Kick off summer early with these fun fairs and festivals in May
Break out your flip-flops, bring your appetite, and get ready for some big fun. Check out these four fairs and festivals in May to get a jump-start on the summer revelry.
Whole Earth Festival
May 9-11 UC Davis’ student-led Whole Earth Festival appears on the quad as if by magic. That’s what this year’s co-director Katherine Krinsky thought four years ago as a freshman, when she rode her bike into it quite by accident. “I was mind-blown,” she explains. “There’s this huge festival in the middle of my campus. It pops up overnight, then it’s gone Monday morning.” And with (almost) zero waste, the eco-forward event is also gone without a trace. What began in 1969 as an “art happening” has grown into a three-day free-for-all without losing its counter-culture cred. From Friday through Sunday, music unfolds on multiple stages, 150 makers and artists vend their wares, and an all-vegetarian feast from over a dozen booths (including Davis-based Dumpling House, Purple Tree Café and Açai Fresh) is served on real crockery that the staff of student volunteers wash by hand. This elbow-grease helps get the event ever-closer to its zero-waste goal—and quietly, every year, more and more solar power lights up those stages. It’s all groovy and positively planetary. wef.ucdavis.edu
BerryFest
May 10-11 Summer is almost here and we’re seeing red—in the tastiest, juiciest way imaginable. Back in full swing for the first time since the start of the pandemic and relocated from Placer County to Woodland’s Yolo County Fairgrounds, this strawberry feast-ival has gotten inventively fruit-forward with its flavors. Snatching one of 30-plus food booths here is highly competitive, and each vendor is only allowed a single offering, guaranteeing the winners pull out all the stops on the mouthwatering recipes. Expect not just classics like strawberry shortcake, but also strawberry lobster rolls from Walnut Creek’s Chicken and the Farm, strawberry tzatziki shawarma wraps from Elk Grove’s Jeeroz Mediterranean Cuisine, and strawberry Korean tacos with spicy strawberry salsa from Roseville’s JDM Eats. With the event’s “Coming Back with Country” theme, its six entertainment stages will host musical acts playing everything from country to rockabilly, while strolling cowboys will do rope tricks and make balloon animals. A market will boast more than 60 arts-and-crafts purveyors, and an inaugural classic car show featuring over 300 autos will further fuel the fun. thestrawberryfest.com
Sacramento County Fair
May 22-26 Our hearts are aflutter at the thought of the Sacramento County Fair, which began in 1937 and will debut the Butterfly Kingdom at Cal Expo this May. We can’t think of a better date night than a stroll through the magical enclosure populated by hundreds of colorful winged pollinators. Those who want to get their heart racing instead can head to the Live Shark Encounter showcase, where a diver will swim with nurse sharks. If glucose and G-forces are your thing, the midway packs in some 30 classic fair rides, like the Zipper and Vertigo, alongside indulgent fair eats, from fried tornado potato on a stick to our favorite heat-beater, the Disneyland-favorite Dole Whip (which, incidentally, was invented by a UC Davis alum). For little ones, highlights include the perennial, classroom-grown “Garden in a Wheelbarrow” competition and The Cutest Show on Earth, featuring improv sketch comedy performed by wee would-be SNL stars. And fairgoers big and small won’t want to miss the All-Alaskan Racing Pigs, with months-old Gloucestershire Old Spots going hog wild around the track. sacfair.com
Sacramento Book Festival
May 31 This second annual bookworm gathering hosted by the Sacramento chapter of the California Writers Club is set to turn heads and pages at McKinley Park’s Iva Gard Shepard Garden & Arts Center. The day kicks off with a thrill as local action novelist James Rollins rappels straight in from the New York Times best-seller list to deliver the keynote and sign books. He’ll be joined by some 140 Northern California writers who will set up (book)shop at author booths, including Roseville author-illustrator Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson, whose children’s book The Mochi Makers was called “a storytelling treat to be savored” by Kirkus Reviews and whose new picture book Shell Song came out in April. A mystery-and-crime panel will be moderated by Lodi author and thriller novelist Clive Cussler’s co-writer Robin Burcell, and a panel called Black Women Write will be moderated by Elk Grove author RoseMary Covington-Morgan. And at the daylong, open-mic Street Reads, scribblers will read select passages from their works and give attendees something to write home about. sacramentobookfestival.com
For our full list of all 20 can’t-miss local fairs and festivals this summer, pick up our May-June issue.
