Castro Valley Fall Festival

At eight o’clock on the Friday night of festival weekend, Castro Valley Boulevard closes to cars between Redwood Road and Santa Maria Avenue. It stays closed until midnight Sunday. In 2016 the closed stretch measured a third of a mile and ran in front of the Castro Village shopping center, with traffic detoured around the town’s main thoroughfare. In that space the Castro Valley/Eden Area Chamber of Commerce puts on two days of live entertainment, local artisans, food vendors, family activities and community organizations, with shopping from what the chamber calls hundreds of exhibitors. Admission is free. The festival falls every year on the weekend after Labor Day. The 54th was set for Saturday and Sunday, September 12 and 13, 2026.

Two stages on the boulevard

Darin Moriki’s 2016 report in the East Bay Times gives the clearest count. That year there were 168 booths, including new arts and crafts vendors. Nearly 30 bands and performers played two stages:

• Rock Nation, of San Francisco
• Eden Aoba Taiko
• the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District Dancers
• The Landbirds, of Concord
• Bad Boy Bruce & The Blues Mob
• members of Castro Valley Performing Arts

More than 75 volunteers worked the weekend, from the Castro Valley High School Key Club, Redwood Christian Schools, the Castro Valley Interact Club and the Boy Scouts of America. The chamber expected 40,000 to 50,000 people, and estimated that 6,000 to 9,000 of them would come from outside Castro Valley.

Those visitors from outside town were the purpose. “The idea is to bring people from outside of town into our downtown area so they can get a chance to maybe get introduced to the businesses that they wouldn’t necessarily see if they weren’t coming into town for the Fall Festival,” said Bill Mulgrew, the chamber’s executive director, in 2016. Craft beer had arrived two years earlier, and Mulgrew called it “a real big hit.” He also expected the festival to grow by one block, from Redwood Road down to San Miguel Avenue. The chamber’s 2026 listing still gives the bounds as Redwood Road and Santa Maria Avenue.

The Bedford Stage

Jim Bedford books the music. He is a musician, producer and voice teacher whose studio sits above ABC Music and Luca’s Deli in Castro Valley. According to a December 2025 account in the Castro Valley Forum, he began booking bands for the Fall Festival nearly 30 years ago, and more recently has booked them for his longtime friend Mel Speed. He handles both stages.

Months before the festival, Bedford coordinates schedules, gathers band photos, arranges dressing rooms and lines up more than 30 hours of entertainment. His Bedford Stage gives time to dance studios, performing arts groups and young musicians. Through his industry relationships he has persuaded tribute bands and professional musicians to play for free. In return he helps them toward larger dates, such as the Alameda County Fair or local wineries, and some in the business call him the “Godfather.”

He lost his wife and his son in 2025. He still commutes each day from Brentwood to Castro Valley.

“Castro Valley is a place of its own,” Bedford said. “People come together here.”

A singalong on September 11, 2004

The festival began in 1972 in Castro Village. Thirty-two years later the chamber faced a problem with the calendar. The festival was then held on the second weekend of September, and in 2004 it would open on September 11, the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

Bonnie Dettmer, the chamber’s executive director, planned a community singalong. “We can pay tribute to those who gave their lives, and also go on with life,” she told the East Bay Times. The Castro Valley Senior Sing-Along Chorus, whose singers were all 55-plus, was to lead “God Bless America,” “It’s a Grand Old Flag” and military theme songs. The concert was set for 10:30 Saturday morning on the stage near the Bank of the West in Castro Village. The chorus usually performed in black and white, but conductor Angie Zigenis asked the singers to wear red, white and blue.

The rest of that weekend’s program filled Castro Village:

• Community booths: Forty community groups staffed booths along meandering paths, among them Democratic and Republican party stalwarts and the Operation Mom troop support group.
• Vendors: Thirty-five commercial vendors offered psychic readings, photos, purses, “healing” teddy bears and holistic fitness classes.
• Food: Fifteen food booths ran from tacos to tempura to fried Twinkies. “I was a little bit surprised when the vendor said he wanted to sell fried Twinkies and fried Snickers bars,” Dettmer said. “He said they are very popular items at county fairs.”
• Drink: The chamber poured wine from three local vineyards and sold beer and commemorative festival glasses.
• Games: These included basketball throws, astro jumps and chances to win hermit crabs and goldfish.
• Stages: On three stages, square dancers and taiko drummers alternated with belly dancers and karate students. Jazz, blues, hip-hop, Christian music and music of the Andes were scheduled on stage and from roving performers.

Norbridge Avenue and back

From Castro Village the festival moved to Castro Valley Boulevard, where it typically ran between Redwood Road and Wilbeam Avenue. In 2011 Alameda County’s streetscape project on the boulevard forced it out. The East Bay Times said this was the first time in 39 years. The 39th festival moved to Norbridge Avenue, in front of the new Castro Valley Library, between the boulevard and Redwood Road. A classic car show filled the Castro Valley BART station parking lot on Saturday. Its proceeds went to the chamber and to the Auto Technology program at the Eden Area Regional Occupational Program in Hayward.

“When we decided to do this, I was terrified,” said Roberta Rivet, the chamber’s executive director, afterward. By her count the festival drew more than 60,000 visitors, and car-show entries rose from 60 the year before to more than 140. She said Supervisor Nate Miley’s office backed keeping the new site, and that she had received only one complaint about the festival. She was glad to be away from the traffic on the boulevard, which she said can be dangerous. “It’s funny how this all happened by accident, but now I would like to see the festival stay there,” she said.

The festival did not stay. In 2013, once the roadwork was complete, the Fall Festival moved back to Castro Valley Boulevard.