The Nuckolls County Fair and Rodeo is held at the fairgrounds on a hill south of Nelson from late July into early August, and 2026 marked the 151st year of the fair tradition in the town. It carries one event that exists nowhere else: the Rough Nuckolls Contest, in which two-person teams compete at golf, trap shooting and goat roping. Rodeo runs Thursday and Friday nights, with WI-FIX freestyle motocross riders, a kids rodeo preceded by a beef barbecue, a rodeo queen coronation, a Wear Pink night for cancer awareness, a little tuggers tractor pull, turtle races and inflatables. Every show opens with two flag salutes, one to the United States flag and one to the 4-H flag.