Where Watermelon Themed Everything Take Over One of Mississippi’s Smallest Towns
Location: Mize City Park, 299 Oak Street, Mize, MS
Dates: Friday, July 17, and Saturday, July 18, 2026
Friday Hours: Gates open at 3:30 p.m.
Saturday Hours: Gates open at 8:30 a.m.
5K Run/Walk: Friday at 7:00 p.m.
Admission: Friday — $10 for adults and $5 for children 10 and under; Saturday — $15 for adults and $5 for children 10 and under
Two-Day Pass: $20, available at the gate Friday
Worth the Detour? ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)
For one weekend every July, the population of Mize, Mississippi, increases dramatically. Most of the year, Mize is a quiet Smith County community with only about 300 residents.
During the Mississippi Watermelon Festival, however, thousands of people descend upon the small town for two days of competitive eating, car shows, live music, beauty pageants and unlimited slices of cold Smith County watermelon.
That makes the festival far more than an agricultural celebration.
It may be one of Mississippi’s most complete obscure events.
The 48th annual Mississippi Watermelon Festival will be held July 17-18 in downtown Mize. The festival’s official schedule includes the Mississippi Watermelon Festival 5K Run/Walk, a Jeep Show & Shine, a Car, Truck and Bike Show and the festival’s traditional watermelon competitions. Visitors will also find arts-and-crafts vendors, food booths, children’s activities and live entertainment throughout the weekend.
The weekend’s primary traditional sporting event is the Mississippi Watermelon Festival 5K Run/Walk.
Registration and check-in begin Friday at 6:00 p.m., with the race starting at 7:00 p.m. The event will be held rain or shine.
Registration costs $25 before July 2 and $30 afterward. Although online registration has closed, runners and walkers can still register before the race. Participants who registered early were guaranteed an official race shirt.
The evening start gives the race a different atmosphere from the average summer 5K. Instead of waking up before sunrise, runners arrive while the festival is already underway. Food vendors are cooking, music is playing and visitors are filling the park.
Crossing the finish line does not end the experience.
Race participants can walk directly into a festival filled with food, music and as much free watermelon as they can eat. Previous editions of the race have also raised money for the Mize Volunteer Fire Department, connecting the competition directly to the organization that keeps the festival running.
From a sports perspective, it is difficult to imagine a more Mississippi-style finish-line reward than a cold slice of Smith County watermelon.
The 5K may be the festival’s most conventional athletic competition, but the watermelon-eating contest is its most entertaining.
Contestants race against one another to consume watermelon as quickly as possible while spectators gather around to watch the juice, seeds and pieces of rind fly.
There are no defensive schemes, uniforms or complicated statistics.
There is simply a plate of watermelon and a race to the finish.
The contest has long been one of the festival’s signature attractions.
Competitive eating may fall somewhere between sports and entertainment, but the fundamentals are familiar. Contestants need speed, rhythm, focus and enough determination to continue once every bite becomes more difficult than the last.
It also gives Smith County growers a chance to turn their most famous crop into the centerpiece of an arena.
Another one of the festival’s most entertaining traditions is the watermelon seed-spitting contest, where contestants test both power and precision to see who can launch a seed the farthest. It may sound simple, but veteran competitors know there’s more technique involved than most people expect. Finding the right seed, positioning it correctly and generating enough force without sacrificing accuracy can make all the difference. Like the eating contest, it turns an everyday part of enjoying a slice of watermelon into a lighthearted sporting event that regularly draws laughs and cheers from spectators gathered around the competition area.
The official festival site promotes all the free watermelon visitors can eat and also lists a biggest-watermelon contest among the weekend’s attractions. That adds another layer of competition, with local growers trying to produce the heaviest and most impressive melon in the field.
In Mize, watermelon is not merely served. It is raced with, eaten competitively, weighed, judged and celebrated.
The competition continues Saturday with the Mississippi Watermelon Festival Car, Truck and Bike Show.
