Best Fall Events in California for Groups: 2026 Travel Guide

September in California has a little bit of everything: warm weather, fewer summer crowds, wine harvest season, and enough Oktoberfest celebrations to make you wonder whether you somehow took a wrong turn and ended up in Bavaria. Across the state, September events fill the calendar with beer gardens, Bavarian food, live music, family activities, coastal attractions, and plenty of excuses to plan one more trip before fall really settles in.

This year, you can celebrate Oktoberfest in Santa Cruz, Tahoe City, Benicia, and Santa Clarita, then mix in Boardwalk rides, Lake Tahoe scenery, wine-country stops, or a relaxed weekend by the coast. Whether you are planning a quick day trip or gathering friends for a full weekend, there are plenty of things to do in California in September and thankfully, not all of them require wearing lederhosen.

Is California a Good Place to Visit in September?

Yes. September falls within California’s autumn travel season, but much of the state can still experience warm weather. In some destinations, travelers may also encounter fewer visitors than during the peak summer months. The combination can make September a comfortable time for sightseeing, hiking, photography, and exploring California’s coastline. Clearer conditions in some coastal areas can also make scenic stops particularly appealing.

September is also harvest season in major California wine regions such as Napa Valley and Sonoma. Vineyards begin taking on autumn colors, while wineries welcome visitors for tastings and seasonal experiences. Popular tasting rooms can get busy during harvest, so making reservations in advance is a smart part of trip planning. For travelers considering California travel in September, some of the month's advantages include:

• Warm weather in many parts of the state
• Fewer crowds than peak summer in some destinations
• Wine harvest season
• Opportunities for hiking and sightseeing
• Pleasant conditions for coastal travel and photography
• Seasonal festivals and Oktoberfest celebrations

These conditions also make September a good time to combine a California weekend trip with one of the seasonal events happening around the state.

What Are the Top Tourist Attractions in California in September?

California has far more attractions than could fit into a single September itinerary. For travelers attending the events covered in this guide, however, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk provides an easy way to combine a seasonal celebration with classic California entertainment. The Boardwalk offers rides, games, arcade entertainment, Boardwalk Bowl, food, shopping, and nearby lodging options. That gives visitors flexibility to build a longer day around the Boardwalk Oktoberfest rather than traveling to Santa Cruz solely for the evening event.

Places to Visit in California in September

The California September events in this guide also provide an opportunity to experience very different parts of the state. Santa Cruz combines a beachside setting with Boardwalk rides, games, food, and entertainment. Tahoe City offers a Lake Tahoe setting and an Oktoberfest with food, drinks, vendors, music, contests, and activities. Benicia brings its celebration to downtown First Street Green, while Santa Clarita offers another Southern California Oktoberfest option later in the month. Instead of choosing a destination based only on the event itself, consider what you would like to do before and after it. An Oktoberfest can become part of a coastal day trip, Lake Tahoe getaway, or weekend exploring a California city.

Unique Things to Do in California in September

Some of the most interesting California fall events mix traditional Oktoberfest elements with local entertainment. Depending on the event you choose, you may find Bavarian food, beer gardens, commemorative steins, live music, DJs, food trucks, artisan vendors, contests, games, and family entertainment. Santa Cruz also gives visitors access to Boardwalk rides and arcade activities. That variety makes the September calendar useful for more than beer enthusiasts. Couples, groups of friends, and families can all find events with activities that match their plans.

What Events Take Place in California in September?

Several California festivals in September 2026 celebrate Oktoberfest, but each has a different format, location, and admission structure.

Boardwalk Oktoberfest - Santa Cruz

Date: September 12, 2026Time: 5:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m.Location: Aloha Terrace at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Boardwalk Oktoberfest brings a Bavarian-style celebration to one of Santa Cruz's best-known attractions. The evening includes a Bavarian buffet, beer and wine, souvenir steins, live entertainment, dancing, games, and contests. The event welcomes all ages, making it an option for families as well as groups of adults. Adult tickets are listed at $89.95, while All Ages tickets are $69.95, plus a $2 service fee. Because ticket packages include different benefits, visitors should review what comes with their selected admission before purchasing. The location also makes it possible to combine Santa Cruz Oktoberfest 2026 with the rides, games, food, and other entertainment available at the Boardwalk.

Tahoe City Oktoberfest - Lake Tahoe

Date: September 19, 2026Time: Noon–5 p.m.Location: Gatekeeper's Museum and William B. Layton State Park

For travelers looking for Lake Tahoe events in September, Tahoe City Oktoberfest combines an outdoor setting with a traditional fall celebration. Admission is free. Visitors can purchase Beer Garden tickets, commemorative steins, and drink tokens separately. The event also features brewers, food vendors, artisan vendors, music from Alpine Sound, contests, and children's activities. Transportation is another useful feature. Organizers list a free shuttle serving Olympic Valley and the West Shore, along with free TART Connect services, TART Bus transportation, and free bike valet. Those options can be particularly useful for groups that do not want everyone arriving in separate vehicles.

