Sacramento tourism leaders announce GoldenSky festival will return, CIM doubles in size
The spotlight was on Sacramento's growing tourism industry at the city's annual State of Tourism address held at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center, hosting leaders, business owners and lawmakers from across the region.
"The reality is we get more than 15 million visitors a year, they spend almost $5 billion into our economy, tens of thousands of jobs, so it's a huge industry in Sacramento," said Mike Testa, CEO of Visit Sacramento.
Two big announcements came Wednesday from Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty. First is that the popular three-day country music festival GoldenSky is making its big return in October 2027 with a commitment of at least three years.
The festival was put on pause in 2025 and 2026 due to competition and struggles to book country artists.
State senator Angelique Ashby said in her remarks at the event that she is working now on a bill to help the Capitol region capitalize on even more festivals.
"The idea is to create a funding mechanism that helps support music festivals on the front end of their efforts," said Ashby.
October is a busy month in Sacramento with a packed lineup. GoldenSky will once again fall on the weekend in between two major events: Aftershock music festival, the largest rock festival in the West, and Sacramento's Ironman competition, the largest in North America.
Back-to-back, the three events are estimated to bring in $70 million in economic impact in 2027.
The second announcement on Wednesday was that CIM, the California International Marathon, will double its capacity, going from allowing 10,000 runners now to up to 20,000. Union Pacific has agreed to move a train route in order to be able to extend the marathon.
Right now, the wait list is capped off at 6,000 people for the Boston Marathon qualifying race that takes place in Sacramento every December.
Doubling the amount of marathoners is a sprint to a year-end economic boost for all of Sacramento.
Also, this summer, for the first time, Sacramento will host the X Games at Cal Expo as it launches its brand new league.
"All the action starts here," said Kevin O'Connor, chief marketing officer for the X Games.
Leaders also announced the annual 2026 Tower Bridge dinner lead chefs: Kate Sutherland of Water Boy, Giancarlo Zapata of Chicha Peruvian Kitchen, Francisco Rivera of Hawks Public House and Joe Pruner of Bocce.
Leaders also highlighted the successes of events like the first Terra Madre Americas event held in Sacramento last year and the plans to build a new MLS-capacity soccer stadium in the Railyards.
Wednesday offered a taste of tourism success stories that Sacramento leaders say are writing its next chapter.
