Town Days Riverton
Riverton's big summer celebration, from the rodeo to the fireworks
Riverton Town Days, and why it is not one weekend
Riverton Town Days is the city's yearly summer festival, and it runs across about two weeks rather than a single weekend. It opens with a three night professional rodeo at the end of June whose tickets sell fast and which sells nothing at the gate, goes quiet for a few days, then comes back for the Fourth of July in Riverton City Park with a carnival, an evening parade along 13400 South and 2700 West, and fireworks after dark. Three sites, two halves, and here is how to be in the right place.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
Riverton Town Days is the city's yearly summer festival, and it is not a single weekend. It runs across about two weeks, and it breaks into two halves with a quiet gap between them. The first half is a three night professional rodeo at the end of June, Thursday through Saturday, at the Riverton Rodeo Arena; tickets sell only in advance, there are none at the gate, and tickets sell fast. Then a few days pass with nothing scheduled. The second half is the Fourth of July at Riverton City Park, built around a carnival, an evening parade along 13400 South and 2700 West, and fireworks on the park's west lawn after dark. The dates move a little each year, so take the current schedule from the city. Most of the festival is free; the rodeo and the carnival rides are the two things you pay for.
The shape of it
Two halves, three sites, and a quiet gap in the middle
Most write-ups call Riverton Town Days the city's summer celebration and leave it there, which is how a visitor ends up on the wrong day in the wrong part of town. The useful way to hold it is as two separate events under one name, a week or so apart, on three different sites.
The first half is the rodeo, three straight nights at the end of June, Thursday through Saturday, at the Riverton Rodeo Arena. A car show usually runs on the Saturday. Then the festival goes quiet for a few days with nothing on the schedule. The second half opens at Riverton City Park with a carnival on the evenings leading up to the Fourth, a patriotic concert, an evening parade, a movie in the park, and then a full Fourth of July that ends with fireworks.
The three sites matter as much as the timing. The rodeo is at the arena on the south end of the Riverton City Park grounds. The carnival, the concert, the movie, and the whole of the Fourth are in the park itself. And the parade is somewhere else again, along 13400 South and 2700 West, and does not go near either. The city rewrites the exact dates and running order every year, so treat this as the recurring pattern and pull the current schedule from the city before you plan a day around it.
The quiet gap in the middle is the part nobody explains, and it is the part that decides what kind of trip you are making. If the rodeo is the draw, the end of June is your window and the Fourth of July does not matter. If the parade and the fireworks are the draw, the rodeo has been over for a week by the time you arrive. Almost nobody does all of it, and the city does not expect anybody to.
The rodeo
Three nights in late June, and none sold at the gate
The rodeo is the anchor of the whole festival and the only part that pulls people from outside the southwest valley. It runs three straight nights at the Riverton Rodeo Arena, 12800 South 1300 West, on the south end of the Riverton City Park grounds, and it is sanctioned through the Rocky Mountain Professional Rodeo Association. Gates and vendors open around 6:30 in the evening, skydivers come in with flags soon after, and the rodeo itself starts at 8. Directions
The ticketing is the part to get right, because it is unusual and unforgiving. The city keeps the price low, in recent years about 15 dollars with children three and under free, and it publishes the price and the on sale date fresh every year. There are no ticket sales at the gate, on any of the three nights; not a limited allocation, not standing room, none. If you have not bought before the day, you are not getting in, and tickets sell fast.
Riverton also puts out something I have not seen many events bother with, a plain warning about resale pricing. Its own line is that Riverton rodeo tickets are inexpensive, that it has never charged more than 100 dollars a ticket and never will, and that buyers should stick to official channels. That warning exists because an event with fast sales and no gate sales is exactly the shape a scalper looks for, and every year some people pay several times the real price for the same seat.
Come for the gates rather than the 8 o'clock start. The time before the rodeo is not dead time: the vendors are trading, the arena fills gradually, and the flag skydivers are a genuine draw in their own right. Outside food and drink are not allowed, though water is encouraged, and there is no alcohol.
The details
A rodeo ticket listed well above the city's price is a resale. Riverton sells at a published price on a published date through its own channels, and it has gone out of its way to say in writing that it has never charged over 100 dollars a ticket. That is an unusually blunt statement for a city to make, and it is worth taking literally. Buy on the on sale date through the city, put that date on your calendar in the spring, and treat any other source as a markup on something you could have bought at the city's price.
The parade
An evening parade, on the west side, and not at the park
Two assumptions about this parade are wrong, and both are the kind of wrong that wastes a morning. It is not on the Fourth of July, and it does not go to the park.
The parade is an evening event in early July, and in recent years it has run on the evening before the Fourth. An evening parade rather than a morning one is a real difference in this valley: the afternoon heat has broken, the light holds until well past nine, and you are not standing on a curb at eight in the morning holding a spot. It is also why a movie in the park can be scheduled for the same night once the parade is over.
The route stays along 13400 South and 2700 West, and it does not reach Riverton City Park, where the rest of the second half happens. The city sets the exact streets each year, but it typically runs along 13400 South, one of the main east to west roads on that side of town, and finishes near one of the west side elementary schools. The park itself sits over near 12600 South and 1400 West, a different part of the city altogether.
That matters in practice. 13400 South is the east to west route a large part of Riverton uses to reach Bangerter Highway, so on parade evening it is closed for the event. If you need to cross the west side that evening, assume that road is out and plan another way around, or plan the evening around the parade instead. The current route is published by the city each year, so check it before you pick a spot. What these roads do the rest of the year is covered on the page on a southwest valley address.
