Nevada's oldest permanent settlement is gearing up for its biggest night of the year. Genoa Town Park will host the 2026 Candy Dance Dinner Dance on September 26, running from 4:30 to 9 p.m., with Carson Valley native Jakota Wass and his band taking the stage from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Tickets cost $67.50 and are available online.
The dinner dance is the marquee evening event inside a two-day festival that has become one of the largest outdoor gatherings in the Sierra region. According to Douglas County, Nevada, this year's lineup pairs Wass's live set with a spread from Carson City BBQ, which will serve smoked chicken and pulled pork, while CV Flyte pours drinks from two full bars. Grandpa Archie's Ice Cream rounds out the night with sundaes for dessert.
Wass, who grew up in the Carson Valley and performs regularly across Lake Tahoe and Northern Nevada, has recently taken his traditional country sound beyond the region, playing the historic Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, according to the Folsom Times. His booking keeps the dinner dance rooted in local talent even as the broader festival pulls in visitors from well beyond Douglas County.
A Century-Old Fundraiser With Local Roots
Carson City BBQ, run by Carson City native Phil Hyatt, brings a résumé that includes more than 50 Best Sauce wins at rib cook-offs around the country, per the company's own account of its operations across Lake Tahoe, Reno and the Carson Valley. CV Flyte, founded in 2021 by Carson Valley locals Shannon Allen and Kylie Koerner, serves custom drinks out of a converted 1958 Shasta Air Flyte trailer and a converted horse trailer bar, according to The Knot. Both businesses operate out of the Carson Valley, giving the dinner dance's food and drink lineup the same hyper-local flavor as its headliner.
The dinner dance sits inside a tradition that dates back to 1919, when Genoa resident Lillian Virgin Finnegan organized a dance and homemade candy sale to raise money for the town's first streetlights and to help cover its monthly electric bill, per the Town of Genoa. Finnegan, an 1897 graduate of Nevada State University, was a schoolteacher and active suffragist who served on the Douglas County Equal Franchise Society in 1914 and grew up in Genoa's historic Pink House, according to the Nevada Suffrage Centennial project. In 2019, Genoa marked the Candy Dance's 100th anniversary by erecting a permanent bronze statue of Finnegan along Main Street, near the intersection of Jacks Valley Road and Nixon Street, according to the Historical Marker Database.
Why the Festival Matters to Genoa's Bottom Line
What began as a small-town streetlight fundraiser has grown into an economic lifeline. Genoa Town Manager Jody Brunz reported that the annual Candy Dance festival generates over 65 percent of the unincorporated town's annual operating revenue, according to Sierra Rec. Genoa has just 153 property lots and around 225 permanent residents, yet the two-day festival draws an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 visitors to the Carson Valley each September, per Travel Nevada.
That surge traces partly to the festival's Arts & Crafts Faire, which started in 1974 with just 12 vendors on a private lawn and has since grown into a fixture lining Main Street, Nixon Street and the Mormon Station grounds with more than 400 specialty craft and food vendors, according to the Town of Genoa. The scale of the crowds means surrounding roads see temporary daytime closures during the event, per Travel Nevada's coverage of the festival's history.
For 2026, the dinner dance itself remains the more intimate centerpiece — a single evening in Genoa Town Park built around live music, barbecue and cocktails rather than the sprawling vendor rows that define the daytime faire. Tickets for the September 26 dinner dance are available at bit.ly/candydance2026, with doors set for 4:30 p.m. and Wass and his band closing out the night at 9 p.m.
