Fairfax Festival

At ten on Saturday morning the parade steps off from the Fairfax Theater, turns onto Bolinas Road, and ends on Park Road about an hour and a half later. Townspeople line the curbs. Neighborhoods, schools, merchants, and community groups enter floats, and judges score each one on originality, theme, and entertainment. The 2026 festival, held June 13 and 14 under the theme “Further Together,” was an homage to Bob Weir. That year Marin Heating and Air took Best Overall with “Pool Party.” Baywood Court won the neighborhood prize with “All You Need Is Love,” and the San Anselmo Co-Op Nursery School rode in on a “Peace train.” Abadá Capoeira Marin won the community category for the second year in a row. “Danger! Ha Ha!” did the same in Novelty, credited in 2026 to the West Marin Witches.

The weekend opens the night before, with a family film on the Contratti Park baseball field at 8:30, or as soon as it is dark enough to show. In 2026 it was The Princess Bride. Families come early with blankets, low-backed chairs, and their own food. After the parade the festival spreads across Bolinas Park, Peri Park, the Fairfax Pavilion, and Contratti Field, and admission is free. The volunteer Fairfax Festival Committee produces it with the support of the Town of Fairfax. The committee advises visitors to walk, bike, or take transit, since parking in town is very limited. The Marin County Bicycle Coalition runs a free bike valet next to Gestalt Haus on Mono Avenue at Bolinas Road.

Three stages, a ballfield, and Elsie Lane

Music runs from noon to six on Saturday and Sunday on three stages, and the program runs from rock to blues and folk. The Main Stage stands in Bolinas Park, with a dance floor in front of it that is kept clear. Coolers, blankets, and chairs are barred there, and during one festival the committee posted, “Get your blankets OFF OUR DANCE FLOOR!!!!” The 2026 Main Stage held a Bob Weir tribute. A DJ act posting as itsa_vibenow played it that year and wrote that they were “the first DJs to play Fairfax Festival in its 48 year history.” Beside the stage, under the redwoods, is the arts and crafts fair: jewelry, hand-tooled leather, ceramics, textiles, and fine art, sold while the Main Stage plays.

The Redwood Stage is in Peri Park near Park Road and showcases local music. The festival calls it a stop “for a more chill vibe.” The flea market sets up around it in Peri Park, its vendors pitching tents between redwood and oak trunks and selling vintage, repurposed, and “twice loved” goods and ethically traded imports. The festival’s home page places the flea market in Bolinas Park instead. Picnic benches stand nearby for a hot dog and a drink. The third stage, the Ecofest Stage, is tucked behind the Pavilion and the Central Ballfield. Tom Finch, a Fairfax guitarist who plays every year, books it, and he and friends play a Sunday evening set at the Pavilion.

Food runs from traditional festival fare to international dishes. Three beer booths operate, each run by a local group. The Ecofest booth in front of the Pavilion pours Henhouse in no-waste souvenir cups. The firefighters keep a beer garden on Elsie Lane, and the Native Sons pour in Bolinas Park near the Main Stage. Every wine at the organic tasting is made from organic grapes, and Good Earth Natural Foods stocks them. Outside alcohol is not allowed. The committee explained why in 2026: “we depend on alcohol sales to run this festival for free, so if you enjoy the experience, buy from one of our vendors.” It also tells visitors to bring cash, because the nearby ATMs run out during the day and the WiFi is spotty. After the stages close at six, the parties move to the town’s music venues. In 2026 these included Peri’s Tavern and the Sorella Caffe.

Up on the Central Ballfield, also called Contratti Field, the family zone runs from eleven to six both days, and alcohol and dogs are kept out. Families set up their own shade and picnic there, using the field as a home base and taking turns minding the children. The program lists face painting, woodworking, henna, two jumpy houses, water play, bubbles, a reading corner, pillow jousting, and Dance Paint, which calls for a change of clothes. In 2026 Aerial Dance Marin and the PoisnIvy Circus brought yoga, an aerial photobooth, and “Chande-lyra” rides.

Ecofest at the Pavilion

The Ecofest began in 2004. A crew led by Jen Jones, Larry and Holly Bragman, and Patty Brecht filled the Pavilion that year with booths for sustainable living, food, and music. Through it they promoted causes such as the Stopping the Spray anti-pesticide movement and GMO Free Marin. It soon added its own outdoor stage and the Friday film, then spread onto the ballfield. At the fifth Ecofest, in 2008, organizer Elon Rosenfeld promised “interactive demonstrations of fermented foods, worm-rearing and bees in our observation hive.” He also promised an organic tasting with more than 21 wineries and at least five beer companies. The Friday film that year was The Water Horse. The Ecofest says it ran the first organic wine tasting in the area, together with Good Earth.

All Ecofest earnings go back into the festival and the town. Its money underwrites the Ecofest Stage and the film night. It has also rebuilt the ballfield bathrooms and reconstructed the Green Stage in the redwoods, and it gave a grant to the Fairfax San Anselmo Children’s Center. It contributed toward the Coast Miwok’s buy-back of their ancestral land in Nicasio. Since 2011 it has funded and operated the Fairfax Food Bank, which provides groceries to more than 300 families a week.

From the Fourth of July to “big trouble”

The festival’s history was written by Richard Pedemonte, a long-time festival leader. Fairfax did not become an official town until 1931, but records show some sort of annual celebration from 1912. It was then a July 4th affair with marching bands, military drill teams, games, foot races, and a parade. In 1950 the Independent Journal reported 25,000 people coming “from all over Northern California to Fairfax Park.” They found a carnival with rides, side shows, and a beauty contest. The paper wrote that Jack Cady, chairman of the celebrations, hoped to make it rival the Salinas Rodeo, which drew some 250,000. If the figure holds, Pedemonte writes, the 1950 crowd was larger than today’s. From June 1952 the Native Sons of the Golden West put the event on, with carnival games, comedy skits by Tony Patucci, and an advertisement reading “What a Show..and it’s all free!” How many years they ran it is unknown.

