OC Fair & Event Center Events

OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Dr, Costa Mesa, CA 92626

Here is what is coming up at OC Fair & Event Center, and what has already happened there. Concerts, games, festivals and the smaller nights that never surface in a generic search — no account needed.

Coming up 4 events

Daily

73 Gathering

8 days away

73 {# Rendered ALWAYS and hidden below the threshold, never omitted. An element that is absent at 0 cannot be repainted when the reader makes it 1 — that is why the card's count used to sit stale until a reload. falkorPresence (base.html) owns the text from here. #}

OC Japan Fair 2026 — Fall Edition

Every day · Next Oct 16 OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Dr…

Somewhere between the taiko drums shaking the floor and the takoyaki line that hasn't moved in ten minutes, you'll realize you've been here for four hours and haven't checked your phone once. OC Japan Fair takes over the OC Fair & Event Center every fall with 130+ booths, an estimated 45,000 visitors across three days, and a schedule that runs from J-pop performances and cosplay shows to kimono try-ons and Japanese calligraphy workshops. It is not a food fair with cultural garnish — it's a cultural fair with an absurd amount of food. The ramen vendors alone could fill a separate event. The K-PLAY! crossover means the cosplay crowd, the K-pop crowd, and the otaku crowd all land in the same space at the same time, which creates the kind of energy you don't plan. You just show up and it finds you. October 16–18, 2026. Friday 4–10 PM, Saturday 12–10 PM, Sunday 11 AM–7 PM. OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Dr, Costa Mesa 92626. Tickets $14–$20.

Winter Fest OC 2026 — Orange County Fair & Event Center

Daily

95 Gathering

50 days away

95 {# Rendered ALWAYS and hidden below the threshold, never omitted. An element that is absent at 0 cannot be repainted when the reader makes it 1 — that is why the card's count used to sit stale until a reload. falkorPresence (base.html) owns the text from here. #}

Winter Fest OC 2026 — Orange County Fair & Event Center

Every day · Next Nov 27 OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Dr…

They built a winter wonderland in a county that has never seen snow, and somehow it works. The ice is real. The tubing hill is real. The kids screaming down it are very real. Winter Fest OC runs from late November 2026 through early January 2027 at the OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa. Indoor and outdoor winter attractions: real ice skating, snow tubing, holiday light displays, Santa visits, carnival rides, holiday shopping village, and the kind of festive atmosphere that makes 65-degree December nights feel like the holidays are supposed to feel. OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Dr, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Tickets at winterfestoc.com. This is the holiday experience for the family that refuses to fly to Colorado but still wants their kids to believe in winter.

OC Fair Holiday Lights — OC Night Out 2026

Coming Soon

11 Gathering

50 days away

11 {# Rendered ALWAYS and hidden below the threshold, never omitted. An element that is absent at 0 cannot be repainted when the reader makes it 1 — that is why the card's count used to sit stale until a reload. falkorPresence (base.html) owns the text from here. #}

OC Fair Holiday Lights — OC Night Out 2026

Nov 27 – Jan 3, 2027 OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Dr…

The same fairgrounds that smell like funnel cake in July go cold and quiet and impossibly lit in December, and the walk you would normally rush turns into one you deliberately slow down for. Tens of thousands of lights convert the grounds into a walk-through: themed zones running from traditional holiday imagery into full winter-wonderland territory, plus the escalating display competitions between adjacent sections, which is where it gets genuinely funny. Hot chocolate, mulled cider, roasted chestnuts. Live holiday music on covered stages. Gift vendors filling the indoor halls, so the whole thing doubles as an outdoor market you can actually finish your shopping in. It runs on selected nights from late November into January, with timed entry, and the good dates go weeks ahead. Go with the person in your life who takes Christmas too seriously. For one night, let them be right.

Daily

57 days away

6 {# Rendered ALWAYS and hidden below the threshold, never omitted. An element that is absent at 0 cannot be repainted when the reader makes it 1 — that is why the card's count used to sit stale until a reload. falkorPresence (base.html) owns the text from here. #}

Gem Faire

Every day · Next Dec 4 $7+ OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Dr…

Beneath the fluorescent lights of a fairground expo hall lies a secret world of the beautiful and the bizarre: raw amethyst geodes the size of a toddler, slabs of fossilized dinosaur bone, actual meteorites you can hold, shimmering crystals, and tables of metaphysical vendors ready to tell you which stone fixes your love life. Gem Faire draws a wonderfully mixed crowd, serious rockhounds and geologists elbow to elbow with witchy crystal collectors and jewelry makers, all hunting treasure. Friday through Sunday, December 4 to 6, 2026, at the OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa. Come to marvel, to shop, or just to hold a piece of outer space in your palm. Bring the friend with the crystal collection and the one who thinks it's all nonsense. It's part science, part sorcery, entirely fascinating.

