Hercules Cultural Festival

A Sunday at Hanna Ranch Park

At eleven in the morning on Sunday, June 7, 2026, Solis Martial Arts opened the stage at Hanna Ranch Park, on Refugio Valley Road in Hercules. The Hercules Cultural Festival ran until six, with free admission. The City of Hercules and the Bay Front Chamber of Commerce host it. The Contra Costa Pulse, which calls it the Hercules Multicultural Festival, estimated the 2026 crowd at 7,000. The Pulse also reported that this was the first time in the event’s more than 25-year history that it was held anywhere other than Refugio Valley Park.

Refugio Valley Park was undergoing upgrades. Sylvia Villa-Serrano, executive director of the chamber, said the new site was chosen for its larger size and its additional parking. Its one drawback, she said, was that it sits less centrally. To make up for that, a free shuttle ran an all-day loop from the Hercules Community Center from noon to seven.

The stage program ran every half hour or so:

• LGNDS Dance Studio
• Aloha Hula
• The Center for Laos Studies Cultural Performers
• Yee’s Martial Arts
• The Hercules High School Marching Band
• Papa Joe & The New Deal, at two o’clock, playing original and cover songs
• Music Repertoire, at 3:45
• Ballet Folklorico de Ricardo Velazquez, which has danced at the festival for several years

Sama Martial Arts Academy performed synchronized moves as a group, then its members kicked through boards one at a time. Kultura International Dance Ensemble closed the day.

At 4:30 the Ta’ere Tia’i Polynesian Dance Group performed a haka, which the Pulse describes as traditionally believed to prepare the soul for battle. It was one of only a few acts to use live instruments. Its director and vocalist, Marie Knicken, 49, spoke about passing the songs and dances on: “It runs through my veins, and I just want to perpetuate that and help my kids get in touch with their cultural traditions to keep passing on for generations.” She also made the case for the studio over the screen: “We’re so consumed with our phones and being on social media with our heads down, but when we are in the studio you can’t do that.”

Eighteen kitchens and sixty tables

Eighteen food vendors worked the park in 2026:

• Curbside Kitchen, serving Filipino food
• Irie’s Bites, serving desserts
• Crockett Cocina
• Hella Bomb Tacos
• Gaga’s Rollin Diner
• Shaw’s Texas Style BBQ
• Sushi Obsession
• Lola’s Spanish Cuisine
• Curry & Combo
• Chocolates by Nikki
• Kona Ice
• Menchie’s Dole Whip Floats

Margaritas and beer were also sold. Sixty artisans, businesses and nonprofits set up tables. Among the goods were freshly potted succulents in custom dog-breed planters, handcrafted jewelry and a souvenir festival mug.

Children could get their faces painted or build something from Home Depot’s Kids Workshop kits. At the Yee’s Martial Arts booth they lined up to throw kid-friendly ninja stars at a bullseye for prizes. Anyone who brought a can of food got one raffle ticket per can toward a gift card drawing.

Evelyn Prosser, 43, a Hercules resident, came with her five-year-old daughter, Luna. “I really like the variety of food and love that we have a community with such a variety of culture; I’m an immigrant and it feels nice to be comfortable and feel at home,” she said. Jenell Turner, 37, came from Pinole with her three sons. Her four-year-old, Korey Potts, spent time at pop-a-shot basketball. “We’re going to stay until it’s over,” she said. The day reminded her of growing up in Oakland, when her mother took her to Jack London Square for almost every cultural event held there.

The last year on the old grass

The 2025 festival, held at Refugio Valley Park, also drew 7,000 people, according to the Pulse. The afternoon was breezy, sunny and 70 degrees. Cars filled the parking spots for a mile in every direction, and a free shuttle ran from the Hercules Transit Center. Tents and blankets covered the grass, and children climbed any structure they could find.

About 20 food trucks served Korean corn dogs, lumpia and more. Some had lines around ten people long for nearly all seven hours. More than 50 booths offered organic dog treats and chair massages, among other things. More than ten groups performed:

• Moon Azteca Dance & Art School, from Vallejo
• The Benicia-based Ta’ere Tia’i, dancing Polynesian, Tahitian and hula styles, with drummers keeping the beat
• Isis Mikayle Castillo, 11, who sang “Best Part” by H.E.R. She had already sung the national anthem for the Giants, the Athletics, the Warriors, the Valkyries and the Lakers.

The master of ceremonies in 2025 was Sidney Yee Siu, 25, raised in Hercules and crowned Miss Chinatown U.S.A. 2025 earlier that year in San Francisco. Two decades before, as a child, she had stood on stage at the same park and the same event. Her parents opened Yee’s Martial Arts Academy in Richmond in 1962 and moved it and the family to Hercules 30 years before that festival. In 2025 they ran a booth there. “It’s a very deeply rooted community event in Hercules… it’s one of the longest-standing events we’ve had here,” Yee Siu said. “It’s super amazing that they were able to bring it back — I think a lot of people in the community missed it.”

Four women were the festival’s head organizers that year:

• Sylvia Villa-Serrano, of the Bay Front Chamber
• Aimee Henry, the chamber’s treasurer
• Leticia Holbert, treasurer of the Crockett Chamber of Commerce
• Joanne Sanchez, a Contra Costa County administrative services officer

“It takes a lot of volunteers, from checking the vendors in to cleaning up the garbage and everything in between,” Villa-Serrano said.

Since 1980, with a gap

The chamber’s 2026 press release says the festival was launched in 1980 and ran as a community tradition for more than 30 years before it returned in 2023. The Pulse gives a different count: 25 years of festivals, then a ten-year hiatus caused by a lack of financing, then the 2023 revival. The chamber’s own sponsor sheet billed the 2026 edition as the 4th Annual.

At least one earlier festival survives on tape. The Hercules Historical Society holds a single VHS cassette dated June 5, 2004, catalogued as “Interviews and location shots of large annual community event.” It belongs to a series titled the Hercules Cultural Festival and Faire Recordings, the event’s name in those years. California Revealed put the digitized tape online in July 2025.

Villa-Serrano has organized the festival since it returned in 2023. After the 2026 move she said of Hanna Ranch Park: “It turned out to be a great choice; we’ll have to see next year which park we have it at.”