Fiesta Hermosa

The 2026 Labor Day Fiesta Hermosa covered three blocks of Hermosa Avenue, from 10th Street to 13th, and the stretch of Pier Avenue running east to Palm Drive. Both streets were lined with the booths of the Makers Mercado, about 120 artists and vendors by the count of Michelle Crispin, president and CEO of the Hermosa Beach Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau, which produces the event. The booths sold jewelry, clothing, art, goods for the home, and treats, and sponsors set up brand displays among them. The shops behind the booths stayed open through the weekend. Walking the streets cost nothing. The event was cashless, and carnival tickets, Garden entry, and drink tickets were sold by card or Apple Pay only.

The Food Fair stood at 11th Street and Hermosa Avenue, with tables and chairs set out for eating. The organizers listed street tacos, kettle corn, savory crepes, oysters, empanadas, and Italian gelato, and more food stands were scattered through the mercado and the carnival. Farther down 11th Street toward Beach Drive, in the Guisado’s parking lot, the Mini Carnival ran small rides, games, and a Ferris wheel for all ages, with each ride and game priced separately.

The September fiesta is the smaller of the year’s two. The Memorial Day edition in May spreads across the whole downtown. The organizers say it draws an average of more than 100,000 people and fills four stages, more than 250 maker booths, and a Dessert Depot. The Chamber’s release said the Labor Day footprint was drawn smaller “to lessen the impact on nearby residents and businesses.” Proceeds go to the Chamber, a 501(c)(6) nonprofit, for which Fiesta is the primary fundraiser, and nearly all its vendors and sponsors are Chamber members.

The Garden behind Bank of America

The 21-and-over Garden filled Parking Lot A, behind the Bank of America building. The fiesta’s Instagram account gave the new route in: start at the corner of Hermosa and Pier, turn left onto Hermosa toward 11th Street, and walk through the mercado. At the gap between Maison Lagonne and Aloha Specialties, turn right and pass between two yellow poles into the line. A security guard checked IDs at the door. Entry cost $10 a day and allowed re-entry.

Inside, the bar poured beer, wine, seltzers, and cocktails. Visitors played ping pong, cornhole, giant Jenga, and badminton, and could carry in food from the Food Fair. For years this area was called the Beer Garden, and the organizers shortened the name once the bar began serving wine and spirits. A reserved section was new for 2026: shaded high-top tables beside the stage and a private restroom, at $60 a day. Last pour came at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday and at 5:30 p.m. on Labor Day itself.

The Lighthouse Café curated the Garden Stage lineup. Yachtzee and Joe’s Band played Saturday, Max 80s and the 90s Rock Show were booked for Sunday, and the K-Tel All Stars and the Spazmatics closed Monday.

Rain on Pier Plaza

The second stage, the Love Local Stage, was known until 2026 as the Acoustic Stage. It stood on Pier Plaza at the base of the pier, beside the patio at Vista, with sound by Hermosa Sound Lab and local acts booked through the weekend. Coast Music, Luke Wade, and The Spinouts played Saturday. On Monday came Ruby & the Thorns, TK & Cash, Hayden Sandefur, The Slurkeys, and Barley.

Before the weekend, Crispin’s concern was heat. “We’ve got extra umbrellas and shade for people,” she told the Daily Breeze. “We even have a reserved seating area. So we’re just trying to cover all our bases to make sure we’re prepared.”

On Sunday, September 6, it rained. The fiesta’s account posted, “Despite the rain, Fiesta Hermosa is moving forward as planned!” The Garden, the Food Fair, the mercado, the Ferris wheel, and the carnival games opened on time. The mechanical rides and the music on both stages waited for a go-ahead from production, and carnival ticket sales moved to the Garden entrance. The schedule later marked Max 80s as canceled because of weather, along with the whole Sunday bill on Pier Plaza: GB Young & the Wandering Souls, Mikey Jerome, and Barley. Barley returned to play the last set on that stage on Monday.

A thousand bikes on the sand

Hermosa Cyclery runs a free valet bicycle corral on the beach during fiesta hours, at 11th Street for the 2026 Labor Day edition. The shop hosted its first corral at the Memorial Day Fiesta in 2010. That Labor Day, Easy Reader reports, South Bay Congresswoman Jane Harman stopped by and was photographed with co-owner Larry Burke to show her concern for the environment. Co-owner Steve Collins estimates that the 2010 corral parked about 100 bikes a day, all of them pedal bikes.

