Rivertown Days has long been the biggest event on the Hastings calendar. Live music, a craft fair, carnival rides, and events from the medallion hunt to the car show draw residents from across the county and beyond to downtown Hastings. This year’s Rivertown Days will take place from Friday, July 19 to Sunday, July 21 featuring more than 20 bands over the weekend with headliner Spin Doctors playing Saturday night.
Tickets are needed to get into downtown and access to the carnival and stages. They can be bought at the gate; daily passes are $20 or $25 for pre-sale weekend passes. Kids under the age of 15 are free. Music starts at 5 p.m. on Friday and runs continuously across the stages until 11 p.m. and from 11 a.m. to 11p.m. on Saturday.

Origins
What started as a push from local business owners to bring the community together and attract visitors nearly 40 years ago has grown into the weekend-long music festival it is today. Over the course of its history the event has taken many forms but like so many things today, the COVID-19 Pandemic changed the trajectory of the event. Before the construction of Levee Park, Rivertown Days was held along Jaycee Park, with stages and carnival rides located near Lake Rebecca and along the Mississippi River.
After the construction of Levee Park had been completed, Rivertown Days moved to closer to downtown in order to show off both the new park and historic downtown Hastings. In 2020, the festival was cancelled due to the pandemic. What came after was an overhaul to Rivertown Days.
2021 marked the beginning of Rivertown Days’ partnership with Allied Production and Sales, a full-service production company that provides professional audio, lighting, video and staging services. According to President of the Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Kristy Barse, “We had a year off, so how can we make it bigger and better?”
The 2021 Rivertown Days returned as a transformed event to focus more heavily on live music with multiple stages and continuous live music through the entire weekend.
“Music has always been a part of Rivertown Days. We just expanded it,” said Barse.

2024 Events
Two events kick off the festivities on Thursday night: the Rivertown Days Bash and Antique Fire Engine Light Show. The Rivertown Days Bash will be hosted at the LeDuc Historic Estate from 4:30-7 p.m. with live music and free food and beverages. Afterword, starting at 7 p.m. at the Hastings Golf Club, a water and lights show will be held featuring antique firetrucks.
Gates open downtown on Friday at 5 p.m. along with the beginning of the live music featuring Nick Fox and the MetroGnomes at the Pavilion Stage.
On Saturday, downtown will be open to the public without the need of tickets until 1 p.m. The Creators Market runs from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Second Street, while the Arts and Crafts Fair runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Jaycee Park. A slew of tournaments are being held across Hastings on Saturday including a disc golf tournament at C.P. Adams Park, a pickleball tournament at Roadside Park and a wiffle ball tournament at Pioneer park. Other events include the Lock and Dam #2 open house from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and two shows at the Pavilion Stage: The Carpenter Nature Center Raptor Show at 11 a.m. and Black Dirt Theatre at 11:45 a.m.
On Saturday night from 8:30-10 p.m. headliner the Spin Doctors, a 90s alternative band famous for their songs Two Princes and Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong will be performing on Stage 61.
Events on Sunday kick off at 9 a.m. with day two of the Arts and Crafts fair which runs until 4 p.m. again at Jaycee Park and the City of Hastings’ Machinery Hill exhibit, located beneath the Highway 61 Bridge and which runs until 1 p.m.
2024’s third historic car show will take place along Second Street running from 11 a.m. –to 4 p.m and at 1 p.m. the YMCA is hosting its duck race at the Vermillion River.
A slew of family entertainment on the Vermillion stage will occur from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. including a performance from Hastings High School’s marching band at 11 a.m. and ventriloquist James Wedgwood at 1:30 p.m.

Production
Rivertown Days is truly a community effort. The Rivertown Days Committee (RTD), composed of local business owners, city officials and residents, spearheads efforts over nine months of planning, but more than 120 volunteers help set up, manage, and break down the festivities.
When it comes to planning the event, “a lot of that is on the music side,” said Barse. Getting the proper equipment, stages, and lighting, as well as working with agents to bring the bands to said stages is a prodigious amount of work. When working to bring bands to the festival, attention is paid to cast a wide net of genres in order to be appealing to many different people. Spread across four different stages, the goal is that “you can stop at any time and find music you can like,” said Barse.
For a full schedule of Rivertown Days events visit https://rivertowndaysmn.com/