Awards will be presented to the top five cars, top five trucks and top five motorcycles. Additional honors include Best of Show, Best Pre-’49, Best Race Car, Best Project or Rat Rod and an award for club participation.
The entry fee is $25.
Friday’s Jeep Show & Shine adds another division to the weekend. Jeep owners compete for awards including Best Paint or Wrap, Best Interior, Vintage and Stock. Entry costs $15.
Together, the two shows create what feels like a temporary outdoor auto museum in the middle of Mize.
For Mississippi sports fans who spend their weekends at dirt tracks, drag strips and local cruise-ins, the vehicle competitions may be every bit as interesting as the 5K.
Every major sporting event needs someone to represent it.
The Mississippi Watermelon Festival has an entire royal court.
Laney Powell serves as the 2026 Mississippi Watermelon Queen. The festival also crowns representatives across several younger age divisions.
The 2026 court includes Teen Queen Selah Murphee, Preteen Queen Lynley Arender, Little Queen Vaeda Rogers, Petite Queen Kollyns Corley, LaPetite Queen Hadley McLendon, Tiny Queen Wrenly Ponder and Baby Queen Ellisyn Wedgeworth.
The Watermelon Queen acts as an ambassador for the festival and the community, representing Mize and one of Mississippi’s most recognizable agricultural traditions at appearances around the state.
The pageant provides another form of competition while preserving a tradition that has become closely connected to the festival’s identity.
Much like a homecoming court represents a school or a festival queen represents a community, the Mississippi Watermelon Queen becomes the face of the entire weekend.
The sporting competitions are only part of the festival.
Friday evening’s entertainment begins with Jones & Pine at 6:00 p.m. The band 18 Miles follows at 9:00 p.m. and is scheduled to perform until midnight.
Saturday night belongs to independent country artist Frank Foster, who takes the stage at 8:00 p.m. Foster has built a loyal following outside the traditional major-label system and has released several albums that reached the Billboard charts.
The concerts give the festival the atmosphere of a small-town summer celebration rather than a single sporting competition.
Families can arrive for the race or car show, spend the afternoon eating and shopping, and remain in town for a full-scale country concert that evening.
Festival organizers also fill the park with food vendors, arts-and-crafts booths, games and children’s attractions. Visitors are encouraged to bring lawn chairs, arrive early and allow extra time for parking because of the crowds expected to enter the small community.
The Mississippi Watermelon Festival traces its beginnings to 1978.
According to former festival director and Mize Volunteer Fire Department assistant chief Terresa Stewart, the event was originally started by the Watermelon Growers Association. The volunteer fire department took control of the festival during the early 1980s and transformed it into an annual fundraiser.
Nearly five decades later, the festival remains entirely staffed by volunteer firefighters and their families.
The money raised has gone toward the equipment needed to protect Mize and the surrounding community. In 2018, festival proceeds helped purchase radios for firefighters. The following year, organizers planned to use ticket revenue to buy new turnout gear.
That connection gives the weekend a deeper purpose.
The runners, vendors, musicians, vehicle owners and spectators are not simply attending a festival. They are helping support the volunteer department responsible for responding when someone in the community needs assistance.
What began as an agricultural gathering has grown into one of Mississippi’s premier summer festivals without losing its small-town mission.
Barstool Watermelon Review – Smith County Watermelons (Smith County, MS) – YouTube
The festival could not take place just anywhere.
Smith County has been associated with watermelon farming for generations.
Local families have passed the work from parents to children, creating agricultural traditions that stretch back decades. Farmer Pete Rutland, who operates near Mize, has said his family grew watermelons for as long as he could remember and that his father raised them before him. Rutland has dedicated dozens of acres to watermelon production during the heart of the summer harvest.
Clyde Magee is another longtime Smith County grower. Magee has been raising fruits and vegetables since 1968 and has become especially well known for his watermelons.