Benicia Oktoberfest & Marketplace - Benicia

Date: September 19, 2026Location: First Street Green, Downtown Benicia

The Benicia Oktoberfest and Marketplace combines a German-inspired celebration with a local marketplace. Visitors can expect German beer, food, live music, local vendors, contests, and family activities. A Kid Zone and face painting give families with younger children something to include in their visit as well. General admission is listed at $10. A $25 ticket includes admission and two drink coupons, while the $40 VIP Stein Package offers another ticket option. Children ages 12 and under can enter free. Because the celebration takes place at First Street Green in downtown Benicia, visitors should check the official event information before traveling for the latest parking and arrival instructions.

Santa Clarita Luketoberfest - Santa Clarita

Date: September 26, 2026

Southern California travelers have another option toward the end of the month with Santa Clarita's Luketoberfest. The celebration includes beer releases, seltzer cocktails, food trucks, a live DJ, contests, and games. Its combination of food, drinks, music, and activities creates a casual way to mark the beginning of the fall season without leaving Southern California. Before heading out, check the organizer's latest information for event hours, transportation, parking, and any admission details that may apply.

Why Is September a Good Month for California Wine Travel?

September isn't only about Oktoberfest. It is also closely associated with California wine and the annual harvest season.. Wine regions such as Napa Valley and Sonoma attract visitors interested in vineyard scenery, tastings, food, and harvest-related experiences. That popularity makes advance planning particularly important. Reserving tastings ahead of time can help you avoid arriving at a winery only to find that your preferred time is unavailable. It is also helpful to leave enough time between wineries rather than packing too many tastings into one day. Follow each winery's reservation policies, plan your route beforehand, and arrange transportation that does not require someone in your group to drive after drinking.

Transportation can be one of the less obvious challenges of a wine-country trip. Wineries may be spread across different areas, parking conditions can vary, and coordinating several cars becomes harder as a group grows. Keeping everyone together can simplify the itinerary and make it easier to move between planned stops. If wine country is the main reason for your September trip, visit our related California Wine Month guide for more events, dates, ticket details, and transportation information.

How Can Group Transportation Make September Events Easier?

Transportation deserves some attention when several people are attending the same event. Instead of coordinating arrival times, parking, and routes across multiple vehicles, a group can travel together and follow one itinerary. For Santa Cruz, visitors can plan their transportation around a full Boardwalk day, combining rides, games, food, and entertainment with the evening Oktoberfest. Tahoe City Oktoberfest offers particularly useful alternatives to driving. Visitors can use the free shuttle from Olympic Valley and the West Shore, free TART Connect services, TART Bus transportation, or the free bike valet.

For Benicia Oktoberfest, the event takes place at First Street Green in downtown Benicia. Groups should check the official event information before departure for current arrival and parking instructions.

Travelers attending Santa Clarita Luketoberfest should similarly confirm parking and transportation details with the linked organizer before making final plans.

For larger groups, thinking about transportation before purchasing tickets can prevent one of the most common event-day problems: everyone having a ticket but no coordinated plan for getting there and back.

September gives travelers plenty of reasons to explore California. The month's calendar ranges from Oktoberfest celebrations and beer gardens to Boardwalk rides, live music, food, shopping, games, contests, and family activities.Santa Cruz offers a Boardwalk Oktoberfest on September 12, while Tahoe City and Benicia hold celebrations on September 19. Santa Clarita follows with Luketoberfest on September 26. Together, these September events in California offer several ways to turn a regular fall weekend into a day trip or short getaway.

Whichever event you choose, check the organizer's latest information before leaving home. Dates, ticket prices, schedules, admission requirements, transportation arrangements, and parking details can change, and a few minutes of planning can make the event much easier to enjoy.

If your watchlist is longer than your grocery list, September has a night made for you.

The Emmys 2026, officially the 78th Emmy Awards, will bring television's biggest names together in Los Angeles to celebrate the shows and performances that kept us saying, “Okay, just one more episode.” The Emmys recognize achievement in television; the Oscars do the same for film. That's the simple difference between Emmy and Oscar and, thankfully, there will be no quiz later.

This year's ceremony arrives with familiar favorites, major newcomers, and several races that are far from obvious. Before the envelopes open, here's what you need to know about the date, host, viewing options, biggest Emmy nominations 2026, predictions, voting process, and Creative Arts ceremonies.

When and Where Are the Emmys in 2026?

So, when are the Emmys 2026? The main ceremony is scheduled for Monday, September 14, 2026, at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. The 78th Emmy Awards will take place at the Peacock Theater at L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles. That gives us the Emmy Awards 2026 date and answers where are the Emmys held this year: right in downtown Los Angeles, where finding television stars is considerably easier than finding cheap parking.

Who Is Hosting the Emmys in 2026?

The Emmys 2026 host is Mariska Hargitay, best known for her long-running role as Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. After spending decades handling fictional New York crime scenes, hosting one of television's biggest nights should be relatively peaceful.

