Stampede Week is in full swing in Medicine Hat, and the best of it is still ahead.
The Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede runs through Saturday, July 25 at the Stampede grounds on 21 Avenue S.E., under this year's theme, Endless Summer. Tom Cochrane opened the night shows Wednesday, and the back half of the week holds the Summer Pro Rodeo, the full midway, and a Saturday closer built for a singalong.
Here's the guide to the rest of it.
Gate prices, and the two magic words: Double Toonie
Regular gate admission is $12, with kids at $6, and the gate gets you the grounds, the free entertainment, the agricultural exhibits and the atmosphere, with rides and night shows on top.
The deal to know about is Double Toonie Days: Wednesday and Friday from noon to 3 p.m., admission drops to toonie territory. Wednesday's window is gone, but Friday's is coming, and for a family testing out an afternoon at the fair, Friday between 12 and 3 is the cheapest door this Stampede has.
Worth knowing about the ticket structure: Summer Pro Rodeo tickets and night show tickets both include gate admission, so if you're going for the rodeo or a concert anyway, don't pay the gate separately. The early-bird discount ended when gates opened, so what's posted now is the price.
The night shows: Johnny Reid closes it Saturday
Wednesday belonged to Tom Cochrane and Barney Bentall. Saturday, July 25 belongs to Johnny Reid, with special guest Morgan Klaiber, the double bill closing out the 2026 Stampede. Night show tickets are at tickets.mhstampede.com, they include your gate admission for the day, and the veteran move is arriving hours early to get the midway and fair food in before the show, since you've already paid your way in.
The rodeo
The Summer Pro Rodeo runs through Stampede Week at the grandstand, professional rodeo in one of the more intimate settings on the Alberta circuit, close enough to hear the chutes. Rodeo tickets include gate admission, and performance times for the remaining days are on the Stampede's site.
Older than the one in Calgary, and the Hat knows it
Here's the bit of trivia to deploy at the beer gardens this weekend: Medicine Hat's exhibition has been running since the 1880s, which makes it decades older than the Calgary Stampede that gets all the postcards. The fair on 21 Avenue S.E. was gathering southeastern Alberta's ranchers, farmers and townspeople before Alberta was a province, before Calgary's version existed, before most of the city around the grounds was built.
That history is why this Stampede still feels the way it does. It never grew into a corporate mega-event, it stayed the regional fair it was born as, urban-rural ties are literally written into the organization's mission, and the result is a Stampede where the 4-H exhibits aren't a sideshow, the grandstand is close enough to hear the rodeo stock breathing, and the person flipping your burger might have judged the horse show that morning. Endless Summer is this year's theme, but the actual theme, every year, is that southeastern Alberta shows up for its own fair. A hundred-plus years in, it still does.
Midway math, because the midway is where the money goes
West Coast Amusements runs the rides, and the pricing works like this: an unlimited ride pass is $55, valid for one day, or individual credits run $1 each with rides taking 4 to 10 credits apiece.
The math that matters: at an average of six or seven credits a ride, the unlimited pass pays for itself around ride eight or nine. For a teenager planning to live on the rides all day, the pass wins easily. For a family with younger kids doing four or five gentler rides each, credits win, and here's the detail that decides it for a lot of families: credits never expire. Unused credits carry to the next West Coast Amusements event, so buying a batch and going at kid-pace costs nothing in waste. All ride sales are final, no rain checks, so check the sky before buying the unlimited pass.
The heat plan
One thing this year's Stampede comes with that the schedule doesn't mention: a heat warning. Southern Alberta including Medicine Hat is under one, with highs in the mid-30s and the region's alert calling for a long-duration heatwave running into next week. Our full guide is here: https://www.culturealberta.com/articles/environment-canada-heat-warning-calgary-lethbridge-medicine-hat-mid-30s-weekend
For the fairgrounds specifically: the midway asphalt makes the hot afternoons hotter, so the comfortable Stampede day this week runs on the edges, gates-to-mid-afternoon or late-afternoon-to-night-show, with water in hand throughout. The evening sessions are the sweet spot, cooler air, the midway lit up, and the grandstand events all land in the good hours anyway.
The bottom line for the weekend
Friday: cheapest entry of the week from noon to 3, full midway, rodeo at night. Saturday: the big finish, rodeo, full grounds, and Johnny Reid to close it, with the concert ticket doubling as your day pass. The complete daily schedule, rodeo times and tickets are at mhstampede.com.
Sources:
Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede: https://www.mhstampede.com
Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede, night show and rodeo tickets: https://tickets.mhstampede.com
West Coast Amusements, Medicine Hat Stampede midway: https://westcoastamusements.com/event/medicine-hat-stampede/
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