Today, the festival’s official site directs visitors to several Smith County producers, including Shannon Powell, Will Allen, Pete Rutland, Clyde Magee and Jonny Freeman.
The county’s warm summers and well-drained soils provide favorable growing conditions for the fruit, but generations of knowledge are just as important. Experienced growers understand when to plant, how to manage rainfall and heat, and how to recognize the exact moment when a watermelon is ready to leave the field.
That reputation has spread far beyond Smith County.
Roadside stands and produce markets across Mississippi regularly advertise “Smith County watermelons” because the name itself has become a mark of quality. The county is widely associated with melons that are crisp, juicy and exceptionally sweet.
The festival celebrates those growers and the agricultural identity they helped create.
Mize sits in southwestern Smith County, away from Mississippi’s interstates and major population centers.
It is the kind of place most travelers would never encounter unless they deliberately left the highway.
The town developed along the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad during the early 20th century. Today it covers only a few square miles and remains home to a few hundred residents. Yet Mize has become known throughout Mississippi because of a fruit, a festival and a volunteer fire department willing to undertake an enormous amount of work each summer.
Previous festivals have attracted thousands of visitors and dozens of vendors. In 2022, WDAM again reported thousands of people coming to Smith County for the event.
Organizers have not announced a precise attendance projection for 2026, but the event’s recent history indicates that several thousand visitors can reasonably be expected during the two-day weekend.
That means the festival crowd could be many times larger than the town’s permanent population.
For two days, quiet streets become parking areas. The park becomes a concert venue. The road becomes a racecourse. Watermelon fields become part of the town’s identity, and a community of 317 residents hosts one of the biggest summertime gatherings in the region.
That contrast is what makes Mize special.
From a Magnolia Coast Sports perspective, the Mississippi Watermelon Festival deserves recognition because competition appears in nearly every corner of the weekend.
Runners compete through the streets during the 5K.
Growers compete to raise the biggest watermelon.
Hungry contestants compete to finish slices faster than everyone else.
Car, truck, motorcycle and Jeep owners compete for trophies.
Pageant contestants compete for a place on the Watermelon Queen court.
Even the spectators face a challenge: determining how much free watermelon one person can reasonably eat during a Mississippi afternoon.
The festival demonstrates that sports culture is not limited to stadiums, arenas or traditional scoreboards.
Sometimes it can be found at a city park in a town of 317 people, surrounded by pickup trucks, country music, volunteer firefighters and tables covered in watermelon rinds.
Why It’s Worth the Detour
Atmosphere: ★★★★★
A tiny Mississippi town welcomes thousands of visitors for a weekend that feels like a road race, county fair, car show and country concert combined.
Spectacle: ★★★★☆
Watermelon-eating contests, customized vehicles, a biggest-watermelon competition and a nighttime 5K provide plenty to watch.
Tradition: ★★★★★
The festival began in 1978 and has celebrated Smith County’s watermelon-growing heritage for nearly five decades.
Value: ★★★★★
Admission includes hours of competitions, vendors and entertainment, along with all the free watermelon visitors can eat.
Uniqueness: ★★★★★
There are watermelon festivals in other communities, but few combine a road race, competitive eating, pageant royalty, classic vehicles and live country music in a town this small.
Final Verdict
Worth the Detour? Absolutely.
The Mississippi Watermelon Festival is the kind of event Magnolia Coast Sports was created to highlight.
It is local.
It is competitive.
It is slightly unusual.
Most importantly, it tells the story of a community. For nearly 50 years, Mize has turned Smith County’s most famous crop into a two-day celebration that raises money for its volunteer firefighters and welcomes thousands of visitors into one of Mississippi’s smallest towns.
Come for the 5K.
Stay for the car show.
Watch someone attempt to inhale a plate of watermelon.
Meet the Mississippi Watermelon Queen.
Listen to country music under the summer sky.
Then grab another free slice before heading home.
Sometimes the best sporting events are not held inside stadiums.
Sometimes they take over an entire town.
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