Things to Do in Fort Collins, Loveland & Windsor This Weekend — October 2–4, 2026
The first weekend of October is doing us a favor. The National Weather Service has Fort Collins sunny all three days with highs of 73, 76 and 73 and overnight lows in the high 40s — no wind event, no afternoon storms, nothing to plan around. That's the version of Colorado fall people move here for, and this weekend there's plenty to spend it on.
It's also CSU Homecoming & Family Weekend, October 1–4, which changes the shape of a Fort Collins Saturday whether you follow football or not. The Rams host Oregon State at 4 pm in their first Pac-12 home game, and about half the Homecoming schedule is free and open to anyone who wants to show up. Combine that with a corgi parade downtown at noon and you have a Saturday where the smart move is to pick a parking spot early and walk the rest of the day.
Seven things worth your time, across four towns.
⭐ If you only do one thing: Tour de Corgi
Saturday, October 3 · Civic Center Park and Old Town, Fort Collins · Free to watch, $5 suggested donation
Vendors and registration open at 9 am, the costume contest is at 10, and the parade steps off at noon and winds through Old Town. Several hundred corgis, most of them in outfits, escorted by owners who have clearly been planning since July. It benefits local animal rescues including All Aboard Animal Rescue and Animal Friends Alliance. Adults walking in the parade or entering the costume contest need a wristband, available ahead of time or day-of; watching costs nothing beyond the suggested donation. If you have grandkids in town this is the easiest win of the weekend — get to the parade route by 11:30 for a curb spot.
Event details at tourdecorgi.org
CSU Homecoming: Festival on the Oval & Friday Night Lights
Friday, October 2 · The Oval and west of the Lory Student Center, CSU, Fort Collins · Free
Festival on the Oval runs 3–6 pm with live music, a beverage garden, inflatables for kids and more than a hundred campus and community booths, and it is explicitly free and open to the public. At 6 it hands off to Friday Night Lights, 6–8:30 pm just west of the Lory Student Center: pep rally, bonfire, drone show, and the lighting of the A on the foothills. You do not need to be an alum or have a student there. Campus parking on a Homecoming Friday is its own sport — the transit center and the Mason corridor are the better play.
First Friday Art Walk
Friday, October 2, 6–9 pm · Downtown Fort Collins · Free
Every first Friday, downtown galleries and a long list of participating businesses stay open late with local work on the walls — painting and photography, but also pottery, jewelry and mixed media. No ticket, no registration, no set route; you wander. It pairs neatly with dinner in Old Town, though with Homecoming in town you'll want a reservation rather than a hopeful walk-in.
Participating venues and details
Timber Dan Toy Show
Saturday, October 3 · Pedersen Toyota Center, The Ranch, Loveland · Check site for hours and pricing
The fall edition of a show that regularly draws ninety-plus dealers from several states and a few hundred tables of antique and collectible toys — farm toys, die-cast, tin, trains, the lot. It's a Loveland institution run by the Loveland Lions Club, it's indoors, and it is the rare event that genuinely works for a seven-year-old and a seventy-year-old at the same time. Serious buyers should look into early entry.
Windsor Marathon, Half Marathon, 10K, 5K & 1-Mile
Sunday, October 4 · The Island at Pelican Lakes, Water Valley, Windsor · $20–$154 to register
Staggered starts: full marathon at 7 am, half at 8, 10K at 8:30, 5K at 8:45, and the one-mile kids' fun run at 10. The course runs through Water Valley and around the lakes, which is a flat, fast, genuinely pretty way to see that side of Windsor. Registration closes when it closes, so check before Sunday. Spectators get the better end of the deal anyway — there's an after-party at the finish with breakfast, drinks and music.
Ginuwine & Montell Jordan
Friday, October 2, 7:30 pm · Monfort Concert Hall, Union Colony Civic Center, Greeley · Check site for pricing
Two nineties R&B headliners on one bill, in a 1,650-seat hall that's small enough to actually be a concert rather than an event. Worth the drive if that's your era. One practical warning: the UCCC has posted a fraud notice about resale sites, and says the only valid tickets come from ucstars.com or the box office in person.
Chapungu Sculpture Park
Open daily, 6 am–10 pm · Behind the Promenade Shops at Centerra, Loveland · Free
Eighty-two monumental stone sculptures by Zimbabwean artists, set across 26 acres of landscaped and natural garden off Highway 34 and Centerra Parkway. It's free, open year-round, and the paths are paved and accessible the whole way through. There's no event attached to it this weekend — that's the point. With highs in the mid-70s and the cottonwoods turning, an hour walking here is the best-value thing on this list, and most people who live twenty minutes away have still never done it.
Also open this weekend
The Larimer County Farmers' Market runs Saturdays 9 am–1 pm at 200 W. Oak Street in Fort Collins through October 31 — this is its 50th season. The Greeley Farmers' Market is Saturdays 8 am–noon on 7th Street between 9th and 10th Avenue, also through October 31. Both are free to walk through, and early October is when the storage squash, apples and green chile are all on the tables at once.
Getting around on Saturday
The corgi parade steps off downtown at noon. The free Ram Walk tailgate runs noon–3:30 on campus. Kickoff at Canvas Stadium is 4 pm. Those three things overlap, and Old Town plus the campus corridor will both be at capacity Saturday afternoon. If you're doing more than one, park once on the edge and walk or take the Max.
Details change — organizers move start times and sell out of things. Click through before you head out.
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