By Rachel Simon
Spring may have officially begun on March 20, but for thousands of Triangle residents and visitors, the biggest celebration of the season is happening this month at Cary’s Spring Daze Arts and Crafts Festival. On Saturday, April 25th at the tree-lined Bond Park, the town’s beloved arts and crafts event will honor its 33rd year with its largest array of artists, food vendors, live music, and all-ages activities to date. But as longtime attendees know, Spring Daze isn’t just an occasion to shop and eat – it’s a celebration of Cary’s ever-growing arts scene and thriving cultural offerings.
“This is a place where we can come together as a community to celebrate the arts,” says Sarah Martin, a 35-year Cary resident and volunteer with the town’s Art Daze work group, which helps hold Spring Daze and its summertime sister festival Lazy Daze each year.
Over the decades, as Cary has transformed from a small bedroom community into a booming center full of concert-ready amphitheaters and sprawling public parks, its local festivals have similarly blossomed. This year, an estimated 15,000 people will flock to Spring Daze to peruse goods made by over 170 North Carolina ceramicists, glass-blowers, jewelry-makers, leather-workers, and more. These vendors are no dillatantes; around 500 local artists applied to be featured at the 2026 festival, with the chosen group carefully hand-selected by a jury of their peers. The competitive process – being chosen for Spring Daze one year doesn’t guarantee admission to the next – has big benefits for the festival’s attendees. After all, says Cary’s Festivals and Events Supervisor Jenna Kostka, the number of applications steadily increasing every season means that “the quality of art is going to continue to go up.”
In addition to the artist market, this year’s Spring Daze (taking place from 9-5) will also see a plethora of food trucks, interactive art installations, nonprofit booths, and areas for both kids and (leashed) dogs to let loose. “There’s something for everybody,” notes Martin.
One of the most exciting new additions to Spring Daze will be a floral artwork activity, where visitors can exemplify the 2026 festival’s “blooming soon” slogan by creating colorful chalk drawings underneath large, inflatable pieces of floral art. In the “Earth Day Lane” section of the festival, meanwhile, visitors can learn about eco-friendly actions like composting and take part in green-minded crafts. Sustainability is one of the “core visions” of Spring Daze, per Kostka, saying: “We’re committed to making sure the festival is doing its part to be environmentally responsible.”
An army of volunteers will help keep all elements of the day running smoothly, showcasing another one of Spring Daze’s main priorities: community involvement. That sentiment will be particularly echoed in the festival’s “Community Cove” area, where attendees of all ages can take part in creative activities and interactive demonstrations led by local nonprofits. In the last several years, Cary Art Daze has begun giving stipends to local organizations that want to have booths at the festival, in exchange for them putting on unique arts-focused experiences during the event.
“They’re not just there to hand out a flyer,” Kostka explains. “We ask them to become a part of the festival and create some kind of engaging activity that people can actually do hands-on.” The 2026 event, for instance, will include a bookmark-making workshop by Diamante Arts & Cultural Center and a quilt making workshop from the African American Quilt Circle of Durham, two Carolina-based nonprofits.
In August, Spring Daze’s follow-up festival Lazy Daze will feature an even larger array of artistic offerings. The long-running event – this year marks its 50th year – will feature over 250 artists and other vendors pulled from across the nation, rather than just the state. The festivities (including a beer garden and the new Kid Collectors Market filled with child-sized artworks) will be spread across the weekend of August 22-23 and take place not at Bond Park but at the Cary Town Hall Campus downtown. ““It’s incredible how two arts festivals in the same town can each have such a distinct feel”, says Kostka.
Along with several other notable Cary events occurring in 2026, like April 11th’s Pimento Cheese Festival and the winter’s Chinese Lantern Festival, the Arts Daze celebrations are establishing the area as a true cultural destination. “On any given day, there are so many opportunities happening all over town,” says Martin.
Yet while Cary’s population and arts scene may be growing at a rapid-fire rate, the town still has a small-town feel that makes events like the two Arts Daze festivals all the more special. “I run into people I know from all different facets of my life there,” says Martin. “Both the festivals really bring our community together.”
