Annual Events, Holidays & Festivals

🧜‍♀️ California Mermaid Convention

📍Rancho Cordova
📅 Typically mid to late May

Featuring family-friendly and adult performances, mermaid cosplay, vendor booths, workshops, adult mixers, and children's programming. You'll love this shell-ibration of all things oceanic!

🏳️‍🌈 Sacramento PRIDE Festival

📍Sacramento
📅 Held in June

Featuring a colorful parade through downtown Sacramento, vendor booths, food trucks, and live stage performances. Largely family-friendly, some adults-only areas. Surround yourself with inclusivity and love at this wonderful event.

🎡 California State Fair & Food Festival

📍Sacramento
📅Typically in July

Featuring carnival games, larger-than-life prizes, food trucks, a Ferris wheel, indoor exhibits, competitions, and daring rides for adrenaline-seekers. There's classic, down-home fun for everyone at the fair!

🤘 Aftershock Rock & Roll Festival

📍Sacramento
📅Typically in October

Featuring star-studded lineups of heavy metal and hard rock bands, merch stands, vendors, food trucks, and more. Grab your checkered Vans and meet us at the stage!

🤠 GoldenSky Country Music & Beer Festival

📍Sacramento
📅Typically in October

Featuring live performances from the world's hottest country stars, merch stands, vendor booths, food trucks, craft beer, and a wine garden. When you see a wave of cowboy hats hit the town every October, you know it's time to boot-scoot and boogie.

✈️ California Capital Airshow

📍Mather Airport
📅 In 2025, this event will take place in March

Featuring heart-pounding aerial stunts, epic ground exhibits, vendor booths, pilot meet-and-greets, food trucks, and a delicious craft beer garden. Gravity-defying fun awaits aviation enthusiasts at one of Northern California's top airshows!

🏍️ Hangtown Motocross Classic

📍Prairie City State Vehicular Recreation Area
📅 Held in late May/early June

Featuring two days of racing, vendor booths, and specialty seating options. Watch amateur moto racers fly across the race track on Day 1, then settle into your seats on Day 2 to watch the pros sling some mud and find out why the Rancho Cordova Hangtown Motocross Classic is one of the best events in town.

🚴 Golden State Race Series

📍Rancho Cordova
📅Typically in May

Look for the pro cyclers darting through Rancho Cordova as they make their way through NorCal in this major USA Cycling sanctioned race.

🐴 Rancho Murieta Horse Shows

📍Murieta Equestrian Center
📅Held year-round

Featuring horse, pony, and dog shows, boutique vendors, RV camping, and fun for all ages. Bring the whole family to enjoy the Northern California equestrian competitions and stay in Rancho Cordova to take advantage of the outdoorsy attractions nearby!

🌊 PaddleSplash SUP Races

📍Rancho Cordova
📅Typically in July

Featuring SUP workshops, yoga classes, strength training, and timed youth and adult SUP races. Special guests like Seychelle SUP are known to make appearances and lead special trainings at PaddleSplash, held at Sacramento State Aquatic Center.

👻 Heartstoppers Haunted House

📍Rancho Cordova
📅October through early November

Featuring access to four terrifying haunted "scenes" with each ticket, spooky vendor booths, carnival games, and interactions with creepy horror actors. If you love a good jump scare, this Northern California haunted house will give you all the frights you're looking for.

🖼️ Mills Station Arts & Culture Center (The MACC)

📍Rancho Cordova
📅 Rotating exhibits year-round

Featuring local and nationally-acclaimed traveling art exhibits, artist workshops and lectures, intimate concerts, and craft fairs. This art museum in Rancho Cordova is perfect for families, couples, and art-lovers, and most exhibits are free!

🎭 Harris Center for the Arts

📍Folsom
📅 Rotating productions year-round

Featuring stage plays, symphony concerts, fascinating lectures, cultural performances, dancers, and documentary screenings. The close proximity of this Folsom theater make it a wonderful choice for Rancho Cordova visitors who enjoy the artistic side of life.

🎨 Holi Festival

📍Rancho Cordova
📅 Held in March, TBD

This Hindu celebration of color occurs in the spring and is celebrated by throwing colored water and powders while wearing white. The Rancho Cordova Holi festival is put on by community members, so annual dates vary. Please search our events calendar for more information.

🍷 International Festival & Wines of the World (iFest)

📍Rancho Cordova
📅Held in May

Featuring cultural performances and clothing, vendor booths, diverse foods, music, and wines from across the world. This community cultural festival keeps growing and growing with every new year, making it a pure delight for families from all walks of life!

✊🏿 Juneteenth Festival

📍Rancho Cordova
📅Held in June, TBD

Featuring delicious food, cultural performances, vendor booths, and lots of family fun. The Juneteenth festival in Rancho Cordova celebrates the end of slavery and the liberation of the Black community. The Juneteenth Festival is hosted by the Folsom Cordova Community Partnership organization, so annual dates vary. Please search our events calendar for more information.

🕯️ Diwali Festival

📍Rancho Cordova
📅Held in October, TBD

This Hindu celebration of light occurs each autumn. People light lamps to symbolize the triumph of light over darkness, goodness over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. The Rancho Cordova Diwali Festival is typically hosted by the Suvidha International Foundation, so annual dates vary. Please search our events calendar for more information.

🧪 Sacramento Children's Museum

📍Rancho Cordova
📅 Rotating exhibits year-round

Featuring traveling exhibits, arts and crafts, special events, imaginative play scenes, family-friendly Pride playdates, and inclusive opportunities for children with sensory needs. Rancho Cordova families with young kids love the Sacramento Children's Museum.

🧒 Kids Day in the Park

📍Rancho Cordova
📅 Typically held in April

Featuring face painting, bounce houses, tasty treats, educational activities, free health screenings, and vendor booths! This community event was designed to help all families get plugged into Rancho Cordova.

🎇 Rancho Cordova 4th of July Spectacular

📍Rancho Cordova
📅July 3-4

Featuring a parade and two whole days of carnival games, vendor booths, food trucks, live music, coordinated drone shows, and epic fireworks. Yep, you'll get all this bang for low bucks at this Sacramento area fourth of July festival.

🎄 Cordova Christmas Tree Lighting

📍Rancho Cordova
📅 Held in November

Featuring live music, a live nativity scene, pictures with Santa, food trucks, vendor booths, and fireworks. The Rancho Cordova Christmas Tree Lighting is the best tree lighting event in the Sacramento area!

🏃 Run to Feed the Hungry

📍Sacramento
📅 Thanksgiving Day

The largest Thanksgiving Day run in the United States is just 15 minutes down the freeway from Rancho Cordova, making it the perfect way to give back on a day of gratitude.

🎁 PAL Holiday Run

📍Rancho Cordova
📅Held in December

Each December, the Rancho Cordova Police Activities League hosts a toy drive and holiday walk/run to raise funds for about 1,400 local youth.