A Camas Summer Runs On Thursdays: The 2026 Calendar Worth Planning Around
July 9, 2026
July 9, 2026
If you live in Camas, you already know the trick to summer here is not finding something to do. It is knowing which nights actually matter and which ones can wait. The city hosts free events across most of July and August, but the ones that fill up, sell out, or only happen once are packed into a handful of Thursdays and one long July weekend. Miss those and the season feels quieter than it should.
The 2026 lineup has an unusual wrinkle. For the 29th year, Camas Parks & Recreation is running its Summer Concerts in the Park series, but this year the kickoff doubles as the grand reopening of Crown Park itself. That means the first Thursday of July does the work of two summers stacked on top of each other, and it sets the rhythm for the six weeks that follow.
Crown Park at 120 NE 17th Ave has been closed for renovation, and the city is bringing it back on Thursday, July 2 with a full day of programming before the concert series begins. The morning opens with a free all-levels community workout hosted by Street Parking, registration at 9:30 and the workout from 10 to 10:50. From noon to 3, Camas Bikes runs a bike rodeo with hourly sessions, plus a dedicated E-Bike Safety Session aimed at teens and parents. A ribbon cutting follows in the afternoon.
The music starts at 5:30 with a dance performance from the Cowlitz Tribe, then rolls into a live set from 6 to 8 featuring Quinton Parker, Owen Kortz, Lukas Johnson, Shiloh Mae, Chad Bault, Nathan Vanderpool, and Jess Sideropoulos. Razo's Tacos will be on site, and Backpacker Pizza is delivering pies straight to the park if you preorder ahead. That last detail is the one worth knowing. Concession lines on reopening night will not be short.
A few practical notes carried over from prior years that still apply. No alcohol, no dogs, no other animals in the park. Top Burger sits across the street, and Downtown Camas restaurants a few blocks away are the reliable pressure valve when a food truck line gets long. The concert series historically runs Thursdays through July with additional pop-up nights in August, including one confirmed at Fallen Leaf Lake Park on August 15 and a free summer concert at Dorothy Fox Park on Thursday, July 16 from 6 p.m. If you have kids who fade early, Dorothy Fox is the easier evening. Crown Park is the destination one.
Camas First Fridays run 5 to 8 p.m. every month, hosted by the Downtown Camas Association and downtown merchants. They are themed passport events, and by now most residents treat them as background. The July 2026 edition is not background.
The theme is "One Community, Many Hands: Celebrating America's 250th," timed to the semiquincentennial. The DCA is unveiling "What's Your American Story?", an exhibition of artwork by local high school students. The evening is structured around a set of community-service stops that are unusual for a First Friday:
Add carnival games, a DJ, a history trivia passport, art shows, cosplay, apple pie, ice cream, and after-hours shopping. The DCA tables in the Fuel Medical Group lobby at 314 NE Birch are the starting point most residents use. Gallery 408, RedDoor Gallery at 411 NE Dallas, Attic Gallery at 419 NE Cedar, and Second Story Gallery upstairs in the Camas Public Library all run receptions on First Friday nights, so plan a loop rather than a single stop.
If you have taken guests to a July First Friday before and it felt light, this one is not that.
Camas Days lands on July 24 and 25, organized by the Camas-Washougal Chamber of Commerce. Parade, music, street vendors, bathtub races, and kid's activities. Crafts and food court run 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. both days. The wine, microbrew, and music street runs 5 to 11 p.m., which is the window where downtown flips from family day to adult evening. The Kids Parade steps off Friday at 11:30 a.m.
The move that separates residents from visitors is the Sunday. Picnic in Color runs on July 26 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., organized by the Downtown Camas Association. It is quieter than Saturday, the crowd is smaller, and it is genuinely kid-oriented rather than kid-tolerated. If Saturday feels like too much with young children, treat Camas Days as a Sunday event and skip the bathtub races.
One more calendar item that sits inside the same window. The Camas Car Show, the last Saturday of June, ran June 27 from 2 to 7 p.m. and closes the "pre-season" of downtown summer. If you are new to town and you missed it, put it on next year's calendar. It is the event that tells you the season has started.
Most of the summer in Camas is free and drop-in. Summer Nights Sips & Bites is neither.
It runs Thursday, August 13 from 5 to 9 p.m., organized by the Downtown Camas Association. It is ticketed, and the registration location has moved this year to the Fuel Medical lobby. This is the one Camas evening that residents consistently miss because they assume they can decide the day of. You cannot. Tickets go through the DCA and the event has historically capped attendance because it is structured as a walking tasting through downtown merchants.
If you tend to look at the summer calendar in late July and pick something for August, Sips & Bites is the event to reverse that habit for. Look at it in June.
Two more August dates worth pinning. The Camas Art & Wine Walk runs Saturday, August 22 from 3 p.m. The Fallen Leaf Lake Park pop-up concert on August 15 is the last of the outdoor music nights and, historically, the most family-heavy. Between those three, August is a fuller month than most residents give it credit for.
Stripped down, the summer calendar sorts into four tiers, and the tiers matter more than the individual dates:
Once-in-a-summer nights. Crown Park reopening on July 2. This will not repeat.
Ticketed and cap-limited. Summer Nights Sips & Bites on August 13. Buy in advance.
Peak-crowd weekends. Camas Days on July 24 and 25, and the Art & Wine Walk on August 22. Park farther out than you think you need to.
Reliable, low-stakes drop-ins. The Thursday concerts at Crown Park, Dorothy Fox on July 16, Fallen Leaf Lake on August 15, and the monthly First Friday. These are the nights you can decide on at 4 p.m.
The reason this matters, and the reason it is worth thinking about now rather than in August, is that Camas summer is not one continuous festival. It is a set of short windows, most of them overlapping on Thursdays, and the season rewards residents who treat July 2, July 24 to 26, and August 13 as fixed points and everything else as flexible.
The events cluster in a walkable stretch of downtown, from NE 3rd to NE 5th between Birch and Dallas, with Crown Park sitting six blocks north on NE 17th. If you live in the older grid inside that radius, you already know how much of the summer you can do on foot. If you are farther out toward Lacamas Lake, Prune Hill, or the Fisher's Landing side, the summer is a series of short drives with a parking calculation attached. The Camas Car Show, Camas Days, and the Art & Wine Walk each close streets. Check the DCA calendar the morning of before you commit to a specific block.
None of this is on the visitor pages. The visitor pages tell you Crown Park is open and the concerts are free. The residents' version is that July 2 is not a normal Thursday, First Friday in July is not a normal First Friday, and August 13 is not a night you can wing.
If you are thinking about a move within Camas, or into Camas from elsewhere in Southwest Washington, and you want to talk through how the neighborhoods sit relative to this walkable core, I am happy to help you think it through. Sarah Roth Homes works across Camas and the surrounding communities, and the summer is a good time to walk a few streets and see how the town actually lives. Schedule a free consultation whenever you are ready.
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