Scoop San Diego returns for its 8th annual Ice Cream Festival on Sunday, June 28, 2026 in the heart of North Park. Eight years of the same neighborhood, the same sunny afternoon format, and the same mission: 30+ ice cream, gelato, paleta, and frozen dessert vendors in one block, with 100% of net proceeds benefiting Feeding San Diego.
Your ticket includes 10 two-ounce samples from participating vendors, plus a festival cup. Vendors span local independent scoop shops, regional chains, artisan gelato producers, and specialty paleta makers -- the kind of lineup that makes choosing your samples genuinely difficult. Celebrity judges award prizes across flavor categories. The event is family-friendly, dog-friendly, and runs in the open air on 30th Street between North Park Way and the surrounding blocks.
North Park is one of San Diego's most walkable and community-rooted neighborhoods, and Scoop SD is exactly the kind of event that neighborhood produces: locally organized, charity-motivated, and genuinely fun for anyone who likes dessert and being outside on a June afternoon in San Diego. (That is everyone.)
Location: 30th Street & North Park Way, San Diego, CA 92104. Street parking available throughout North Park; the neighborhood is also well-served by MTS bus routes. Tickets available in advance online. This event sells out -- do not wait.
Jul 25, 2026
✨ New
2891 University Ave, San Diego, CA…
There is a specific person who needs to know about Camp Screamo: anyone who had their formative music years between 2003 and 2009 and still, privately, knows every word to My Heroine and Until the Day I Die.
Silverstein and Story of the Year are co-headlining a summer tour together, and that combination is not an accident. These two bands defined an era of post-hardcore that lived in the exact space between screaming and singing before the world decided it had moved on. Origami Angel and Ally Nicholas open.
The Observatory North Park holds this properly. Real stage, good sound, a balcony for the people who want to feel the room without getting crushed. This is a show where the floor will know every word and the balcony will wish it was on the floor.
From $88. July 25, doors at 5:00pm. The Observatory North Park, 2891 University Ave, San Diego.
Aug 7 – Aug 9, 2026
35.0
Long Beach Convention Center, 300 …
Midsummer Scream, the West Coast's largest Halloween and horror convention, returns to the Long Beach Convention Center August 7-9, 2026, with the theme 'Horror Musicals.' Now in its tenth year, the event has grown into a three-day destination for haunted attraction designers, horror film fans, cosplayers, collectors, and anyone who lives for the season year-round.
The Hall of Shadows, the convention's signature attraction, runs all three days across a massive darkened section of the convention center. More than a dozen fully produced haunted experiences and haunt displays are open inside, included with all badge types, no separate ticket required. It is the largest indoor haunt zone in California outside of the October season itself.
The show floor features more than 350 vendors and artists offering horror-themed costumes, seasonal decor, original artwork, vintage collectibles, props, and franchise merchandise. Celebrity guests for 2026 include Matthew Lillard, Barry Bostwick, and Jasmin Savoy Brown. A special 20th anniversary celebration of Repo! The Genetic Opera is scheduled with director Darren Lynn Bousman and actor Bill Moseley confirmed.
Panel programming covers haunt design, genre cinema, practical effects, cosplay construction, and industry Q&As. The Long Beach Convention Center is at 300 E Ocean Blvd, minutes from the waterfront. Weekend and single-day passes available online in advance.
STAYs in SoCal have built one of the most active K-pop fan communities in the region. They organize meetups, produce fan goods, and find each other in the spaces between concerts. This is one of those spaces.
The SKZOO Ice Cream Parlour is a Stray Kids fan-organized cupsleeve and meetup event at bobaTEAque in Orange, celebrating the Stray Kids birthday anniversary in August. The theme: an SKZOO ice cream parlour concept built from the Stray Kids fan-made character universe. Community-designed cupsleeves, SKZOO-themed fan goods, and an afternoon in a room full of STAYs who have shown up to celebrate together rather than separately.
bobaTEAque in Orange has become one of the most reliable K-pop fan event venues in Orange County, with previous events for IVE, KCON LA, and other K-pop communities hosted in the same space. The staff knows what these events look like and the setup accommodates merch tables, photo corners, and groups that arrive together and leave with new friends.
If you are STAY in SoCal, this is how the fan community marks August.
August 15, 2026 · 12:00 PM–5:00 PM · bobaTEAque · 1960 N Tustin St, Orange, CA · Free admission
Oct 6 – Oct 15, 2026
TCL Chinese 6 Theatres, 6925 Holly…
Screamfest LA Horror Film Festival runs ten days at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood, October 7-16, 2026 — thirty-plus indie horror features and shorts, screened on Hollywood Boulevard by the people who made them.
Screamfest is the oldest and largest horror film festival in the United States. It has premiered films that defined the genre — The Haunting in Connecticut, Rob Zombie's Halloween, Insidious — years before wide release. What that history means for the audience: the films screening here are not afterthoughts. They are the next wave of horror, showing in the same theaters where classic horror played to its first audiences.
The atmosphere is exactly what you would want: Hollywood Boulevard at night, surrounded by people who take horror seriously and love it completely, watching a film so new that the director is sitting three rows behind you. Q&As after screenings. Festival badges cover all ten days, or buy single-ticket entry to pick your nights. The October air and the Chinese Theatre marquees set the rest.
DoubleTree Mission Valley, October 17-18, 2026. Scream Diego is the convention that gives San Diego's horror community its own weekend — a dedicated event built around the genre that deserves more than a panel at a general-purpose convention.
The floor runs across both days with the vendors, artists, and guests who came specifically because this is a horror event and they wanted to be in a horror room. The celebrity guests are from the films, not from adjacent franchises. The artist alley carries original horror art, prop replicas, and merchandise that doesn't appear at mainstream conventions. The community that fills Scream Diego is specific — these are the people who pre-order special editions, who know the director's filmography, who have opinions about the best practical effect in the last decade.
Two days. October, which means the whole city is in the season that makes this event make the most sense. The DoubleTree Mission Valley handles conventions at this scale cleanly — real function rooms, real space for the floor. Tickets on Eventbrite. If you take horror seriously, this is the weekend that belongs to you.