Where/When are the outdoor art fairs in the Sacto area? (Sacramento: loan, home)

[Marsh511]

Back in the 90's, we lived in the Bay Area and loved going to one art fair/street fair after another on consecutive spring and summer weekends -- Fremont, Los Gatos, Palo Alto, Danville, Sunnyvale, Tiburon, Burlingame, Walnut Creek, etc. etc. etc. Since moving to the Sacramento area, we've had a hard time finding these events. Are these another victim of the "economy" or do they just not exist in this area? And I'm NOT looking for the indoor arts & crafts show (like at the Convention Center or Cal Expo) - I'm looking for the ones outdoors in the "downtowns" around the metro area.

[wburg]

You're looking for "Second Saturday." Second Saturday of each month--typically the Sacramento News & Review prints a monthly guide to what is going on at which gallery. Although in recent years it has gotten so crowded that the galleries typically do a "second Thursday" opening event the preceding Thursday for gallery patrons, with the Saturday event more of an open-air street party when the galleries happen to be open. The epicenter is around 20th and K Street, from roughly I and 18th to K in the twenties, but there are other clusters of galleries in Southside Park along the R Street corridor, from Verge Gallery at 8th and S to the Art Foundry at 10th and R and thereabouts, and another around 19th and P where there are a couple more galleries. It helps to pick up the SN&R's map.

Every Sunday there's a farmer's market under the W/X freeway between 6th and 8th. Sunday after second Saturday, an antique fair under the freeway between 20th and 22nd that spills over into the adjacent neighborhood. Check local papers--this weekend there was a home tour in Curtis Park, a Jewish street fair in Midtown, and a bicycle swap meet between Capitol and L Street. Last weekend we had a mobile-food-truck festival, and next week is the "Tweed Ride." During warm weather months there's pretty much some kind of festival or street event every weekend, plus assorted film festivals. And then there's the Sacramento Music Festival, formerly known as the Jazz Jubilee, coming up in the end of May. It is down from its highest attendance of around 60,000 people but it still fills Old Sacramento and then some.

I think Folsom has a smaller monthly art event but am not sure what night it is held.

[NewToCA]

Historic Folsom is also Second Saturday, not sure why they'd want to compete with Midtown, but...


Folsom Historic District

[caligirlz]

I think the idea is to support Folsom by providing a similar event in town, especially for those who don't want to travel outside the local community. I don't think it was meant to be competitive, just another opportunity. It really doesn't stop anyone who does want to go to midtown.

[Sactoslacker]

Davis also has a 2nd Friday art walk:
2nd Friday ArtAbout : Davis Downtown Business Association

Also,on Labor Day Sac has the Chalk it Up event:
Welcome to Chalk It Up! | Chalk It Up

[Marsh511]

While the fairs you've mentioned are good venues for showcasing the local merchants, I'm thinking more of the once or twice a year bigger festivals.....like this one in Los Altos (http://downtownlosaltos.org/events/aw_main.html). It seems we don't have events of this scale in any Sacramento 'suburb' while the Bay Area has one almost every other week somewhere.

[Mr. Opinionated]

I agree. But I dont think there is anything along the scale of the Bay area in Sacramento as S.F. and the Bay area are a much larger population.

[wburg]

Marsh511: The Los Altos event bills itself as the largest in the Bay Area, which covers about 9 million people, while the Sacramento area covers about 2 million. So I assume that the Arts & Wine festival is a fairly high bar, and you don't expect them all to be like that, especially in a smaller region. Also, while I'm not familiar with all the cities you mention, they strike me as relatively wealthy enclaves. In this region, the wealthy enclaves tend to be places like Granite Bay, El Dorado Hills, Rancho Murieta and Arden Oaks, which aren't even incorporated cities, and most didn't even exist prior to the 1950s so there isn't even an "old town," let alone a "downtown."

You might be looking for something more along the lines of Nevada City's "Summer Nights" events:

Summer Nights | Nevada City, California

There are, however, a lot of big, public, annual outdoor fairs in Sacramento, often in Old Sacramento--the aforementioned Jazz Festival, the Pacific Rim Festival, Gold Rush Days, etcetera. Others take place in Sacramento regional parks, like Chalk It Up!, also mentioned above, which if you're looking specifically for something more arts-centered, is your baby.

