Borrego Days Desert Festival

Chairs on Palm Canyon Drive

The Borrego Days Desert Festival begins on Palm Canyon Drive, before its grounds open. The 2026 festival, the 60th, falls on October 17 and 18. At 8:45 Saturday morning Mia Garcia sings the national anthem on the parade route. From 8:50 to 9:00 a multi-plane flyover passes down Palm Canyon and over Christmas Circle. In August 2026 the Chamber announced that “the flyover is back at Borrego Days this year thanks to a wonderful sponsor,” and the festival’s sponsor page lists it as the “Parade & Vintage Aircraft Flyover.”

The parade follows from 9:00 to 10:00, down Palm Canyon Drive to Christmas Circle. The schedule’s advice is “Bring your chairs and enjoy the fun!” The 2026 theme is “Reach for the Stars,” and the Chamber explained it this way: “Whether it is the youth of Borrego charting their paths, the celebrities that come and go or the beautiful night skies known around the world, the stars are an integral part of who Borrego Springs is.” The Chamber describes the town as one of the few designated International Dark Sky Communities in the world. Ram Radio, the community station, broadcasts live from the parade and the festival.

The Shine & Show car show runs at the same time. It is free to enter, and the cars park in a designated area at Christmas Circle between 8:00 and 9:30 a.m. and stay until noon.

Two days at Christmas Circle

The festival grounds open at 10:00. DJ Lobe and DJ Poowman play until 12:30. Community and Chamber awards follow, along with the parade and car show awards. PHT & the Honky Tonk Nights play from 1:10 to 3:30, billed on the schedule with “You wanted them back!!!” Nacho Bustillos & Band close the afternoon, singing in English and Spanish. The schedule notes that “Nacho wowed festival goers a few years back!” The grounds close at 6:30 p.m. The entertainment is free on both days.

Around the stage are a Kids Zone, food stations and food trucks, and booths “with everything from art to information.” There is also a beer garden, sponsored in 2026 by Rams Hill Golf Club. It is staffed largely by local volunteers in two-hour shifts. Recruiting them for the 2026 festival, Chamber executive director Françoise Rhodes called the beer garden “always a great place to be and people watch!” The Chamber held an open house for volunteers on September 30, with coordinator Joy McBride on hand.

Sunday is shorter. The grounds open at 9:30 a.m. Mariachi Estrella, billed as “Coming Back To The Festival,” plays from 10:15 to 12:15. Then come the BAMA JAMMERS and Jennifer’s Jewels of the Borrego Academy of Music and Art. At 3:00 the schedule reads: “That’s a wrap.....see you in 2027!”

The festival has also included the Miss Borrego Pageant. The Borrego Sun wrote in 2024 that Fred Jee often serves as its Master of Ceremonies during Borrego Days. Jee is a former State Park Ranger and has served the Chamber as both president and board member. The 2026 schedule does not list the pageant.

Opening the desert season

The Local Government Commission writes that for over 50 years Borrego Springs has marked the start of the tourist season with Borrego Days at the end of October. The commission notes that the town’s population can double in the mild winter months. The Los Angeles Times put the winter population at two or three times the summer total.

The 50th festival ran October 23 to 25, 2015, under the theme “Those Were the Days.” The Escondido Times-Advocate described it as the launch event for the desert region’s new season, “enticing locals to come together after a long hot summer and to welcome snowbirds back.” Friday evening was given to community events. The parade began at 10 a.m. on Saturday, and locals and visitors lined the main street for a vintage aircraft flyover, equestrians, marching bands, floats, clowns, dancers and classic cars. Admission and parking were free.

The 54th festival, in 2019, also ran three days, October 18 to 20, with pre-parade festivities along the route. In January 2023 the Los Angeles Times reported that the Chamber, short of volunteers after two years of pandemic, had staged Borrego Days the previous October without its parade.

The circle and its name

The festival sets up at Christmas Circle Community Park, 700 Christmas Circle Drive, which the Chamber calls the hub of Borrego Springs. The Los Angeles Times described a town with no stoplights and “one grand traffic roundabout, Christmas Circle, whose grassy center is a green dot in a vast field of dusty beige.” The park has picnic tables, a gazebo and dance floor, a kitchen, public restrooms and water fountains. It is administered by the Christmas Circle Community Park Foundation, and in 2026 Lupes Gardening and Maintenance took over its landscape. The Local Government Commission credits Joseph DiGiorgio and A.A. Burnand Jr. with designing the layout of the town.

The circle’s name is older than the town plan. The commission writes that Juan Bautista de Anza led a caravan of over 200 migrants and 200 stock animals through Coyote Canyon between 1774 and 1775. According to tradition, the Chamber says, the park was named for the birth of Salvador Ignacio Linares in Coyote Canyon on Christmas Eve in 1775.