Ramona Country Fair

Admission is free at the Ramona Outdoor Community Center on Aqua Lane. For three days at the turn of July into August, the Ramona Chamber of Commerce runs its country fair there. The grounds hold a carnival midway with a Ferris wheel and a carousel, cotton candy, food and beverage stands, and more than 25 craft and commercial vendors. There are western shows, an off-road car show, a cornhole tournament, and a main stage with music every day. The 2026 fair ran from Friday, July 31, through Sunday, August 2. It opened at 4 p.m. on the Friday and at 11 a.m. on the weekend days, and the rides started at 5 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Beer and seltzers sold for $5 and IPAs for $7. For the summer heat, the 2026 fair added expanded shade and cool zones.

Ashley Denhalter, of San Diego Country Estates, keeps a tradition of going on Friday night, when the fair first opens. In 2026 she went with her daughters Sawyer, Norah, and Evelyn. “There’s just something magical about the fair after the sun goes down,” she told the San Diego Country Estates Association. “The bright lights, the excitement of the rides, the delicious food, the music, the entertainment, and the energy all make it feel so special.” The temperature does not keep them home: “Even when it’s incredibly hot, it doesn’t matter.”

Four nights on the main stage

The music coordinator, Jon Hasz, gives each night its own bill. Friday’s Rhythm & Roots Night runs from 5 to 10 p.m. In his words it is “a mix of everything from outlaws country to swing to country rock and blues, with a highlight on local artists.” The 2026 lineup included:

• Dirty Confetti, a country and southern rock band
• Miranda Ramos, a pop country singer
• Thea the Band
• Elizabeth Bowersox, an Americana and alternative performer
• The Beard and the Bird & Friends, billed for swing and rockabilly dancing

Saturday is Rock & Reggae Night. Wahsabi played rock fusion, Ocean Natives played reggae, and Hatbox played jam band funk. Ripple Effect closed out the bill, a group Hasz called “one of the best Grateful Dead tribute bands in the county.”

Sunday holds two shows. The Blues Brunch runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. In 2026 its bill was the Ramona Blues Band, the Ramona Blues Youth Band, Tim Atkins, Chickenbone Slim and The Biscuits, and the Jerry “Hot Rod” DeMink Band. “The latter two bands are a couple of the biggest names in San Diego County for blues, peppered in with some of our favorite locals from all ages,” Hasz said.

Old Country Night closes the fair, from 5 to 9 p.m. In 2026 that was Nitro Express, a country rock group that includes former members of the Righteous Brothers and Dwight Yoakam bands. The program changes from year to year; a Chamber video from the 2025 fair records a Banda Night on August 3 of that year.

Broncos in the arena, rabbits at auction

Saturday morning belongs to the Off-Road Car Show, held for the fifth time in 2026. Its motto is “If you take it off road, take it to the show!” Buggies, Broncos, Jeeps, trucks, motorcycles, and VWs fill the arena, with room for 50 to 60 of them. They stand on exhibit from 10 a.m., after the national anthem, until 2 p.m. Engines rev on a schedule, once at 11:15 and again at 1:30, and an Ice Cream Challenge comes at noon. Visitors vote for the People’s Choice awards, which are given out at 2 p.m. along with raffle prizes.

“Many are home-built, and we have multiple families that show up with different cars for each generation,” said Christopher “CJ” Allen, the show’s chair. “It’s a really good, family-friendly event and we get the younger kids involved because we all grew up around cars since we were young.”

The youngest drivers take their laps from 10:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Children ride free on Power Wheels, small electric cars that local business sponsors supply and decorate, and no registration is needed. After the rides, each sponsor may keep its car or let a child take it home.

The cornhole tournament plays the same Saturday under the stage pavilion, which is shaded. It began in 2021 and reached its sixth edition in 2026, run with State 31 Cornhole Company of Ramona. Half of each team’s entry goes to the winners’ pot and half to the Chamber’s Scholarship Fund.

Horses have Sunday. In 2026 a gymkhana and barrel jackpot opened its gates at 5 a.m., with an opening ceremony at 7.

On the same grounds, the Ramona Junior Fair runs through the week before the Country Fair and alongside it. In 2026 it ran from July 24 to August 2. Members of 4-H, FFA, and Grange clubs show livestock and home economics projects and sell animals at auction. At the 2026 auction on Saturday, August 1, 12-year-old Trevor Ogilvie sold his Grand Champion Rabbit Meat Pen for $1,150. The pen held three rabbits weighing 5.12, 5.14, and 5.16 pounds. Trevor bred them himself and built the nest boxes on his own. His mother, Stephanie Ogilvie, counted “a total of 18 babies including at my mom’s barn.”

Fifty years, and one lost to COVID

The first Ramona Country Fair was held in 1971. The date comes from a timeline of town firsts that Charlene Pulsonetti compiled for the Ramona Home Journal. The same timeline records two related dates. The Chamber that presents the fair had been called the Ramona Improvement Society until 1922. The Ramona Outdoor Community Center was founded in 1972, the year after the first fair.

The fair planned to mark its 50th anniversary in 2020, but COVID-19 regulations canceled it. The half-century was celebrated the following summer, from July 30 to August 1, 2021, under chair Stephanie Macdonald. She called it “an old-fashioned country fair showcasing the best Ramona has to offer.” She also told the North County Daily Star, “After the events of the past couple of years, this is a way to get the community back out there safely in a family-friendly, fun environment.”

The 2021 fair was billed as the “Best Days of Summer.” It began on a Thursday with the Cheers to the Valley wine tasting, where Ashley E. Norton played acoustic. Local Rodeo Queens led Friday’s opening ceremony, and Simple Man, a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band, played the Friday stage. The weekend program included:

• barrel racing and mutton busting
• the Hole in the Wall Gang, the Victorian Roses Ladies Riding Society, and Sam’s Posse
• Medieval and Renaissance re-creations by the Adrian Empire
• a community Art Contest
• the Home Sweet Home competition for homemade jams, jellies, desserts, breads, and muffins
• a Frozen T-shirt contest

Three events were new that year: the cornhole tournament, T-Rex races, and a Cowboy Challenge. A $10 parking donation went to the community scholarship fund. The Daily Star also called that summer the 50th year of the Ramona Junior Livestock Fair and Auction. That count does not match the Home Journal timeline, which places the first Ramona Junior Fair in 1956, at Collier Park.

The fair’s proceeds pay for Chamber scholarships for Ramona students, educational grants, and support for other local events. In 2026, Chamber president and fair chair Vincent Ciampoli called it “our largest event of the year, and the last of its kind in San Diego County.” In 2021, Macdonald described how it gets done: “It’s truly a community effort, and it’s all done at the Chamber on a volunteer basis. It takes a town to get it all done.”