The Fourth
A full day in the park, finishing with fireworks at ten
The Fourth of July in Riverton runs from early morning to late at night, all of it at Riverton City Park, 1452 West 12600 South. The day usually opens with a flag ceremony and a community breakfast, then fills out with races, tournaments, children's activities, and a concert, and ends with fireworks around 10 at night on the west lawn of the park. Admission is free. Directions
The west lawn detail is the one worth carrying. Fireworks at a suburban park draw a crowd that arrives from every direction on foot, by bike, and by car, and knowing which side of the roughly 31 acre park the show goes up over decides where you park and where you sit. Thousands of people gather for it, in a park with its own parking lots and a residential grid right around it, which means the twenty minutes on either side of the show are the real pinch.
The honest advice is the same as at any city fireworks display, and it is worth saying anyway: park once and walk, or walk from home if you can, and accept that leaving takes a while. An hour or so is a generous window to clear that many people after the show. The streets around the park treat the whole evening as a fixed annual event, which is either an advantage or a reason to be somewhere else, depending entirely on temperament.
The carnival is a separate thing with its own hours. It runs on the evenings leading up to the Fourth, alongside the patriotic concert and, on parade night, the movie in the park, which means the park is busy for several evenings in a row before the Fourth of July even starts. The park page covers what that ground is like the rest of the year.
Close to the whole civic year of a 45,000 person city, packed into two weeks and mostly given away free.
Planning it
A few decisions that make or break the trip
Decide which half you are coming for, and stop trying to do both. The rodeo at the end of June and the Fourth of July stretch are separated by a few empty days and by a couple of miles of city. Building one trip around both means waiting in the middle for no gain. People who live here do both because they live here; a visitor should pick one.
Put the rodeo on sale date on your calendar rather than the rodeo date. Tickets go on sale a couple of weeks ahead of the first night, and the only way to be at that rodeo is to have acted on the earlier date. Everything else in the festival you can turn up for; that one you cannot.
Work out which site each thing you want is on before the day, not on it. The arena, the park, and the parade route are three separate locations, and only two of them are close together. And check the current schedule rather than this page, because the city rewrites the dates every year. The ranked list of things to do puts the rodeo in the context of everything else there is to do here.
Before you go
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Keep reading
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Things to do
The top 7, ranked
A park with a rodeo arena in it, a river on the far edge, and a pond open every day in season.
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Riverton City Park and the Dome
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The Jordan River through Riverton
Two trailheads, a county golf course, and a city named for a river it grew away from.
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Western Springs Park
Twenty acres the county handed over in 2017, with a splash pad and a sledding hill.
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A southwest valley address
Two expressways, no railway platform, and what fifty years of building west did.
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Riverton, the whole picture
The park, the festival, the river edge, the west side and the address, in one place.
Read the pageQuick answers
Town Days, answered
It is not a single weekend. It runs across roughly two weeks each summer, with a three night rodeo at the end of June, a few quiet days, and then a Fourth of July stretch in Riverton City Park that includes a carnival, an evening parade, and fireworks. The exact dates shift a little from year to year, so confirm the current schedule with the city before you plan a day around it.
The city keeps them inexpensive and publishes the price fresh each year; in recent years a rodeo ticket has run about 15 dollars, with children three and under free. Riverton also warns, in writing, that it has never charged more than 100 dollars a ticket and never will, so a listing well above the city's price is a resale. Buy through the city's official channels.
No. There are no ticket sales at the gate on any of the three nights, and tickets sell fast. The only way in is to buy ahead of time through the city's official channels, so put the on sale date on your calendar rather than the rodeo date.
At the Riverton Rodeo Arena, 12800 South 1300 West, at the south end of the Riverton City Park site. It runs three consecutive nights, Thursday through Saturday, and is sanctioned through the Rocky Mountain Professional Rodeo Association. Gates and vendors open around 6:30 in the evening, skydivers drop with flags soon after, and the rodeo itself starts at 8. Outside food and drink are not allowed, though water is encouraged.
It is an evening parade along 13400 South and 2700 West in central Riverton, ending at Southland Elementary, and it does not pass Riverton City Park, where the rest of the festival's second half takes place. The city publishes the exact route each year, and it typically runs along 13400 South, one of the main east to west roads on that side of town. Check the current route with the city, and plan any crossing of 13400 South and 2700 West around it.
No, and this is the assumption that most often puts people on the wrong curb. The parade is an evening event in early July, in recent years the evening before the Fourth, while the Fourth of July itself carries its own separate program in the park. An evening parade rather than a morning one is genuinely pleasant in a valley summer.
On the west lawn of Riverton City Park, 1452 West 12600 South, at about 10 at night on the Fourth of July, and admission is free. Thousands of people gather for it. Knowing which side of the roughly 31 acre park the display goes up over decides where you park and where you sit, and the pinch is the twenty minutes on either side of the show.
Most of it. The rodeo is ticketed and the carnival charges for rides, and beyond those two the program is free to attend: the parade, the patriotic concert, the movie in the park, the flag ceremony, the breakfast, the races, the tournaments, the children's activities, the concert on the Fourth, and the fireworks. For a city with no other ticketed summer season, this is close to the whole civic year spent at once and largely given away.
Pick, unless you live here. The rodeo at the end of June and the Fourth of July stretch are separated by a few quiet days and by a couple of miles of city, so a visitor trying to build one trip around both spends the middle of it waiting. Choose the rodeo if the arena is the draw, and the early July days if the parade, the carnival, and the fireworks are.
The one stretch of summer when this city is completely itself
A three night rodeo, an evening parade through the west side, and a park full of people on the Fourth tell you more about what living in Riverton is actually like than any set of numbers, which is exactly why it is worth timing a visit around them if you are weighing an address here. Tell me what you are looking at and I will connect you with a Salt Lake County partner agent who works the southwest valley, and take the research and the financing side myself.
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