Scottsdale’s Western Week begins Saturday

Grab your cowboy hat and giddy-up on over to Old Town Scottsdale as it transforms into an Old West experience for the entire family for the city’s Western Week.

The annual week-long event celebrating the area’s history features Western and Native American festivals, ArtWalks, the Hashknife Pony Express and the Parada del Sol parade. Western Week runs Jan. 28-Feb. 5.

Highlights:

• Gold Palette ArtWalk:

• 6:30-9 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, Scottsdale Arts District.
• This month’s Gold Palette ArtWalk is dedicated to the theme of Western Week with entertainment, music and special offerings at participating galleries.

• Annual Hashknife Pony Express Arrival:

• 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, at Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West.
• Come and witness the oldest officially sanctioned Pony Express in the world. This free event features the “Hashknife Boot Camp” for kids, free museum admission, live entertainment, family-friendly games, storytelling, crafts, face painting, onsite food trucks and more.
• At noon, the Hashknife Pony Express arrives in Scottsdale and delivers more than 20,000 pieces of mail to the U.S. Postal Service at the front steps of the museum.

• Parada del Sol Parade and Trail’s End Celebration:

• The parade will be 10 a.m.-noon Saturday, Feb. 4; the Trails End Festival will be noon-4 p.m. in Historic Old Town.
• Traffic restrictions will be in place. View the route map here: https://scottsdaleparade.com/parade-route-map/.
• A celebration of the city’s past, present and future, the Parada del Sol Parade boasts more than 100 entries including colorful floats, mounted horse-riders, horse-drawn carriages, marching bands, wagons and stagecoaches representing many cultures from Mexican to Native American to Arabian to Western.
• At the culmination of the parade, the Historic Old Town District becomes the setting for a Western-style block party with a kids’ area, pony rides, food and merchandise vendors, and multiple stages with live entertainment from today’s popular bands to traditional performers.

• Arizona Indian Festival:

• 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4, and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 5 at Scottsdale Civic Center.
• The Arizona Indian Festival provides awareness of Arizona’s indigenous communities by creating an inclusive inter-tribal event celebrating culture, traditional arts, crafts and foods, as well as innovations and trends in cultural tourism experiences in Arizona.