We would like to shout it from the Rims for all to hear; the 30th Downtown Strawberry Festival is officially on the calendar to take place in downtown Billings under Skypoint at N. Broadway and 2nd Ave. N. from 9:00 am-4:30 pm on Saturday, July 10, 2021. We host this free community event with the support of our community. This year our co-host sponsor is Montana Brewing Company and additional event sponsors include; The Zone 96.3, My Classic Hits 105.9, Planet 106.7, and KSky Country 95.1 with Desert Mountain Broadcasting.
The Strawberry Festival is Billings’ largest street festival that includes approximately one hundred booths from local retailers, non-profit organizations, Arts & Crafts merchants from around the region showcasing crafted creations including photography, oil paintings, jewelry, textiles, woodwork, sculptures, glass, ceramics, and garden art.
If you plan to attend this fun event you can expect plenty ‘Made in Montana goods, free kids activities, balloon twisters, live entertainment throughout the festival closure, and a wide variety of cuisine and beverages hosted by local and regional food trucks specializing in BBQ, Mexican, Pan Asian, German cuisine, shaved ice, and much more.
New 50/50 Raffle
A fun 50/50 raffle, to help fundraise for Business Improvement District (BID) downtown public art projects, is one of the new additions to the festival that we expect to stick around long beyond this year. 50/50 raffle tickets will be for sale starting at 9:00am on July 10th at the purple information booth below Skypoint at the corner N. Broadway and 2nd Ave; $2 for 3 tickets, $4 for 5 tickets, $10 for an arms length. The raffle drawing will take place at 2pm under Skypoint.
More Berries
The feedback we hear almost every year is that the community wants more berries at the Strawberry festival, which makes sense, so this year we are making sure there are more berries! There will be pallets of fresh Montana sourced berries, from Garden Avenue Greenhouse, available for purchase right at Skypoint and we’re making plans to make it much easier for the public to spot all of the merchants, store fronts, restaurants, and food trucks offering strawberry & berry products.
July Date
Typically the Strawberry Festival takes place in early June. The new July date is just one of the changes being made to the festival this year. Some of these changes are simply COVID-19 precautions in place only for this year and others may stick around. We are hosting the festival the weekend before the Yellowstone Valley Farmers Market kicks off their season and then we can bookend their season with our HarvestFest in October if all goes as planned.
COVID-19 Precautions
There are a number of COVID-19 precautions planned for the 30th Downtown Strawberry Festival to help ensure the event is safe, and welcoming, including:
- Multiple hand washing stations
- More spacing between merchant booths for more festival space and less crowding.
- The most up to date CDC public health recommendations will be encouraged for all in attendance (ie. mask wearing, social distancing, and washing hands often).
- There will not be a 60ft Strawberry Shortcake.
In years past a 60ft Shortcake would be assembled by the Chefs and Cooks Association of Montana under Skypoint the morning of the festival and then sliced and served by volunteers to hundreds of members of the public who purchased $2 slices. The proceeds of the shortcake were then split between the Chefs and Cooks Association of Montana’s scholarship program and the Business Improvement District’s street beautification projects. “We know the Strawberry Shortcake has been a long-time community tradition that will be missed by many this year. The Chefs and Cooks Association of Montana and our DBA team hope that this tradition will one day return to the festival. But, we’re all so happy that we can bring the festival to the community this year that we’re trying not to focus on this one change.
More Summer Events
More downtown Summer event announcements will be made over the coming weeks. New event announcements will be shared right here on our website and also on our Facebook page.
Who We Are
The Downtown Billings Alliance, is a non-profit organization that promotes and advocates for a vital city center through programmatic and place-making elements like event management, business development effort and projects, TIF district management, public art, green space development, and other downtown beautification projects.