Palm Beach Events Calendar 2026-27

01The dates in short

Three stretches of the coming year hold most of the Palm Beach calendar, and each one fills a week at the residence on its own.

• Early December 2026. The West Palm Beach tree lighting falls on December 3, the holiday boat parade on December 5, and the county's big food and wine festival from December 10 to 13.
• Late February 2027. Spring training games start February 19, TurtleFest takes over Juno Beach on February 20 and 21, and the Cognizant Classic plays at PGA National from February 24 to 28.
• Mid-March 2027. The boat show fills Flagler Drive from March 17 to 21, and Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary opens at the convention center on the 18th.

The table holds every date we confirmed. The notes after it say what each event involves and how it sits with a stay on Singer Island. Where the people running an event have not posted 2027 yet, we give the last date they ran and say so.

02Every confirmed date, in order

Three regulars had no 2027 date posted when we looked. The Lake Worth Beach Street Painting Festival ran February 21 and 22 in 2026, the last full weekend of the month, as it did in 2025. The Fourth of July falls on a Sunday in 2027, and the city has not yet posted its 4th on Flagler details. The boat parade and the winter art fairs will post their 2027-28 dates later, and this page will carry them when they do.

03When is Palm Beach season?

About November to April. No office declares it open, so the edges vary with who you ask: local magazines and the private clubs put the height of the social calendar between late November and early April, and some real estate writers stretch it to October at one end and May at the other.

For a guest, the practical signs are these. The horse shows in Wellington start the first week of January and run to early April. The art fairs fill the convention center from late January. The tour golf stop and spring training land together in late February. By the end of April the winter residents have gone, and the summer calendar on this coast belongs to sea turtles and divers. Rates on the residence follow the same curve, with the winter months the highest on the Airbnb listing.

04December 2026

The tree lighting and the boat parade

Holiday in Paradise opens on the Great Lawn in West Palm Beach on Thursday, December 3, from 6 to 10 p.m. The sand tree the city calls Sandi is its centerpiece; in 2025 it ran a nightly music and light show through New Year's Eve, and the 2026 schedule was still to come when we checked. The drive from the residence takes about twenty minutes.

Two nights later, on Saturday, December 5, the Marine Industries Association runs its Holiday Boat Parade, rain or shine. Fireworks start things off at North Palm Beach around 6 p.m., then up to 80 decorated boats work north along the Intracoastal to the lighthouse at Jupiter Inlet. Going by earlier parades, the organizers expect the Parker Bridge to open around 6:00, PGA around 6:15, Donald Ross around 7:00, Indiantown around 7:30 and the Jupiter Federal Bridge around 7:45, so you can pick a spot on the route and know roughly when the boats will reach it.

Food, wine and a marathon weekend

Food and wine take the following week. Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival, now in its 19th year, runs December 10 to 13 with chef dinners and tastings in towns across the county. The Grand Tasting closes it on Sunday the 13th. Tickets are on sale now on the festival's site, and the popular dinners go first.

That same weekend the U.S. Polo Assn. Palm Beaches Marathon starts and finishes near the Meyer Amphitheatre on Flagler Drive: a 5K and 10K on Saturday the 12th, then the marathon, half marathon and relay on Sunday the 13th. There is no packet pickup on race day, so runners should plan to reach the expo on Friday or Saturday.

Our Christmas and New Year’s post, Palm Beach holiday guide and West Palm Beach December post go deeper on the month.

05January and February 2027

Horses in Wellington

Premiere Week opens the Winter Equestrian Festival on January 6, and its first five-star week follows January 13 to 17. A second CSI5* week runs February 10 to 14. The Global Dressage Festival starts January 14 with a World Cup qualifier and reaches the Palm Beach Derby from March 4 to 7. Wellington is about forty-five minutes inland, and the horse-season post explains how a first visit goes.

The fair and the art shows

The South Florida Fair runs January 15 to 31 at the fairgrounds in West Palm Beach. That date comes from the county's tourism office, Discover The Palm Beaches, since the fair's own pages we read had not printed it, so confirm it before you buy.