Previously at OC Fair & Event Center 5

Itasha & Livery Expo 2026 — Anime Car Culture at OC Fair

This Happened

121 Gathered

121 {# Rendered ALWAYS and hidden below the threshold, never omitted. An element that is absent at 0 cannot be repainted when the reader makes it 1 — that is why the card's count used to sit stale until a reload. falkorPresence (base.html) owns the text from here. #}

Itasha & Livery Expo 2026 — Anime Car Culture at OC Fair

Sep 5, 2026 OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Dr…

Full-panel artwork wrapped across an entire vehicle is called itasha — literally 'painful car' — and the people who do it made that joke about themselves long before anyone else got the chance. Painful to look at. Painful to explain to your father. Painful to the wallet. They are not anime fans who happen to drive, and they are not car people who happen to watch anime. They are both, all the way down, running build accounts and servers that document every panel and every repaint. For years the only shows matching what they saw coming out of Akihabara were on the wrong side of the Pacific. The floor gathers builds from across Southern California, judged on full wraps, partials, theme interpretation, and best in show, with wrap studios and JDM parts sellers along the walls. Costa Mesa, one Saturday, straight off the freeway. Bring a camera, and bring the friend whose car is still in primer. This is where they decide.

Monthly

13 Gathering

19 days away

13 {# Rendered ALWAYS and hidden below the threshold, never omitted. An element that is absent at 0 cannot be repainted when the reader makes it 1 — that is why the card's count used to sit stale until a reload. falkorPresence (base.html) owns the text from here. #}

Fight Club OC - August 27, 2026

Monthly · Next Oct 27 The Hangar, OC Fair & Event Center…

Close enough to hear a corner shouting instructions between rounds. Close enough to watch the strategy change the second a fighter's hands start to hurt. Television cannot give you either one. Orange County gets this six times a year and it sells out every time, which tells you what the people who go already understand. The Hangar converts into a fight arena with no buffer at all — the ringside seats are ringside in the literal sense, and the room is small enough that the noise has nowhere to go. The card is local fighters off the SoCal circuit, which means the gyms are in the building, the families are in the building, and half the crowd watched these people come up from nothing. Matchups get announced closer to the date; doors early evening. Bring the friend who says they do not like boxing. They will change their mind by the second bout.

This Happened

60 Gathered

60 {# Rendered ALWAYS and hidden below the threshold, never omitted. An element that is absent at 0 cannot be repainted when the reader makes it 1 — that is why the card's count used to sit stale until a reload. falkorPresence (base.html) owns the text from here. #}

OC Night Market 2026 — Costa Mesa

Jul 17 – Jul 19, 2026 OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Dr…

The night market format has been a cornerstone of community life across East and Southeast Asia for centuries, and for one weekend the whole thing lands at the OC Fair & Event Center - hundreds of food vendors, merchandise booths, live entertainment, and that specific social energy. The crowd draws from the substantial Asian American population of Orange County - the Vietnamese American community of Little Saigon, the Korean American communities of Fullerton and Buena Park, the Chinese American communities throughout the region - alongside the broader OC population who come for the food and the atmosphere. And the food is the reason to be here: Vietnamese banh mi and pho, Korean corn dogs and tteok, Filipino lechon and sisig, Japanese takoyaki and taiyaki, Chinese scallion pancakes and dumplings, plus the fusion items that only emerge when all of these traditions share one night market. Lines form at the most popular stalls, so scout the layout and arrive with a plan. The OC Fair & Event Center is at 88 Fair Dr in Costa Mesa, off the 405 and 55, with multiple lots on-site; admission is charged at the gate, food and vendor purchases are individual. It runs Friday evening through Sunday and is heaviest on Saturday - Friday evening is the best balance of atmosphere and room to move. OC Night Market 2026, Costa Mesa.

This Happened

92 Gathered

92 {# Rendered ALWAYS and hidden below the threshold, never omitted. An element that is absent at 0 cannot be repainted when the reader makes it 1 — that is why the card's count used to sit stale until a reload. falkorPresence (base.html) owns the text from here. #}

OC Fair 2026

Jul 17 – Aug 16, 2026 15.0 OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Dr…

July to August in Costa Mesa, and the Fair is always there. The OC Fair has marked the end of Southern California's summer for over a century — the same sprawling grounds, the same negotiation between fair food and agricultural heritage that makes it its own category. OC Fair & Event Center, July 17 through August 16, 2026. Open Wednesday through Sunday. Deep-fried everything, carnival rides, six performance stages, agricultural exhibits, and the night concerts at the Pacific Amphitheatre that fill the back half of summer. The Fair doesn't try to be something else. That's why it works. The food competitions run throughout the season. The livestock shows run the first weeks. The Pacific Amphitheatre concerts run ticketed separately — the summer lineup announces early. OC Fair & Event Center, Costa Mesa. July 17 through August 16, Wednesdays through Sundays. Tickets are cheaper at the gate on weekday openings; weekend evenings at the Pacific Amphitheatre run the most popular concerts.

This Happened

Orange County Fair 2026 -- Costa Mesa

Jul 17 – Aug 17, 2026 OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Dr…

Standing in line for a funnel cake at nine at night in August is not something anyone plans. It just happens, every year, to the same people who swore they were only stopping by. That is the fair: carnival rides, deep-fried everything, and the specific noise-and-neon overload that makes a summer feel like it actually happened. The food is the honest draw — turkey legs, bacon-wrapped corn, deep-fried Oreos, the choices that make a nutritionist wince and a county fair what it is. The Pacific Amphitheatre runs nightly inside the grounds, classic rock through Latin pop through country, bass competing with the Ferris wheel lights, and it is one of the better outdoor rooms in Southern California. Livestock barns, fine arts competitions and the Action Sports Arena fill the daylight hours. Bring the person you always end up at the fair with anyway.

All venues · Search OC Fair & Event Center

OC Fair & Event Center Events

Leaving Falkor