Sawdust Art Festival 2026 -- Laguna Beach

The Sawdust Art Festival has been happening in the same canyon in Laguna Beach since 1966 -- a hand-built village of artist studios and eucalyptus shade where 200 local artists sell work they made with their own hands. No wholesalers. No mass-produced prints. Every piece was built within a few miles of where you are standing. The festival runs late June through early September, open daily from 10am to 10pm on weekends, 11am to 7pm weekdays. The grounds smell like sawdust and oil paint. Live glass-blowing demos, pottery wheels spinning, jewelers bent over torches -- the making is the show. Kids get their own art workshops. Adults get the beer garden. Everyone gets the sunset view from the hill. General admission is around 12 dollars; season passes exist for the committed. This is not a gallery -- there is no pretense, no black-and-white minimalism, no velvet ropes. It is two hundred artists in a canyon, selling what they made. The work ranges from fine sculpture to handmade surfboards. The prices range from 15-dollar earrings to 10,000-dollar paintings. The common thread: the person who made it is standing right there, and they want to tell you the story.