Art Palm Beach fills the convention center January 27 to 31. The Palm Beach Show, in its 24th year, takes the same hall from an opening preview on Thursday, February 11, through Tuesday, February 16. ArtiGras, the outdoor fine arts festival, is the weekend before, February 6 and 7, up in Palm Beach Gardens, in Gardens North County District Park.

Nine full days at the end of February

All 30 big league clubs open spring training games on Friday, February 19; the spring training post covers the two local ballparks in West Palm Beach and Jupiter.

TurtleFest follows on February 20 and 21, 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. each day, at Loggerhead Park in Juno Beach. Admission is free and more than 15,000 people came in 2026. Nobody parks at the park itself: free shuttles run every 15 minutes from the FPL lot at 700 Universe Boulevard.

The Cognizant Classic comes to PGA National's Champion Course that same week. The tournament gives February 24 to 28 for the full week and the PGA TOUR lists the four competitive rounds as February 25 to 28. The Palm Beach Gardens post has tickets and a golf week built around it.

06March and April 2027

Yachts take over Flagler Drive in downtown West Palm Beach for Palm Beach International Boat Show, from Wednesday, March 17, to Sunday, March 21, right across the water from Palm Beach Island. Tickets were not on sale yet when we read the show's site. The Saturday market gives up its spot on the 20th for it.

Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary, in its ninth edition, opens with an invitation-only preview on Thursday, March 18, and runs through Sunday, March 21, at the convention center. A guest here for the boats can see both in a day, since the hall and the waterfront sit in the same downtown.

Big league clubs break camp in the same stretch: the last exhibition games are March 20 to 23, Opening Night is March 24 and the traditional Opening Day is March 25. The equestrian festival closes on April 4.

The Delray Affair, April 9 to 11, is the spring's last big street festival, seven blocks of art and craft stalls in downtown Delray Beach, run by the chamber of commerce. The drive south takes about forty-five minutes. By then the crowds are thinning on Singer Island, which makes a good case for staying the week after it.

07May to October 2027

Turtle season is the real event of the summer here, and it happens on the sand twelve floors down. Nesting season runs March 1 to October 31, and loggerhead numbers peak in June and July. Loggerhead Marinelife Center offers guided turtle walks from June 1, Tuesday to Saturday in those two months, under a state permit that keeps groups small. Dates fill quickly, tickets are not refunded, and the center is candid that no one can promise a turtle on your night. The sea turtles guide has the rules, including why balcony lights stay off after dark.

Divers have two dates. Florida's two-day spiny lobster sport season falls on the last Wednesday and Thursday of July, which would be July 28 and 29 in 2027, and the regular season opens August 6 and runs to March 31. The state had not published 2027 dates when we looked, so treat those as the rule applied to next year. Our diving page explains Blue Heron Bridge and its reef.

West Palm Beach held its 4th on Flagler from 5 to 10 p.m. in 2026, with fireworks over the Intracoastal. Hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30 with its statistical peak around September 10, so read the cancellation policy on the listing before booking for late summer. The GreenMarket usually comes back in early October; its 2026 season opened October 3.

08What runs every week

• Clematis by Night brings free live music to the Palm Stage in West Palm Beach, Thursdays from 6 to 9 p.m.
• The West Palm Beach GreenMarket runs along the waterfront each Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. through May 22, 2027. It takes two Saturdays off, for a festival on February 6 and the boat show on March 20.
• Kravis Center, Norton Museum and Flagler Museum keep their own seasons; the arts and culture guide sorts them out.
• The resort spa downstairs takes its bookings directly, and the spa guide explains how.

Weather is the other half of choosing dates, and our when to visit page takes it a month at a time.

09Booking the residence around a date

Each stretch above suggests its own stay. For December, arriving Thursday the 3rd and leaving Sunday the 13th catches the tree lighting, the boats and the Grand Tasting. For late February, Saturday the 20th to Sunday the 28th covers TurtleFest and every round at PGA National, with ball games in between. For the boat show, Wednesday, March 17, to Sunday the 21st is enough.

All three sit in the winter rates, and the live calendar and price for your dates are on the Airbnb listing. Confirm an event with its organizer once more before you book a trip around one day of it, because dates do move.

10Where these dates come from

We read each date below on November 5, 2026, from the organizer where it publishes one, and otherwise from the venue or the county's tourism office. Where the two disagreed, we say so above.