But I should reiterate that Second Saturday, while it has been drawn pretty far from its origins, is primarily an outdoor/pedestrian type event, at least one designed to lead people between a large number of small art galleries in the central city, primarily on foot, along with around 15,000 other people.

There are also a ton of smaller things going on--like the monthly GOOD event on Del Paso Boulevard ( Art, design, food festival comes to Del Paso Boulevard - Sustainability - Green - May 31, 2012 - Sacramento News & Review ) or the Makers Mart at Bows & Arrows ( Sacramento Press / First ever Makers Mart to be held at Bows And Arrows this Sunday ) that might pique your interest.

Maybe it would help if you described what you're looking for in a little more detail? Using an event that bills itself as the biggest in a region four times our size doesn't create much basis for comparison--and the description didn't tell much other than some very middle-of-the-road sounding family-friendly bands, and assorted street food. (Oh yeah, I forgot, SactoMoFo! SactoMoFo ) Expecting an event exactly like the ones you visited in the Bay Area may lead to disappointment. But if you give a clearer picture of the kind of fun you'd like to have, we may be able to direct you to the sort of events we have in these here parts that might be to your liking.

[Marsh511]

Wburg - I think you've nailed the reason why we're not finding what we enjoyed so much through the 90's. The Bay Area has so many self-sustaining, incorporated cities with sizable populations (> 100,000) and a fairly affluent makeup that many can put on their own annual shindig (like the one in Los Altos this weekend). The Sacramento area doesn't have the same civic divisions. If anything, the one or two annual craft fairs at Cal Expo or the downtown Convention Center may be the only events resembling what we're after.

As for content, we always loved strolling down about 2 miles of streets in the downtown areas (closed to cars, of course), lined with tent after tent of not "local" merchants or vendors, but occupied by artists and vendors who ply their work from city to city all year long. We would sometimes see the same folks selling their work in Monterey one weekend, then run into them in Tiburon the next, then Fremont or Sunnyvale the week after, then maybe down in Pasadena (SoCal) a few weeks after that. Typically, these vendors would travel from hometowns in places like Spokane, Angels Camp, Reno, Barstow, or Merced...which is to say, somewhere in the western states.

We enjoyed chatting up many of the same folks in various venues throughout the decade - there was a guy who made prints with holograms of ghosts throughout his work, another lady who had great bathroom pixies, and another artist named Paul Sloan who often put cats in random places in his work. These folks were definitely a notch above "local" and made their living traveling from one show to the next in one general part of the country over the course of a season. Typically, about 6-10 local restaurants would set up tents and sell samples of their food as well. There would be an equal representation of artwork, tschotchkes, clothing, jewelry, ceramics, garden decorations, and cooking-related goodies.

But the main attraction or attribute we're NOT finding anymore are the more 'national' or even regional vendors who come to town to participate in these fairs. I'm all for supporting the locals, but there's a certain branding that we miss from recognizing many of the vendors from week to week.

Oh, the absolute BEST festival we enjoyed the most about 15 years ago was the annual Pumpkin Festival in Half Moon Bay!! Now THAT had everything we enjoyed about these festivals.

[wburg]

Okay then...again, a lot of the sort of fair that draws that sort of regional/traveling vendor happens in downtown Sacramento, like the various festivals in Old Sacramento, or the monthly antique fairs and craft fairs that happen under Interstate 5--not long linear streets, but five acres of tents and booths is nothing to sneeze at. Some are local closet-cleaners, others work the regional or state circuit. Second Saturday features a lot of local artists but also regional and out-of-region artists--ranging from tschotchkes to fine art. Not sure about the bathroom pixies, though. The Folsom Street Fair in Folsom, which happens in spring and fall, might approximate what you're looking for, or, as I mentioned, Nevada City may have a few such events.

So, no, you're not going to find exactly the same thing--but we have our own thing, that may be different than what you're used to, but you may find something appealing and enjoyable at these venues despite their lack of identical nature to the rows of artists on closed streets with pictures with cats in them that you're used to in the Bay Area.

How many of those Bay Area suburban cities are really self-sustaining? I get the impression that most of them are bedroom communities or edge cities, just ones old enough to have small traditional "downtowns" and large enough to have bothered incorporating into a government.