Tustin Tiller Days

On the first weekend of October, Columbus Tustin Park, at Prospect Avenue and Beneta Way, fills with carnival rides, midway games, and food wagons. Admission is free. Rides are paid for by the ticket or with a wristband good for unlimited rides on the day it is used, and the tot rides take children 36 inches and taller. For each wristband sold in advance, $2 goes to a school in the Tustin Unified School District area or to the Tustin Public Schools Foundation. The games take cash. Dogs come in on six-foot leashes. Cars that park at the event pay $15, which goes to the Columbus Tustin Middle School fundraiser. The 2026 festival, October 2 through 4, was billed as the 69th annual.

Two stages run all weekend, named for their sponsors: the Genie Car Wash Main Stage and the Tustin Auto Center Community Stage. In 2026 the main stage opened Friday with the Motown songs of Stone Soul and closed Sunday with Finding Emo OC. The community stage takes local performers and the eating contests: ice cream, tacos, a “fire tender wing challenge,” and a cookie showdown. The festival held its first taco eating contest in 2025, with tacos from Tacos El Bandido Express. That same weekend Dave’s Hot Chicken supplied the tenders for a hot-tenders contest. On Friday evening, from six to nine, a wine tasting pours a curated selection for adults.

Pancakes on Main Street, a parade to the park

Saturday begins downtown at seven, in the Tustin Library courtyard on East Main Street. There the Tustin Host Lions Club serves pancakes, eggs, sausage, orange juice, and hot coffee until 9:30. At ten the parade sets off from the corner of Main and Pacific streets in Old Town Tustin and finishes at Prospect Avenue and Beneta Way, at the festival grounds. Streets on the route are posted from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m., and cars left in the designated areas at five are towed.

The entries compete in classes. There are middle school, high school, and show bands. Drum majors compete in junior and senior divisions, both mace and military. Drill teams, color guards, ROTC units, equestrians, and cheerleaders from elementary school through college each have their own class. Majorettes march as corps, teams, and soloists. Civic awards go to antique autos and tractors, floats, fraternal organizations, novelty entries, political entries, and youth marching units. Civic judges score costume, team spirit, decorations, and performance on a scale running from one, “okay,” to five, “outstanding.” School bands are judged separately by the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association. Trophies for the top three in every class are handed out on the Main Stage once the parade is in. The Tustin High School Band, the Orange County Register noted in 2012, marches every year.

Dachshunds, card tables, and a five-ounce glass

At 4:30 on Saturday afternoon in 2026, the wiener dog races ran on the Main Stage. Registered dachshunds race in heats before the crowd, under written rules. Each dog’s name is called twice, and a dog not at the gate forfeits. Owners may bounce a ball to hurry a dog along but may not throw one. Laser lights are forbidden. A dog that bites is barred, and a race stops if a dog is hurt. The judges’ rulings are final.

That evening, from six to ten, the card show sets up its vendors and game tables for Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, sports cards, and other collectibles. People come to buy, trade, and play. The show was new in 2025, when AKH Trading Card Co. ran Friday Night Magic in the Community Tent and held a raffle every hour.

Sunday is the shortest day. The grounds close at eight, though the carnival runs until ten. At one o’clock, children four to six years old take the Community Stage for Kids Say the Cutest Things. They are judged on smiles, personality, and humor and are not required to perform. Near the Main Stage, from one to five, the Backyard Brewfest pours samples of Southern California craft beer for those 21 and older. Each wristband comes with a five-ounce commemorative tasting glass, and there are lawn and table games.

A newspaperman’s idea in 1957

The name puzzles newcomers. In 2014 Chris Jepsen, the Orange Coast magazine’s “OC Answer Man,” explained that a tiller here is a farmer, one who tills the soil. Farmers once made up much of Tustin’s population. Tustin High, which opened in the early 1920s, took the Tiller as its mascot, and in 1957 the new community festival took the name too. “Don’t expect to see many farmers,” Jepsen wrote. “Or boats.”

Juanita Lovret told the founding in the Tustin News in 2011. In her account, the first Tiller Day parade was the brainchild of Bill Moses, the paper’s publisher, and his ad manager, Clint Caldwell. The newly reorganized Tustin Chamber of Commerce took up their idea to celebrate its own rebirth. The crowd was sparse. The few who came, she wrote, “were bored by the post-summer inactivity and welcomed any new experience.” The Register, writing in 2012, tells it differently. In its version, the event began in 1957 as a one-day celebration in Peppertree Park, and the parade, pancake breakfast, carnival, and contests were added as it grew. The Register gave its purpose as celebrating Orange County’s agricultural heritage. Lovret added that the weekend also serves as a fundraiser for many nonprofit organizations.

Grand marshals, a 30-foot flag, and a jar of Skittles

A committee of volunteers and Tustin Parks and Recreation staff produces the festival, with a second committee for the parade. Lovret wrote that its members “have become professional event managers after years of organizing the weekend.” Her example was Cherrill Cady, who first served as chairman in 1978 and was on the parade committee in 2011. The Register called Cady the festival’s longest volunteer the following year. Her name is on the current committee roster with some three dozen others. In 2011 Sue Robishaw chaired the weekend, and the bands included Woodie & the Longboards, Paperback Writer, Don’t Stop Believin’, and Elton John the Early Years.

The Register’s photographs from the years before give the record in pieces. In 1999 a five-year-old named Ryan Molina braked at the bottom of the Raiders of the Lost Ark slide. In 2001, city employees led by former Mayor Tracy Worley raised a 30-foot American flag at Peppertree Park, and volunteers were needed to carry it in the parade. In 2006 Erin Moran of “Happy Days” was grand marshal, and the Church Mice square dance group performed for the crowd on First Street. In 2007 Marci Mauthe of the Frontier Minis walked the route with her dog, Teddy, and a miniature horse. Children ran the Rubber Boot Race in 2009. In 2010 Miss Tustin, Sarah Salazar, rode down Prospect Avenue in the 53rd annual parade, and people lined up for the Zipper. Teens rode the Wave Swinger at sundown on the first day of the 2011 festival.

For 2012, organizers expected up to 65,000 people, and Mickey Mouse was grand marshal. Ride tickets cost $1 apiece, a wristband was $25 at the gate, and the pancake breakfast was $5. Back in 2006, Christine Mitbo took home a jar holding 7,522 Skittles. Hers was the closest guess, one short.