown.

By attending the venetian festival 2026, you support local artists and vendors.

• Saturday, August 22: 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM
• Sunday, August 23: 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
• Free admission

The official craft fair page lists more than 90 artists and crafters from around the country, and the schedule page puts the 2026 count nearer 110. The Cub Scouts run a brat stand in the park, which is the cheapest lunch on the grounds.

Go Saturday morning if you actually want to shop. By Saturday afternoon the aisles are shoulder to shoulder.

Everything else on the schedule

A few events are easy to miss because they only run once:

• Touch a Truck, Saturday 12:00 to 4:00 PM. Kids climb on fire trucks, emergency vehicles, and heavy equipment and meet the crews. Free.
• Baggo tournament, Saturday 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM in the Entertainment Pavilion. Sign-up details here.
• 2nd annual car show, Sunday 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Classics, hot rods, and customs on the lakefront, with awards and dash plaques.
• Rock Central, Sunday 12:00 to 3:00 PM. Students from the local music school on the pavilion stage.

Live music lineup

Every night set is 21 and over inside the pavilion.

If live music is the whole reason you’re coming, our Live Music Around Lake Geneva page tracks what’s playing the rest of the year.

Parking for the Venetian Festival

This is where most visitors lose 30 minutes and $20 they didn’t need to spend.

Downtown Lake Geneva runs pay-by-plate metered parking, enforced daily from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Per the City of Lake Geneva fee schedule, rates are:

• $2.00 per hour Monday through Thursday
• $4.00 per hour Friday through Sunday

Most downtown stalls and lots cap at 5 hours. Pay at the kiosks with a card or coins, or use the ParkMobile app with your plate number and the zone posted on the kiosk.

The 2 free lots

• Lot D, Sage Street, behind the Geneva Lake Museum. Roughly 0.3 miles from the lakefront.
• Lot E, Dunn Field, near the skate park. Roughly 0.4 miles.

Both are free, both are a short walk, and both are the reason locals don’t circle Wrigley Drive.

The long-stay lot

Lot I, next to Seminary Park, allows up to 10 hours instead of the usual 5. Same hourly rates. For a festival day where you’re arriving in the afternoon and staying through fireworks, this is the lot that matches how long you’ll actually be there. It also drops you right at the kids’ carnival rides.

The detail worth knowing: enforcement ends at 7:00 PM. If you roll in Sunday evening purely for the parade and fireworks, you’re past the paid window. You will also be fighting for whatever is left, so this only works if you’re willing to park farther out and walk.

Downtown streets may close around the parade route on Sunday evening. The city hasn’t published a 2026 closure map, so check signage when you arrive rather than assuming last year’s pattern holds.

Which day should you go?

My pick for a first visit: Sunday, arriving around 2:00 PM. You catch the tail of the craft fair, the car show, Big Al at 3:00, the ski show at 6:00, then the parade and fireworks. That’s the entire character of the festival in one afternoon and evening, for the price of parking.

My pick if you’re bringing young kids: Wednesday. $40 buys unlimited rides, the crowds are thin, and you’re home before 10:00 PM. Come back Sunday afternoon for the fireworks if the bedtime math works.

Where to eat around the festival

The brat stand and the food vendors on the grounds handle the basics. For an actual sit-down meal on a festival weekend, book ahead. Downtown restaurants run at capacity Friday through Sunday in late August, and walk-ins after 6:00 PM are optimistic.

Start with our Lake Geneva restaurant guide. If you want coffee before the craft fair opens, the coffee shop guide covers what’s open early. For a mid-afternoon break with kids, the ice cream and sweet shops are all within a few blocks of the parks.

Eating at 5:00 PM instead of 7:00 PM is the single best scheduling decision you can make that weekend.

Where to stay

Late August is peak season on Geneva Lake, and Venetian Festival weekend is the busiest of it. If you haven’t booked, look at Williams Bay, Fontana, Delavan, and Elkhorn before you give up on Lake Geneva proper.

• Best Lake Geneva resorts
• Lake Geneva community guide
• Williams Bay community guide
• Fontana community guide

Staying on the west end and driving in costs you 15 to 20 minutes each way, which is usually less than the difference in what you’d pay downtown that weekend.

What to bring

• Cash for the beer tent cover and smaller vendors
• ID, if there’s any chance you’re going into the pavilion
• A blanket or low chairs for the fireworks
• A light layer for after dark. Late August evenings on the water run cooler than the afternoon suggests
• Sunscreen for the craft fair, which has limited shade
• A flashlight or phone light if you’re watching from the shore path
• A photo of where you parked

Making a full weekend of it

The festival occupies the evenings. The days are yours.

Geneva Lake in late August is at its best: warm water, long light, and the shoulder of the season just starting to show. A few pairings that work:

• Morning on the Geneva Lake Shore Path before the heat, then the craft fair
• A lake cruise in the afternoon, which puts the festival waterfront in a completely different perspective
• A morning at one of the Lake Geneva beaches before the carnival opens at noon
• If the forecast turns, our rainy day activities guide has the indoor options

More ideas in the summer activities guide, the family activities guide, and the free things to do list.

Two weeks after Venetian wraps, the Walworth County Fair opens in Elkhorn over Labor Day weekend. If you liked one, you’ll like the other.

What locals know about Venetian week

Downtown changes character for 5 days. Traffic on Wrigley Drive slows to a crawl by mid-afternoon Saturday. The lake fills with boats staging for Sunday. Neighbors who haven’t talked since the Fourth of July end up standing next to each other on the same patch of grass in Flat Iron Park.

A few things you only learn by living through a few of them:

• The kids’ rides are in Seminary Park. Visitors miss this every single year.
• Sunday afternoon is underrated. The car show, the ski show, and Big Al on the pavilion stage all run before the crowd arrives for the parade.
• Boats staging early is the tell. When you start seeing strings of lights going up on hulls Sunday afternoon, the parade is on schedule.
• The walk out is longer than the walk in. Everyone leaves at once when the last shell goes up. Parking in Lot D or Lot E means you’re walking away from the jam instead of sitting in it.
• Go west on the shore path. The crowd thins within a few hundred yards and the view over the water is better.

For more of that kind of thing, the hidden gems guide collects the spots that don’t show up on a first visit.

If you spend Venetian weekend here and catch yourself doing the math on what it would take to be here every August, Kim and Joel Reyenga work with buyers and sellers across Lake Geneva, Williams Bay, Fontana, Geneva National, Delavan, Elkhorn, and the lakes around Geneva Lake.

Luxury. Lake. Golf. Town & Country.

Search homes around Lake Geneva and the Southern Lakes, or call or text (262) 325-9867. We’ll send you what’s actually available near the water, not a generic search feed.

Frequently asked questions about the Venetian Festival

The venetian festival 2026 brings together community spirit!

Discover the highlights of the venetian festival 2026!