The 2026 Corn Palace Festival wrapped up late Sunday afternoon and Corn Palace Director Dave Sietsema is smiling. “The weather was great. We had really good entertainment. It seemed like the Midway was alive every day,” he said. “I know there was good food out there. I might have sampled, allegedly, some of it,” Sietsema chuckled.
Friday night’s show featuring Andy Grammer drew around 1,100 fans followed by Saturday night’s performance by Cole Swindell. “We were over 2,300 total, and 2,600 and change is the capacity, and that room had lots of energy and sure was, it looked like people were having a great time,” Sietsema said.
He says the Corn Palace Fair located in the Armory also drew a good crowd.
As for what’s next: “The Corn Palace Entertainment Board will get a little bit of a break. We’ll talk in our next meeting about what they thought and how it went,” said Sietsema. “And by October, we’ll be looking at avails and trying to get next year’s festival off and running.”
The annual Corn Palace Festival historically was held at harvest time in September, but more recently it’s been held at the end of August.