Each year, we ask Orange County Register readers to choose their favorite places to shop, dine, play and do business in OC.
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Here are the top picks for Best fairs and festivals:
1. OC Fair
88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa; 714-708-1500; ocfair.com
“They really like us,” said OC Fair Communications Director Terry Moore, channeling her inner Sally Field.
“Like” is an understatement for the massive and massively popular OC Fair.
From world-class music to slam-bang sports to carnival rides to old-fashioned county fair fare, OC has it all.
“It really is the best summer celebration,” Moore said of the 23-day annual OC “Granddaddy” event, which has been a summer centerpiece for 136 years, the last 77 at the 150-acre Costa Mesa Fair & Event Center.
Upwards of 1 million visitors attend the fair each year, to enjoy more than 80 shows across three venues ranging from headliners such as Willie Nelson, Nelly and John Fogerty at the Pacific Amphitheatre, to tribute acts at the Hangar.
The Fair After Dark, with dancing and music at Plaza Pacifica, was introduced in 2025 on weekends and was extended throughout the week this year by popular demand.
The carnival offers 65 rides, while 80 food concessionaires serve up a dizzying array of foods, including fried, well, anything. Want to try the deep-fried tiramisu, introduced this year? There is also a new kid’s place, and assorted “value bundles.”
Also don’t miss the OC Fair Sports Arena and its ever-growing list of demolition derbies.
“If you have something, we will crash it,” Moore jokes.
For those into old-timey fair affairs, about 15,000 entrants vie in competitions for best recipes, livestock and produce, from homegrown tomatoes to rutabaga.
“When you win a blue ribbon here, it’s bragging rights for life,” Moore said.
2. Festival of Arts/Pageant of the Masters
650 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach; 800-487-3378; foapom.com
This was a “GOAT” year for the Festival of Arts/Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach, which remains a perennial favorite of art aficionados, festival-goers and “best of” voters.
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With this year’s theme of “Greatest Of All-Time,” the most “Laguna” of Laguna Beach events had another banner year.
“What makes our event truly special is the combination of a professionally juried fine art show alongside the Pageant of the Masters — a world-renowned theatrical production where art literally comes to life on stage. There’s really nothing else like it anywhere in the world,” said Marketing/Public Relations Director Sharbie Higuchi.
The famed pageant is a 90-minute show of volunteers posing to re-create master artworks. This year’s show, which runs from July into September annually, features Michelangelo, Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, Rockwell and traditional closer, da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”
There are also arts sales, exhibits and music.
3. Orange International Street Fair
Old Towne Orange; orangestreetfair.org
From the inspiration of a town street fair in 1910, to its revitalization and formal founding in 1973, and into the current era, the Orange International Street Fair continues as a regional favorite.
The event, which can draw upwards of 300,000 over the three-day Labor Day weekend, features music, culture and folk dance. And food, lots of food, from more than a dozen “ethnic streets,” such as Greek, German, Irish, Italian, Mexican.
Think of it as Epcot for the taste buds.
“It’s our final goodbye to summer,” said Brian Lochrie of the Orange Plaza Board of Directors.
Not only is the weekend event free to attend, but offered at no taxpayer cost. In fact, “we get a big bill from the city at the end,” Lochrie said. “All the money goes to nonprofits.”
Local nonprofits, charities, churches and schools operate the “streets,” which radiate from the Old Towne Plaza along Chapman Avenue and Glassell Street.
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