The first event officially named the Fairfax Festival was held in the second week of June 1966 and continued through 1969. Little is recorded of it beyond several stages of rock and roll and beer poured by the Native Sons, the Lions Club, and the committee. By 1969 the town was alarmed. As the city council reviewed the event, the Independent Journal described “a bleak picture of the Fairfax Festival — its attraction to the hippie element, the widespread use of narcotics and alcohol, the possible riots and the cost to the city.” Police Chief James R. Orr warned that “if the festival continues there’s going to be big trouble in Fairfax.” One letter writer called the crowd a “most undesirable, unwashed group of narcotic addicts and sex perverts.” Another proposed outlawing antique shops and health food stores because they “attract the element.” Garry Graham, proprietor of the 19 Broadway night club, complained that things that happened all year in Fairfax were being dumped on the festival. In 1970 the council cancelled it, deciding, in the paper’s words, that it “would rather have no festival at all than take a chance on drawing huge crowds such as nearly overwhelmed city facilities in 1969.”

Meetings on Baywood Court

After nine years without a festival, a new committee revived it in 1979, promising more family-friendly elements. The first revival festivals ran on a tiny budget, with a few volunteers led by Marcia Oldham and Carol Sherman. They recruited help from council members Pete Arrigoni, Leo Cronin, and Mike Ghiringhelli. After the 1980 parade came pony rides, a dunk tank, a kids’ area, craft booths, a music stage, and square dancing at the Women’s Club. The Boy Scouts sold hot dogs and the firefighters and Native Sons poured beer. The police sold barbecued oysters on Elsie Lane, which Pedemonte notes is the same arrangement as today. Susan Brandborg, a council member who chaired the festival for many years, called it “a semi official town celebration.”

By the early 2000s the festival had grown while its money had not. The committee was burned out and had lost key members, and it considered cutting the event to one day. A group of locals talked it over across many nights and many beers at Ross Valley Brewing, now Fairfax Brewing, and at Peri’s Bar. Then they formed a new committee. It met at Rich Pedemonte’s house on Baywood Court, where members brought food and drink to share. Rudy Contratti, Peter Alexander, Chris Lang, Steve “Wyro” Wyrostock, Laura Tremaine, and the flea market impresario Eddie Katzman were among them. Elon Rosenfeld, Mike McShea, and Rosan Donals joined later. McShea told the Independent Journal in 2008 how he came to town. “I’d been living in San Rafael for about two years, and somebody said, ‘Let’s go to the Fairfax Festival,’” he said. “I came to one and I was hooked. I knew this was the town for me.”

The committee cancelled the 2020 festival and Ecofest because of COVID-19, writing in its notice that every evening around sundown Fairfax residents let out a howl to thank healthcare workers and that the committee was “howling out our thanks to our community.” The 2021 festival was cancelled as well. Patch reported in June 2022 that it was being held for the first time in three years. Larry Bragman chairs it now. He wrote of the 2026 festival that it is “both a throw back to the past and an expression of a dynamic Fairfax community.” The 48th annual festival is set for June 12 and 13, 2027.

A Gandhi puppet and the Zazzatron

The parade route has long been argued over. Marcia Oldham became chairperson in 1980. “I wanted the Festival to be a party for the whole town, expanded to have happenings in Peri Park and the Pavilion,” she recalled. “The Police Chief at the time was dead set against it all. He wanted the parade to start at the movie theatre and only go up the street to the Bank of America.” The council ruled instead for a longer route, from where Good Earth stands today to town hall. That parade had bands playing from the backs of trucks, the Nave Patrola Italian Army drill team, and the Native Sons’ California flag, the largest in the state. It also had antique cars and the Marching Garbage Men. Two decades later the new committee raised eyebrows when it nominated the town garbage man as grand marshal. He was Mike “Rooster” Kenyon, known for driving around town in an old beater car with his pet chicken in the passenger seat. Denyce Codoni spent many years recruiting the volunteers who managed the growing Saturday parade, and Carol Buchholtz and her crew ran it in more recent years.

In 2016 the parade had 35 entries and more than 1,000 spectators along the route from the Fairfax Theatre on Broadway Boulevard to Bolinas and Park roads. Grier Argall tossed candy from a throne on his plumbing company’s float. Bill Shea played the Blue Caterpillar on an Alice in Wonderland float, and stilt walker Kelly Sylvester went down Broadway on foot. Manor Elementary students rode unicycles while playing basketball and steered a long fabric dragon. Jes Richardson of San Rafael brought the papier-mâché Mahatma Gandhi puppet he made in 2003, on its 12th Fairfax appearance. “I’m encouraging people, countries, anyone who’s willing to listen to me, to follow a path of non-violence,” said Richardson, then 68. Alvin Petty drove the Zazzatron, a silver art car built over more than 150 hours from salvaged plywood, galvanized tin, pipe insulation, and garden hose and powered by a motorized wheelchair. It tops out at about 4.5 miles an hour, and Petty joked that it goes “zero to 50 in three days.” “It’s a time traveler,” he said.

Pam Meyers, a long-time resident, watched from the curb. “It’s the only parade I go to,” she said. “It’s colorful and funky and down-home. There’s nothing like it. Well, maybe there’s something like it, but not that I’ve seen.”