Dumplings, Polka, and a Sense of Belonging: Omaha’s Czech Festival Returns

April 8th, 2026

Omaha has always been a city of arrivals. Czech and Slovak families settled in South Omaha generations ago, building clubs, churches, and communities that have outlasted the immigrants who founded them. The Omaha Czech Slovak Cultural Club is one of those institutions — and every spring, it throws a festival that reminds the city just how alive that heritage still is.

This year’s festival is on April 19th at the Beardmore Event Center in Bellevue, running from 11:30 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon. It is a one-day event, but it packs in more than most festivals manage over a full weekend.

The day opens with an accordion jamboree before handing the stage to Keniyanak, a local Czech band supported by the Omaha Sokols. The headline act is the Babutzi band, traveling from southern Bohemia in the Czech Republic, who perform from three to five. It is a lineup that moves from neighborhood roots to international stage in the span of an afternoon.

Vicky Sedlacek, a South Omaha native and festival committee member whose entire family has Czech roots going back generations, says the festival’s growth over the past five to six years has forced them to keep finding bigger spaces. “We’ve had it at a couple different venues that we actually outgrew,” she says. The Beardmore is their largest venue yet.

Colleen Kirmel, the club’s treasurer and a board member of the Czech Culture and Education Foundation of Nebraska, has watched the festival do something she finds genuinely moving: it brings people face to face with their own history. Visitors who arrive curious often leave having connected something in themselves to what they saw on stage or tasted at the food table. “They realize — hey, we’ve got a lot in common,” Kirmel says. “And that’s very rewarding to see.”

The food is a serious undertaking. This year’s menu features pork and dumplings, Czech baked chicken, Halushky (a Slovak take on macaroni and cheese), imported Czech beer, and kolache — the traditional filled pastry that volunteers bake by hand. Last year they made 1,600 and still sold out. Anyone who wants to help bake is welcome to show up on April 11th.

Beyond the food and music, the festival also features vendors selling imported Czech crystal and garnets, a photo booth stocked with traditional costume pieces, and a dance floor open all day. The polka, Kirmel notes, is not optional — it is expected.

The Czech Culture and Education Foundation also runs the Czech Slovak Museum in La Vista, which offers ongoing classes in language, genealogy, baking, and egg decorating — a central Czech tradition around Easter. For anyone who leaves the festival wanting more, those programs offer a way to go deeper.

Admission details and the full schedule are available on the club’s Facebook page at Omaha Czech Slovak Cultural Club. The Beardmore Event Center is located in Bellevue, Nebraska.