Cary's Town Hall Campus will close to traffic at noon on Friday to make way for more than 250 artists from 22 states, as the Lazy Daze Arts & Crafts Festival returns for its 50th year on August 22 and 23. The two-day event runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, filling downtown Cary with original artwork, live demonstrations, and hands-on activities across four stages of food and entertainment.
The milestone comes five decades after local artist Jerry Miller launched the festival on August 27, 1977, setting up 100 artisans paying $10 a booth on East Chatham Street. According to the Town of Cary, that first event turned a $500 profit, which the town used to buy a recreation tent — a modest beginning for what has grown into Cary's largest annual public gathering. The festival moved to the Town Hall Campus in 1981 and has stayed there ever since.
Miller guided the event's vision for nearly five decades before he passed away in 2025 at age 93, just months after receiving the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina's highest civilian honor, in May 2025, according to Cary Magazine. His festival has scaled alongside the town itself, which has grown from roughly 20,000 residents in 1976 to nearly 187,000 in 2026, transforming Cary from a quiet suburb into Wake County's second-largest municipality, per Downtown Cary NC.
Road Closures and Free Shuttles
As reported by ABC11, North Academy Street will close from Ambassador Loop to Chapel Hill Road, and Wilkinson Avenue will close from North Academy Street to East Durham Road for the weekend. The Town Hall Campus and surrounding streets are expected to reopen by the end of Sunday, August 23.
With downtown parking limited, festival organizers are encouraging attendees to use free shuttles or public transportation instead. Free shuttle buses will run from South Hills Mall & Plaza and Green Hope High School from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday, the outlet's report notes. GoCary is also offering fare-free service on all fixed routes, including its stop at Cary Depot, which sits just steps from the festival entrance. Accessible parking will be available first-come, first-served at the Cary Fire Department administration lot on North Academy Street, across from Cary Depot, and a rideshare drop-off area has been set up near the festival's south entrance on Academy Street. Attendees can text LAZY to 888777 for event updates via SMS.
Kids Daze and the Town Crier's Awards
Families can head to Kids Daze, which includes an air-conditioned play zone, roaming entertainers, and art festival bingo, per the same ABC11 account. The festival's Kid Collectors Market lets children buy donated artwork from participating artists for $5 a piece, with each item labeled so young buyers can meet the artist who made it, according to Midtown Magazine. The Cary Town Hall lobby will remain open throughout the festival, giving visitors an indoor space to cool off from the August heat.
A ceremonial highlight returns Saturday at 1 p.m., when a costumed Town Crier travels the grounds to announce winners of the Jerry Miller Awards, honoring the festival's best-in-show artists with prize ribbons and local recognition, the Town of Cary says.
A Half-Century of Civic Payoff
Beyond the art and entertainment, Lazy Daze has functioned as a steady funding source for Cary's civic and nonprofit groups. Proceeds from the festival and its sister event, Spring Daze, have returned more than $1 million in community grants to local nonprofits since the grant program began, the Town of Cary reports. Early grant money helped build lasting downtown landmarks, including the Cary Town Clock at Academy and Chatham streets in 1983 and the Lazy Daze Playground in 1985.
For the current grant cycle, the Cary Art Daze Work Group allocated $40,000 in festival proceeds to local nonprofits, capping individual grants at $5,000 to support arts programs running through December. This year's recipients include Asian Focus, Gigi's Playhouse, and the Cary Town Band, according to the town's grant listings.
The festival's five-decade run has proven remarkably resilient, having been canceled only twice — once due to Hurricane Irene in August 2011 and again during the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2020, Cary Magazine reports. Organizers have also gotten creative with the late-summer heat before, once bringing in a snow machine in 2014 to give visitors some relief. This year, ABC11 is a sponsor of the 50th annual festival.
