SAMAFEST 2026 -- 39th Philippine Cultural Arts Festival at Balboa Park

Coming Soon

4,447 exploring this week · 1,055 upcoming in SoCal

SAMAFEST 2026 -- 39th Philippine Cultural Arts Festival at Balboa Park

Name: SAMAFEST 2026 -- 39th Philippine Cultural Arts Festival at Balboa Park
Start: 2026-08-22T11:00:00-07:00
End: 2026-08-23T17:00:00-07:00
Location: Presidents Way at Park Blvd, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA 92101

Going? You can check in after it ends.

Sat, Aug 22 – Sun, Aug 23, 2026

Sat 11:00 AM PDT – Sun 5:00 PM PDT

Presidents Way at Park Blvd, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA 92101

Part of Balboa Park →

You found this. Be the first one here.

Join →

Tickets & More Info

Screen on the Green 2026 — Balboa Park, San Diego

Aug 6

Chelsea Handler: The High and Mighty Tour — Balboa Theatre San Diego

Sep 19

The Haunted Trail of Balboa Park 2026

Sep 25

San Diego VegFest 2026 — Balboa Park

Sep 26

Maker Faire San Diego 2026 — theNAT at Balboa Park

Oct 1

Balboa Park December Nights 2026

Dec 5

About

Samahan Filipino American Performing Arts and Education Center has been building to this for 39 years. SAMAFEST returns to the Presidents Way Lawn at Balboa Park on August 22 and 23 -- the longest-running Philippine cultural arts festival in San Diego, two full days of professional-quality dance, music, and visual arts.

What separates SAMAFEST from a cultural showcase is the performance standard. Samahan's ensembles are trained at a professional level; the choreography, costumes, and staging are the result of an organization that has spent four decades treating Filipino arts as worthy of serious investment.

The Presidents Way Lawn in Balboa Park is one of the best outdoor performance settings in San Diego -- surrounded by Spanish Colonial architecture, shaded by mature trees, large enough for the full scale of the festival without crowding. Free to attend. Running 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Bring a blanket or low-back chair. No registration required. Pets welcome. Presidents Way at Park Blvd, Balboa Park, San Diego.

Your event has been discovered.

Claim it to see who found you.

I'm the one behind this →

Or email us about this listing

Screen on the Green 2026 — Balboa Park, San Diego

Weekly

11 days away

Screen on the Green 2026 — Balboa Park, San Diego

Every Thursday · Next Aug 6 Free Botanical Garden Lawn, 1549 El Pra…

The California Tower goes dark against the August sky, and below it, a lawn full of strangers settles in for two hours of something they did not plan. The San Diego Museum of Art sets up the screen on the Botanical Garden Lawn, and by sundown the grass is a quilt of blankets and camp chairs and families who carried their dinner in a tote bag because they know the drill. The films change weekly — sometimes a classic, sometimes a crowd-pleaser — but the real draw is the night itself: the silhouette of the California Tower behind the screen, the kids who fall asleep before the second act, the couples who came for the movie and stayed for the quiet walk back through the park after the credits roll. Grab sandwiches from Panama 66's Grab and Go before it closes at sundown. Arrive early for the Lovesac Lounge giveaway if you want the best seat in the house. Free admission. Thursdays in August, screenings begin at sundown (approximately 8 PM). Botanical Garden Lawn, 1549 El Prado, San Diego.

Chelsea Handler: The High and Mighty Tour — Balboa Theatre San Diego

Coming Soon

55 days away

Chelsea Handler: The High and Mighty Tour — Balboa Theatre San Diego

Sep 19, 2026 Balboa Theatre, 868 4th Ave, San D…

Some nights you laugh so hard your stomach hurts and then drive home in silence thinking about everything she just said. Chelsea Handler builds those evenings for a living. The High and Mighty Tour brings Handler to the Balboa Theatre in downtown San Diego on September 19, 2026, with a brand-new set of stand-up material. Handler has published six bestselling books, hosted a Netflix talk show, and become one of the most recognizable voices in American comedy — but the stage is where the filter comes off entirely. No edits, no production team, no notes from the network. Just a microphone and the version of Chelsea Handler that made her famous in the first place. The Balboa Theatre at 868 Fourth Avenue is a restored 1924 landmark in the heart of the Gaslamp Quarter. The ornate ceiling alone is worth the ticket. The intimacy of the room means every joke lands at conversation distance. Show starts at 8:00 PM. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster and the Balboa Theatre box office.

