35th Annual Chalk It Up! Chalk Art & Music Festival
Labor Day Weekend: Saturday, August 30 through Monday, September 1, 2025, from 10 am to 6 pm, at Fremont Park in Midtown Sacramento. Admission is FREE!
FESTIVAL FAQs:
What is the Chalk It Up! Chalk Art & Music Festival?
- The Chalk It Up! The Chalk Art & Music Festival is a three-day celebration of local artists and the arts community — one of the last free, family-friendly festivals in Midtown Sacramento. The Chalk It Up Festival is a Sacramento tradition, a gift to the community. With the help and partnership of our generous sponsors and donors, we’ve kept it 100 percent free to the public since 1991, over 3 decades!
What to expect?
- 3 days of live local music on the Chalk It Up stage.
- Food and Craft Vendors selling locally made goods. A shady picnic area for relaxing and enjoying your food from the food vendors.
- A “Drink It Up” Tent for 21 & Over guests to enjoy local Beer from Oak Park Brewing and Jack Rabbit Brewing (including an N/A beer), local wine from Acheson Wine, local cider from Two Rivers Cider, and N/A crafted Kombucha mocktails from K.C. Kombucha.
- Free sidewalk chalk for the kids to draw inside the park, plus kids activities in the Kids’ Corner (by the playground).
- Our BIG TENT where you can purchase Chalk It Up logo gear, fancy sidewalk chalk, drink tickets, and make donations to support our non-profit, Chalk It Up to Sacramento.
- And HUNDREDS of local artists creating a live art gallery out of sidewalk chalk on the sidewalks surrounding the park!
Where is the Festival?
- Join us at Fremont Park, one of the oldest parks in Sacramento for this great community festival, where you can see and hear live local musicians, patronize local craft, maker, and food vendors in the marketplace, and watch local artists turn the sidewalks around Fremont Park into colorful works of art out of chalk. This is part performance art, as the artists are creating the work during the festival. Community members come from throughout the greater Sacramento Valley region several times over the 3-day weekend to watch the artwork come to life.
- ABOUT FREMONT PARK: John C. Fremont Park is located at 1515 Q Street in Downtown Sacramento. This 2.50-acre park features an Adventure Playground, walkways, numerous beautiful legacy trees that provide ample shade, and city WiFi.
Is there an Admission Fee?
- ADMISSION IS FREE. It is a core value of our non-profit mission to keep this festival FREE for the community, and we owe this to the steadfast support of donors, sponsors, and volunteers.
What are the hours?
- The park is open to the public from 10 am to 6 pm on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday of Labor Day Weekend
- The exterior artwork will take place throughout the weekend, depending on the artists’ preferred work hours. Some start early in the morning, some work later into the evening.
What should I bring?
- You are welcome to bring a picnic blanket or low camp chairs to find a shady space in the park. We have a picnic area with tables and chairs shaded for most of the day by large trees.
- Bring your refillable water bottles.
- Bring money to purchase food and drinks, and to patronize the incredible array of local craft vendors and artisans.
FREE RIDES: Thanks to our generous sponsor SacRT, travel by Light Rail or City Bus is FREE! Just show this flyer to fare collectors to get your free rides to and from the Chalk It Up Festival!
FREE BIKE VALET: Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Sutter Health, we have free Bike Valet Parking by the Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates. Come park your bike for free at the festival (but be sure to tip your valet).
PARKING: The S+P Parking Lot, located at 15th & R Streets, is just one block away and will offer a special event rate of $15.00 for the entire day. You can try to find street parking in the neighborhood, but be sure to read the parking signs carefully, as the City of Sacramento’s Parking Enforcement is vigilant.
WHAT TO EXPECT
For the Chalk It Up! Chalk Art & Music Festival we bring in the following amenities:
- Portable Restrooms and Hand-washing Stations
- “Water Monsters” with free filtered, chilled water – bring your water bottles!
- Picnic area with chairs and tables
- Food trucks and stationary food vendors
- Craft vendors and artists selling their wares
- FREE Bike Valet Parking
- 21 & Over tent serving local brews, wine, cider, and n/a selections
- Chalk It Up Stage with 3-days of live local music
- FREE CHALK FOR KIDS at the Chalk It Up Information Tent
- LOGO GEAR – Support Chalk It Up by purchasing a t-shirt, hat, tote, drink tickets, or premium artists’ chalk at our main tent.
ACCESSIBILITY
Fremont Park is public park in Midtown Sacramento and the full block, including all the surrounding sidewalks, are reserved during the Chalk It Up Festival. Most activities take place on its expansive grassy areas. The park is designed with concrete sidewalks to help those using mobility devices to reach the food and craft vendors. However, it’s important to note that the picnic area, beer garden, chalk art, and stage are all located on natural turf or grassy areas. Visitors using mobility devices should be prepared for these uneven surfaces.
The Chalk It Up! Chalk Art & Music Festival is a three-day celebration of local artists and the arts community — one of the last of the free, family-friendly festivals in Midtown Sacramento.
Since 1991, we have hosted a safe and clean festival at Fremont Park at 16th & Q Streets in Midtown Sacramento where the community can listen to live local musicians, patronize local craft, maker, and food vendors in the marketplace, and watch local artists turn the sidewalks around Fremont Park into colorful works of art. This is part performance art, as the artists create the work during the festival. Community members come from throughout the greater Sacramento Valley region several times over the 3-day weekend to watch the art work come to life. Kids of all ages are inspired after a walk around the outside of the park to admire the work of these professional artists, so we supply buckets of sidewalk chalk for folks to use to experiment on the interior walkways of the park.
The Chalk It Up Festival is a Sacramento tradition and a gift to the community. Thanks to the help and partnership of our generous sponsors, donors, and volunteers, we’ve kept it 100 percent free to the public for 35 years!
CHALK ART
Street painting, using chalk as the medium, is an Italian tradition that is believed to have begun during the 16th century. It is called “Madonnari” because of their practice of reproducing the image of the Madonna (Our Lady). The early Italian street painters were travelers who would arrive in small towns and villages for Catholic religious festivals and transform the streets and public squares into temporary galleries for their works of art. The Chalk It Up Festival honors this tradition and celebrates the transient beauty of this medium.
