Held during the last full week of August, the event includes a parade through downtown, daily concerts, bull riding, a rodeo, an indoor and outdoor trade show, live-music, a midway, and citywide pancake breakfasts and barbecues.

Economic impact from the fair amounts to roughly $2.5 million spent by event operations, locals and visitors.

In 1904, eight years before the Calgary Stampede, the first large-scale rodeo was staged as part of Whoop-Up Days.

In 1912, the festival was moved to its current location on the Exhibition grounds east of Henderson Park.

The name “Whoop-Up Days” is derived from the nearby national historic site Fort Whoop-Up, which was a whisky trading outpost and hub of illicit activities in the mid-19th century before the arrival of the North-West Mounted Police in the area that is now Lethbridge.