At the Memorial Day Fiesta in 2025, more than 1,000 bikes a day filled the shop’s 80-by-150-foot corral on the beach south of the pier, and nearly half were e-bikes. Neil Graham, Collins, and Cara Courtney checked them in. Each rider received a numbered ticket to show on the way out. Collins said no theft had been reported from the corral in two decades.

Visitors who drove were directed to the Northrop Grumman lot in Manhattan Beach, at Building M5 facing Aviation Boulevard, where free shuttle buses ran to a stop at 10th Street and Hermosa Avenue near the beach. Beach Cities Transit Route 109 also ran a detour to the downtown for a dollar a ride.

Penny candy and five-cent beer

The Chamber’s festivals go back to the 1930s. In that decade it held a Fiesta de las Artes over the Fourth of July weekend: three days that ran until midnight each evening, with goods made by local artists and craftspeople.

In 1952 the Chamber launched 1912 Days, named for the year the Chamber itself was founded. Downtown businesses rolled their prices back to what things might have cost in 1912, including penny candy and five-cent beer. The celebration had a parade, a festival queen, carnival rides, booths, games, period-costume and beard contests, dancing, and food. Celebrities, local officials, and California governors attended over the years, and the festivities often ended with a grand ball at the Biltmore Hotel. More than 50,000 people came in 1957. A photograph from about 1958 in the Hermosa Beach Historical Society’s collection shows the actor Forrest Tucker at the event. The last 1912 Days was held in 1965. A 1962 report by Chamber president Seymour Bilowit also describes an Exhibit Fair and Demonstration Days with local merchants, designed as a “showcase of goods.”

The present fiesta began in the 1970s under the old name, Fiesta de las Artes. It was a one-day show on Pier Avenue between Hermosa Avenue and The Strand, organized by the Chamber with members of Colony Arts & Crafts. It grew to two days in the early 1970s and to three in 1979. By the early 1980s it ran north along Hermosa Avenue to 14th Street, still given mostly to arts and crafts. In eight years the count of booths went from about 20 to more than 400. In 1989 Crafts and Fairs Magazine rated it among the top fairs in the Western United States. In 1991 the Memorial Day and Labor Day editions together drew 200,000 people, who came for the artisan booths, an international food pavilion, live entertainment, and a petting zoo.

Paused, then back on Labor Day

By the early 2020s some downtown business owners said the fiesta had grown too big. In February 2023 the Daily Breeze reported the results of a Chamber survey. Almost 27 percent of downtown businesses saw sales fall on Labor Day Fiesta weekend compared with a holiday weekend without a fiesta. More than 82 percent wanted a smaller, more local event two to four weeks after Labor Day. Jessica Accamando, then the Chamber’s CEO and president, said that since at least 2016 the Labor Day Fiesta’s net profits had been 50 percent or less of the Memorial Day edition’s.

The fall event moved to September 30 and October 1, cut to two days, and renamed Locale 90254 after Hermosa Beach’s ZIP code. “For now, the ‘pause’ on Labor Day Fiesta is just that, a pause,” the city’s release said. The sources date the change differently. The Daily Breeze’s 2026 account says the Labor Day edition was paused in 2022 and replaced in 2023 by Locale 90254, which took an Oktoberfest theme. Easy Reader says the Chamber discontinued it in 2023 and an Oktoberfest took its place.

On January 27, 2026, the City Council voted 4 to 1 for a one-year agreement that brought the Labor Day Fiesta back. Mayor Saemann cast the dissenting vote because he wanted revenue sharing on events the city helps pay for. The Chamber projected about $130,000 in net revenue from the Memorial Day Fiesta and $53,000 from the smaller Labor Day edition. “That three-year agreement ended,” Crispin said of the Oktoberfest arrangement, “and after hearing from the public and the businesses, and looking at what the financials looked like with the Oktoberfest revenues, it was decided that we go back to trying Labor Day Fiesta.”

The posted schedule for Monday, September 7, 2026, ended with a line for the next edition: “See you next year! Fiesta Hermosa Memorial Day Weekend | May 29-31, 2027.”