On October 3, the Clear Lake Farmers Market wraps its 2026 season in the Surf Ballroom parking lot, the spot it's called home since mid-May. Show up expecting a quiet last morning of produce stands and goodbyes, and you'll get exactly that: the market runs its usual 9 a.m. to noon window, then it's done for the year.
Except that same morning, on the other side of downtown on Main Avenue, a second outdoor vendor and farmers market opens as part of Clear Lake's annual Harvest Festival. It runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., more than five hours longer than the market you thought was the day's main event. If your Saturday routine is "market, then home," you're going to leave downtown before the bigger version of it has even hit its stride.
Two Markets, Two Addresses, Same Date
This isn't a scheduling accident. It's just how the 2026 calendar landed, and it's worth laying out plainly because the two events share a name, a season, and a date without actually being the same thing.
Season-finale Farmers Market | Harvest Festival's Outdoor Vendor Market | |
|---|---|---|
Location | Surf Ballroom parking lot, 460 North Shore Drive | Main Avenue |
Hours | 9 a.m. to noon | 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. |
Context | Final Saturday of a run that started May 16 | One day, as part of the annual Harvest Festival |
What you'll find | Produce, baked goods, meats, crafts, coffee, food trucks, live music | Vendors, wine and beer samples, hayrides, a 5K |
The regular-season market has been drawing more than 50 vendors a week to the Surf Ballroom lot since May 16. That's a five-month run built around the same short window every Saturday morning. The Harvest Festival's vendor market is a different animal entirely: a one-day event on Main Avenue, timed to a festival rather than a season, and open through the afternoon.
The Morning Has Three Things Running at Once
Layer in the Harvest Festival's other headline event and the overlap gets denser. The Champagne 5K has packet pickup at 8 a.m. and a 9 a.m. start, putting runners on the road at the exact moment both markets open. Hayrides start boarding at 10 a.m. from Farmers State Bank on 1st Avenue and keep running until 4 p.m., right alongside the vendor market a block or two over.
So between roughly 8 a.m. and noon on October 3, you've got a farmers market closing out its season at the lake, a 5K starting downtown, a second vendor market opening on Main Avenue, and hayrides queuing up nearby. None of these are competing for the same footprint exactly, but they're all drawing on the same downtown blocks and the same limited parking within the same four hours.
The market's regular Saturday crowd, built over 21 straight Saturdays of vendors at the Surf Ballroom lot, closes out its season the same morning a second, unrelated vendor market opens on Main Avenue and runs five hours longer.
That's the part that's easy to miss if you're just checking "when does the farmers market end this year" and stopping there.
What Changes If You Usually Skip Downtown on Market Saturdays
If your Saturday habit has been the 9 a.m. run to the Surf Ballroom lot for produce and coffee before the day gets busy, October 3 is worth treating differently than a normal closing week.
- Arrive by 9 a.m. if you want the season-finale market itself. It ends at noon, full stop, regardless of what's happening downtown.
- Expect Main Avenue to be a separate destination that day, not an extension of the same walk. The festival's vendor market runs until 4 p.m., long after the regular market has packed up.
- If you're going for the hayrides, they board at Farmers State Bank on 1st Avenue starting at 10 a.m. That's a different corner than either market.
- Parking near the lake and parking near Main Avenue will both be tighter than a typical Saturday, since the 5K, the festival market, and the hayrides are all pulling from downtown at once.
- If you wanted the festival's VIP Experience Bag, with the extras tied to the Clear Lake Yacht Club, that preorder window closed September 3. It's a preorder-only perk, and this year's cutoff has already passed.
None of this is complicated once you know it. The friction only shows up if you assume the market's usual rhythm holds on its own closing day, when in fact the day itself has grown around it.
Why the Season Really Ends on Main Avenue, Not at the Lake
Here's the part that actually matters if you've been a regular all summer: the version of "last Saturday" you're used to, quiet stalls, familiar vendors, an easy goodbye at the Surf Ballroom lot, isn't really where the day peaks this year. The lot empties out at noon. Main Avenue is just getting going.
Businesses along that stretch know it. TAP'd, at 313 Main Avenue, sits inside the festival's footprint. Larson's Mercantile, near the corner of Main and 4th, has anchored the block's foot traffic all summer through events like Thursdays on Main. Last year's Harvest Festival ran on sponsorship from names like Clear Lake Bank & Trust and TAP'd itself, the kind of backing that tells you this isn't a small pop-up tacked onto a market closing. It's the bigger event, and the market's last Saturday just happens to fall inside it this year.
If you've spent the summer treating the Surf Ballroom lot as the whole show, October 3 is the day that assumption breaks. The season doesn't quietly wind down. It gets absorbed into something louder, across town on Main Avenue, that keeps going for five more hours after the market you know has already closed.
That's worth knowing before you plan your Saturday, whether you're chasing the last of the season's produce, running the 5K, or just trying to figure out where to park.
Clear Lake's calendar has a way of rewarding people who pay attention to the small overlaps like this one. If you're weighing a move to the lake, or already own here and want a read on how the town's rhythm connects to its housing market, Crispin Parker knows Clear Lake beyond the listing sheet. Schedule a consultation if you'd like to talk through what's actually happening in this market, on the calendar and off it.
