Nine-day festival is centered on the Arkansas River but 60 events fill the city
The Arkansas River starts as a trickle just south of Leadville here in Colorado, carves such spectacular canyons as Brown’s and Royal Gorge, flows through the former steel city of Pueblo, meanders across eastern Colorado passing Bent’s Old Fort Historic Site and exits Colorado east of Holly at the Kansas state line. Two hundred thirty miles farther east, give or take, is Wichita, a city that has shown its love for the river for four decades with a party that started as the Wichitennial River Festival and Traders Day and is now, mercifully, simply called Riverfest.
It’s such a big party that it takes nine days to celebrate Riverfest‘s 40th birthday with food, vendors, fun for kids and adults, and more. It now covers a square mile of the city and a good stretch of the wide Arkansas River as it flows through the city. The festival opens on June 3 with the Sundown Parade, the Koch Twilight Pops Concert and the Capitol Federal Fireworks display, and by the time it closes on June 11, there will have been 60 special events including music, art, theater, parades, participant and spectator sports, and more. A $5 Riverfest button (for sale online and at Wichita Dillons, Quik Trip, Walgreens and Walmart locations) is all you need for most of the festival, and there are additional ticketed events as well.
Concurrent with Riverfest, the Music Theatre of Wichita opens its own 40th season with a production of “The Music Man,” running for just five days (June 8 to June 12). It’s the first of five Broadway-scale, family-friendly productions this summer, including Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” in the Century II Concert Hall through August.
The Go Wichita Visitor Center is at 515 South Main Street, Suite 115, Wichita, KS 67202; 800-288-9414 and 317-265-8000. Time is too tight to order the visitor’s guide by mail before Riverfest starts, but it is now available online.
