5 Things to Do in Vancouver WA This Weekend - Clark County Fair, Arts Festival, Comic Con, Sunflowers & IndyCar (August 7–9, 2026)

It's Fair time. The Clark County Fair - one of Washington State's oldest and largest, established in 1868 - opens its 10-day run on Friday, August 7 at the Clark County Event Center in Ridgefield, and it will draw more than 270,000 visitors before it closes on August 16. This is the single biggest event in the Portland metropolitan area for family entertainment, and for good reason. There is simply no other event in Clark County that offers this breadth of programming across this many days for this many age groups.

This year's 2026 theme is "Blast Off!" - and the lineup delivers. New attractions include Mars Encounters and Break-A-Boyz grounds entertainment, alongside the signature 3-headliner concert series with nationally known artists performing in reserved seating ($30–$40, includes fair admission) or from the free grandstands. Carnival rides run daily with wristbands available ($35 Mon–Thu, $38 Fri–Sun). Farm animals, 4-H and livestock exhibits, the Ice Age Adventures featured exhibit, the Clark County Dairy Women's fresh milkshakes, toddler contests, and classic fair food round out the experience. The C-TRAN shuttle runs free from eight locations, making the fairgrounds easy to reach without fighting for parking.

Now in its fourth year and already established as Vancouver's signature cultural event, the Vancouver USA Arts & Music Festival (VAMF) returns to Esther Short Park for three days of world-class music, visual art, dance, and community celebration - entirely free. Organized by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra USA (VSO-USA) and the City of Vancouver, this is the festival that earned the Washington Recreation and Parks Association's Spotlight Award for Best Special Event, drew over 30,000 attendees in 2024, and has been building year over year into something that belongs in the conversation with the best free outdoor arts festivals in the Pacific Northwest.

The 2026 edition is particularly special - it celebrates America's 250th anniversary through the lens of arts and culture. Three outdoor stages run programming from 10 AM through the evening each day. The Main Stage evening concerts feature world-renowned violinist Pinchas Zukerman, acclaimed pianist Shelly Berg, and celebrated cellist Julian Schwarz performing with the VSO-USA under Maestros Salvador Brotons and Gerard Schwarz. Friday evening includes a Fantasia Reimagined film concert - live orchestral music from Disney's Fantasia followed by an outdoor screening of the 1940 film itself. Saturday night brings Pinchas Zukerman in a program featuring Beethoven, Bruch, and Mussorgsky. Sunday closes with Celebration of American Artistry. Alongside the Main Stage: 40+ local music and dance acts, juried art shows, pop-up galleries, Artists Alley, interactive art installations, caricature artists, face painting, roaming entertainers, balloon art, lawn games, and food vendors throughout the park. ASL interpretation is built in from the start.

If you've never done a Camas First Friday, this is the month to start - and if you're any kind of fan of comics, sci-fi, cosplay, anime, Star Wars, Marvel, Ghostbusters, Disney, fantasy, or movies, August's edition was specifically built for you. Camas Comic Con is now in its fourth year as the August First Friday theme in Downtown Camas, and it has earned the "fan-favorite" designation with good reason: this is the Camas version of Comic Con - smaller and more intimate than the big convention center events, completely free, deeply family-friendly, and set in one of the most charming walkable downtown environments in Clark County.

The evening runs three full hours from 5 to 8 PM through the historic downtown streets. The "Fandom Fun!" passport activity sends attendees on a trivia and puzzle hunt through participating downtown businesses for a chance to win prizes donated by merchants. The first 300 people to check in receive a collectible lanyard. Character photo ops are stationed throughout downtown featuring costumed characters from Star Wars Legion of Oregon, Ghostbusters, Marvel, and more. Lightsaber lessons, Ghostbusters slime making, fandom sticker trading, and comic art demonstrations round out the programming. Come in costume - if you're a fan of it, it counts.

Every August, O'Keefe Farms in Brush Prairie becomes one of the most visually stunning destinations in all of Clark County - and the Sunflower Festival is the reason. Sixty-plus varieties of sunflowers bloom simultaneously across the farm's fields, creating the kind of saturated golden landscape that photographs beautifully but is genuinely more powerful to stand inside than any image can communicate. The festival runs two weekends - August 8–9 and August 15–16 - giving the Clark County community two chances to get out to the Hockinson foothills and experience it.

Your ticket includes access to the sunflower fields and two U-cut sunflowers to take home (children 5 and under receive one flower). Beyond the flowers, the festival includes live music from local performers, local food vendors, local artisan and craft vendor booths, and photo ops set up throughout the farm. The field is flat and accessible. Pat O'Keefe, his wife Kelly, and their daughter Savannah - who is heading to college this fall after graduating from Hockinson High School - run the festival with help from a team of Hockinson High School students. This is a family farm doing something genuinely beautiful for the community, and it's worth supporting.

Just across the river and 30 minutes south of Vancouver, Portland International Raceway hosts one of the most exciting events on the NTT INDYCAR Series calendar - the Grand Prix of Portland. The premier open-wheel racing series in the United States, IndyCar features some of the fastest, most technically demanding open-cockpit cars in the world, and Portland's 1.967-mile, 12-turn road course is one of the most technically demanding circuits on the entire schedule. The combination of tight, technical sections and sweeping high-speed corners rewards precision driving and punishes mistakes - which makes for genuinely spectacular racing from a spectator's perspective.

The three-day Grand Prix festival format means there's racing action across all three days - practice sessions, qualifying, and the main race - with local food trucks serving throughout and interactive fan zones giving attendees up-close access to the paddock environment. For anyone who has never watched live open-wheel racing, this is a legitimately accessible entry point: Portland's raceway is a compact facility where you can see most of the circuit from many vantage points, and the sound and speed of IndyCar cars in person is one of those experiences that resets your sense of what "fast" actually means.