Valleyfest Moved Its Sunday Race to Saturday. The Rest of the Weekend Shifted With It.

"Community events like this bring people together," Peggy Doering said in a recent interview about the festival she has run since before Spokane Valley was even a city. Doering joined Valleyfest as a volunteer in 1990 and became its chairwoman in 1996, guiding it from an afternoon in Terrace View Park into the three-day event that now shuts down a stretch of Sprague Avenue every September. "I think we need to celebrate how great we are," she added.

That kind of continuity is part of why regulars think they know the drill. Parade Friday, low-key morning stuff Saturday, the athletic events and pancakes on Sunday. If that's your mental map going into this year's Valleyfest, September 25 through 27, you should know two pieces of it moved.

The Saturday morning that used to be Sunday

The Valleyfest River Run, the festival's 5K and 10K along the Centennial Trail, has historically closed out the weekend on Sunday morning. This year it opens Saturday instead. The race starts and finishes at Mirabeau Trailhead 1, directly across from CenterPlace Regional Event Center, at 8 a.m. on September 26. Runners pick up bibs the afternoon before, Friday from 4 to 7 p.m., at Fleet Feet on East Indiana Avenue.

That single change reorders the whole morning. Instead of a quiet Saturday that eases into the day's booths and stages, this year's Saturday starts with runners on the trail before the vendor gates even open. If you've parked at Mirabeau in past years expecting a slow Saturday morning, plan for foot and car traffic near the trailhead well before the festival's main activities begin.

Astronomy stretches across both days now

The second shift is smaller but tells the same story. Valleyfest's astronomy programming, run by the Spokane Astronomical Society, used to be a single Saturday block that ran into the evening. For 2026, it spans both Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, rather than concentrating into one day-and-night slot.

Neither change is dramatic on its own. Together they suggest a festival that has spent three decades adding pieces and this year started spreading them out differently instead of just stacking more onto the same two days.

Friday night still belongs to Sprague Avenue

One thing that hasn't moved: the Hearts of Gold Parade still opens the weekend. It steps off Friday, September 25, at 7:30 p.m., running from North Gillis to Perrine Road. The road closes at 6 p.m. to prepare, so if you're coming from anywhere along that stretch of Sprague, plan your route around it rather than through it. The parade lineup leans into small-town variety: custom and classic cars, floats, marching bands, clowns, and the Miss Spokane Valley court, all moving down what Doering and the festival's own history call the city's main arterial.

What still anchors the weekend

Some fixtures haven't changed in structure, only in scale. The car show, the pancake breakfast, Fishing at the Falls, the AKC Responsible Dog Ownership Day, and CultureFest all return as part of the festival's regular lineup this year, spread across the Saturday and Sunday footprint at Mirabeau Point Park, Plantes Ferry Sports Complex, and CenterPlace. These are the pieces that have accumulated over the festival's three decades rather than shifted between them, and they're worth building a loose plan around even if the exact hour slips a little year to year.

Three decades, the same volunteer core

Valleyfest actually predates the city it now represents. Spokane Valley incorporated in 2003; Valleyfest had already been running for thirteen years by then, having started as a single afternoon organized by a small group of volunteers at Terrace View Park. It stayed there for fifteen years before outgrowing the space and moving to Mirabeau Point Park in 2004. When CenterPlace Regional Event Center opened next door in 2005, it became part of the rotation too, giving the festival the three-site footprint it still uses today.

Doering has stayed at the center of it the whole time. "I have vision, but I have so many people doing," she said, crediting the city of Spokane Valley, the Spokane Valley Fire Department, the Spokane Valley Police Department, and a volunteer corps of more than 200 people with keeping a free, three-day festival running on donations alone. That's worth sitting with for a second: nobody pays to get in, and the festival stays free because businesses, residents, and the city itself choose to fund it every year.

If you're headed down there

A short list for anyone planning around this year's shifted schedule:

• Sprague Avenue between North Gillis and Perrine Road closes at 6 p.m. Friday, September 25, ahead of the 7:30 p.m. parade.
• The River Run starts at Mirabeau Trailhead 1, across from CenterPlace, at 8 a.m. Saturday, September 26. Parking fills early near the YMCA and trailhead lot.
• Vendor booths at Mirabeau Point Park run 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.
• TotFest runs noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, September 27.
• Astronomy activities run both days, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., rather than the single evening slot from past years.

None of this requires an early arrival if you're just planning to wander the booths on Sunday afternoon. But if your Saturday plans depend on a quiet morning at Mirabeau, this is the year that assumption doesn't hold.

Living in a place long enough to notice when its traditions shift is its own kind of local knowledge, the same instinct that matters when you're reading a street, a park, or a block for what it's actually doing rather than what it used to do. That's the lens The Collection brings to Spokane Valley, whether the question is where to park for a Friday night parade or what a particular corner of the Valley is worth right now. If you're weighing a move in the neighborhood, or just curious what your home might be worth in today's market, we'd welcome the chance to talk. Request a complimentary consultation and home valuation whenever you're ready.