Weekly

61 days away

The Haunted Trail of Balboa Park 2026

Every Friday · Next Sep 25 ✨ New Marston Point, Balboa Park, San Di…

The oaks at Marston Point have been standing for over a hundred years, and for twenty-seven of those years, something has moved through them after dark. Not a projection. Not a screen. Real people, in real fog, on a mile-long trail you walk alone — well, alone with whoever you grabbed by the arm when the first scare actor stepped out from behind a tree trunk you swore was empty. The Haunted Trail of Balboa Park is San Diego's longest-running outdoor haunt, and there is a reason it outlasts every pop-up scare maze that opens and closes in a season. The setting is irreplaceable: gnarled coastal oaks, uneven dirt paths, actual darkness. Not a warehouse with black curtains. The trail winds through Marston Point and feeds into the 3,500-square-foot Experiment Maze, where the ceiling drops and the walls move. Veterans know to go on a weeknight in early October before the lines triple by Halloween week. First-timers never believe the trail is actually a full mile until they're deep enough that turning back sounds worse than going forward. Select nights from September 25 through November 1, 2026. Marston Point, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA 92101. Tickets at hauntedtrail.net.

Coming Soon

62 days away

San Diego VegFest 2026 — Balboa Park

Sep 26, 2026 Free Balboa Park, Presidents Way Lawn, …

You already know who you would text about this. The friend who quietly orders the mushroom plate at every restaurant and never makes it weird, the one who has a tote bag opinion and a favorite oat milk — they have been waiting for a day that feels like theirs without having to explain why. San Diego VegFest takes over the Presidents Way Lawn in Balboa Park on September 26 with over a hundred exhibitors, live entertainment, speakers, and enough global cuisine to make the word 'vegan' feel like an understatement. This is San Diego's largest plant-based festival, and it runs on the quiet confidence that the food is the argument — no pamphlets necessary. The exhibitor mix runs from local restaurants previewing seasonal menus to wellness brands and animal sanctuaries to the small-batch hot sauce vendor who will change your relationship with cauliflower forever. Speakers cover everything from nutrition to sustainability to the economics of plant-based agriculture. Kids have their own zone. Dogs are welcome and deeply welcome. The festival runs from 11am to 5pm. Admission is free. Parking is free at the Inspiration Point lot for up to three hours. Balboa Park Boulevard and Presidents Way, San Diego. The only thing you need to bring is an appetite and the willingness to discover that the person next to you makes the best jackfruit tacos you have ever tasted.

Maker Faire San Diego 2026 — theNAT at Balboa Park

Daily

67 days away

Maker Faire San Diego 2026 — theNAT at Balboa Park

Every day · Next Oct 1 ✨ New San Diego Natural History Museum, …

Somebody built a robot out of a toaster. Somebody else 3D-printed an instrument that actually sounds good. And the ten-year-old at the next table is soldering better than half the adults in the room. Maker Faire San Diego returns to the San Diego Natural History Museum (theNAT) in Balboa Park on October 1-2, 2026. Hands-on activities, interactive displays, and the kind of learning opportunities that make you realize formal education missed a few things. Explore life sciences with arthropods, construct modular robots, make puppets from modeling plastic, and build 3D-printed instruments that play real music. Participating institutions span the park: Japanese Friendship Garden, Museum of Photographic Arts, Fleet Science Center, Air & Space Museum, Automotive Museum, and more. Open 10 AM to 6 PM both days at theNAT, 1788 El Prado, Balboa Park, San Diego. Bring the kid who takes things apart. Bring the adult who never stopped. This is where curiosity goes to be rewarded.

Coming Soon

132 days away

Balboa Park December Nights 2026

Dec 5, 2026 Balboa Park, 1549 El Prado, San Di…

For one weekend every December, a city that never slows down finally exhales. The lamplight comes up gold over El Prado, the museums throw their doors open for free, and 350,000 people wander the same paths at the same unhurried pace, cocoa in hand, nowhere to be. This is the largest free holiday festival in California, now in its 48th year, and it does something no ticketed spectacle can: it turns a sprawling metropolis back into a village for forty-eight hours. Choirs spill out of the Spreckels Organ Pavilion. The International Cottages serve food from thirty nations. Kids press their faces to the glass of the Natural History Museum after dark, when the halls feel like a secret. You do not go to December Nights to see one thing. You go to be reminded that the whole park, the whole city, belongs to everyone at once — and that you were always part of it. Friday December 5 (3pm–11pm) and Saturday December 6 (11am–11pm), Balboa Park. Free admission.

You found your people.

They didn't know each other before Falkor either.

SAMAFEST 2026 -- 39th Philippine Cultural Arts Festival at Balboa Park

Screen on the Green 2026 — Balboa Park, San Diego

Chelsea Handler: The High and Mighty Tour — Balboa Theatre San Diego

The Haunted Trail of Balboa Park 2026

San Diego VegFest 2026 — Balboa Park

Maker Faire San Diego 2026 — theNAT at Balboa Park

Balboa Park December Nights 2026

Heading out?

Leaving Falkor