Two Augusts happen in this town every year, and they don't overlap. The first one crowds into six blocks of downtown for a week in the middle of the month. The second one packs up and moves a mile east to the Waupaca County Fairgrounds for the last week. If you live here, the difference between them is the difference between walking to dinner and driving to parking, between an art vendor booth and a truck pull.
This year the middle week is bigger than usual. The Waupaca Arts on the Square 20th Anniversary exhibit will be on display August 8 through October 3 at the library, which sets the tone for what happens on the ground the week that follows.
The Downtown Week: August 9 Through 15
ARTicipation Week runs Sunday, August 9 through Friday, August 14, taking place in downtown Waupaca and local venues around Waupaca, with kids' events, live music, art projects, poetry events, the Friday Night Street Dance, and more, leading into the annual Arts on the Square festival. The festival itself lands the next day.
| Date | What | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 9–14 | ARTicipation Week programming | Downtown venues |
| Aug 14, 6–10 PM | Friday Night Street Dance | Downtown |
| Aug 15, 9 AM–4 PM | Arts on the Square, 20th anniversary | The Arts Hub |
Two things about that table are worth flagging. First, the Juried Fine Arts & Craft Show runs 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Aug. 15 at a new location, The Arts Hub in Waupaca. If you have been coming to Arts on the Square for years and heading straight to City Square out of habit, adjust. The juried show has moved. Second, the Street Dance the night before is not a warm-up act. The Friday, August 14, 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM Street Dance is family friendly, with delicious food, beverages, and stuff for the kids to do. Plan for the full evening, not a walk-through.
City Square still matters that week. City Square is on Main Street downtown, managed by City Hall, and features a gazebo with a public use piano, plants, tables, chairs, benches, artwork and sculptures, and a bike repair station; it hosts the Farm Market, City Band Concerts, and large downtown events such as Arts on the Square. Even with the juried show moving, the square remains where the outdoor music and the community piano live.
The Weekly Anchors That Don't Move
If you skip the arts week entirely, three things still hold the shape of the month together.
- Saturday Farmers Market. Saturdays mid-May through the end of October in downtown Waupaca on E. Fulton Street, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Four Saturdays in August, same block, same window.
- City Band Concerts. City of Waupaca Band Concerts at the historic city square bandstand continue their summer cadence downtown.
- Chain O' Lakes cruises. Clear Water Harbor runs cruises on two vessels, the Double Decker Sternwheeler Chief Waupaca and the Ann Marie North Star Motor Yacht, offering everything from cocktail cruises to special events.
The cruises are worth a second look this year because the fleet changed. The North Star is the newest addition to the fleet, a boat with open-air decks and stunning sightseeing views, fully wheelchair accessible. If accessibility has been the reason you have stayed on shore during previous summers, that constraint is gone.
Parking on the water is a different constraint, and one that catches people every August. If all the boat launch parking areas are full, the Clearwater Harbor Bar offers parking in their 3rd Parking Lot at N2830 Cty Hwy. QQ; launch your boat, drive your vehicle with trailer to that location, have someone in your party drive the boat across the lake to the bar, pay $20 via cash, Venmo, or PayPal, and walk down to the bar; a vehicle without a trailer parks free. Worth knowing before a Saturday, not during one.
The Pivot: August 25 Through 30
The last week of the month, downtown quiets and the fairgrounds fill. The 153rd Waupaca County Fair presents the N.E.W. Motorsports Truck & Tractor Pull on Friday, August 28th at 7:00 PM. That is the fair's headline evening, but the week does not start or end there.
A rough map of the week if you are pacing yourself:
- Thursday, Aug 27, 7 PM — BMX & FMX Stunt Show, with elite professional riders on bicycles and motorcycles launching from dirt ramps.
- Friday, Aug 28, 1 PM — a King of Rock and Roll tribute on the Midway Stage, Dakota Pongratz in his "Elvis Golden Oldies Show."
- Friday, Aug 28, 7 PM — Truck & Tractor Pull.
- Saturday, Aug 29, 1 PM — Rice Rodeo Company's Mutton Bustin', where cowboys and cowgirls under 55 pounds grip the wool of a running sheep and try to hold on for eight seconds.
Four different audiences, four different afternoons or evenings. Locals who have been coming for a decade tend to pick two and skip the rest. The mistake is trying to do all four with the same crew.
Two Grace Notes On Either End Of The Month
Before the arts week starts, two smaller evenings are already on the calendar and tend to slip past people who are only watching the big anchors.
National Night Out with the Waupaca Police Department is Tuesday, August 4, 2026, with activities beginning at 5:30 PM and a movie at dusk, at South Park, 921 S. Main Street, admission free. The feature is Zootopia 2 on display Tuesday, August 4 at 8 PM, with family fun and food starting at 5:30 PM at South Park. Four days later, Saturday, August 8, the Waupaca Historical Society is running a Parks and Rec Tour with the history of Waupaca's parks. Between the two, you get the west side of town on foot and a little context for the green space you have been walking past all summer.
There is also this, for anyone who tends to eat and drink their way through August rather than schedule their way through it: Barnwood Farms hosts a flower bar for the opening day of ARTicipation Week, with different blooms available to build a bouquet, one free bouquet per patron; the storefront is at N2745 County Road QQ and the U-Pick Flower Fields & Venue at E290 Johnson Road. And Doc Kelly's Public House hosts happy hour after the ARTicipation programming, with H.H. Hinder Brewing Co. at 804 Churchill St. as another stop on the same evenings. These are the connective tissue between the scheduled events, not add-ons to them.
A Sample Weekend That Uses Both Sides Of Town
Say you have out-of-town family in for the arts weekend and you want one Saturday that reads as August in Waupaca rather than as any Saturday. Start on E. Fulton Street at the Farmers Market between 9 AM and 1 PM. Cross to City Square for whatever piano or bandstand programming is running that morning. Walk to The Arts Hub for the juried show before the mid-afternoon crowd. Break for a late lunch at The Wheelhouse near the water, then take an afternoon cruise on the Chief Waupaca or the North Star. Come back downtown for the Street Dance if it is Friday, or a quiet drink at Doc Kelly's if it is not.
The next weekend you swap all of that out. Fairgrounds Thursday for BMX. Fairgrounds Friday for the pull. A Saturday afternoon at Mutton Bustin' if the kids are the priority, or a Saturday morning back at the Farmers Market and an afternoon on the Upper Chain if they are not. The water clarity is near perfect on the upper lakes; the mostly natural shorelines combined with no motorboat traffic create the perfect environment for paddlers, and the forests along the shores add to the setting. The Upper Chain is the answer to a fair-week Saturday when you want the opposite of a crowd.
Two different Waupacas, two different weekends, one month. Locals who plan around the split get more out of August than locals who treat it as a single blur.
Thinking about what August looks like from a different address on the Chain or a different block downtown? Phair-Hinton Group knows this market on both sides of the calendar. Let's get you home. Schedule a call to get started.