Keep in mind that a host announcement is not the same thing as a complete presenter list. The full lineup of people handing out trophies should only be treated as confirmed when officially announced.

Where to Watch the Emmys 2026

Wondering where to watch the Emmys 2026? You have two main options in the United States. The September 14 ceremony will air live on NBC and stream live on Peacock. That's for the main Emmy telecast. The Creative Arts Emmys have their own dates and broadcast arrangements, which we'll get to below. In other words, don't turn on NBC a week early and wonder why everyone forgot to show up.

What Shows Are Nominated for Emmys 2026?

The Emmy nominations 2026 stretch across a huge number of categories, so listing every nomination here would turn this guide into a small novel. Instead, let's focus on three of the biggest program races: Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Comedy Series, and Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series. These are official Emmy nominees 2026, not winners. The trophies haven't been handed out yet, no matter how confident your favorite show's subreddit may be.

Drama Series Nominees

The Outstanding Drama Series race includes eight shows:

• The Diplomat
• The Gilded Age
• A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
• Paradise
• The Pitt
• Pluribus
• Slow Horses
• Your Friends & Neighbors

It's a crowded field, with established Emmy competitors sharing the category with newer shows. But nominations are nominations, we'll save the crystal ball for the prediction section.

Comedy Series Nominees

Outstanding Comedy Series also has eight contenders:

• Abbott Elementary
• The Bear
• Hacks
• Margo's Got Money Troubles
• Nobody Wants This
• Only Murders in the Building
• Shrinking
• Widow's Bay

Yes, The Bear is still in the comedy category. At this point, arguing about it has practically become its own annual Emmy tradition. These primetime Emmy nominations 2026 include longtime awards regulars alongside newer competitors, but all eight enter September as nominees not winners.

Limited or Anthology Series Nominees

The Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series category is a slightly shorter list:

• All Her Fault
• The Beast in Me
• Beef
• DTF St. Louis
• Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette

Those five make up the category. Television movies compete separately, so they shouldn't be mixed into this list. Now comes the more dangerous part: trying to guess what the voters will actually do.

Who Will Win at Emmys?

First, the important disclaimer: these are Emmy predictions 2026, not results. Until somebody opens an envelope onstage, a prediction is still a prediction-even if an awards expert says it with tremendous confidence. Variety awards editor Clayton Davis has identified The Pitt as his predicted winner for Outstanding Drama Series. The medical drama enters the race as a major contender, but Pluribus and the rest of the field mean nobody should start engraving anything early.

For comedy, Davis's pick is Widow's Bay. That makes the race particularly interesting because Hacks remains a formidable rival. Hacks is hardly unfamiliar with Emmy attention, while Widow's Bay represents the kind of fresh challenger that can make an awards night much less predictable. In Limited or Anthology Series, Davis predicts Beef. The big competition is DTF St. Louis, creating another category where the favorite doesn't have a clear walk to the podium.

That's what makes Emmy Awards 2026 predictions fun. Everyone gets to be an awards expert for a few weeks, and then an envelope gets opened and reminds half the internet that confidence is not the same thing as accuracy. The actual Emmys 2026 winners won't be known until the awards are presented.

Who Votes for the Emmys?

So who actually decides which shows get those little gold statues? Not Twitter. Not your group chat. And definitely not whichever family member keeps insisting their favorite show was “robbed.” The answer to who votes for the Emmys is the Television Academy's eligible National Active members.

The Academy describes the Emmy as a form of peer recognition. Its membership includes television professionals organized into specialized peer groups representing different areas of the industry. National Active members vote on nominees and winners in categories connected to their areas of expertise. That means television professionals are essentially judging the work of other television professionals. The Emmys are therefore not a public fan vote. Watching every nominated show in a single weekend may earn you impressive couch endurance, but unfortunately it does not earn you an official ballot. There is another distinction worth knowing: you do not have to be a Television Academy member to submit eligible work for Emmy consideration or to receive an Emmy Award. Voting eligibility and award eligibility are two different things.

What Are the Creative Arts Emmys?

If the main Emmy telecast is television's big night, the Creative Arts Emmys are where you discover just how many people it takes to make that television look and sound so good. The Creative Arts Emmys 2026 recognize a huge range of television achievement. Categories include cinematography, costumes, picture editing, makeup, hairstyling, sound editing and mixing, visual effects, animation, production design, music, and voice-over performance.

When Are the Creative Arts Emmys 2026 and How Can You Watch?

And despite the name, they are not exclusively “technical awards.” The Creative Arts ceremonies also include selected performance and programming categories. Basically, television doesn't magically appear after someone yells “Action!” A small army of talented people has been very busy. The 2026 Creative Arts ceremonies are scheduled for Saturday, September 5, and Sunday, September 6, at the Peacock Theater. That puts them more than a week ahead of the September 14 main telecast. If you want to watch from home, the schedule is different from the main Emmys. An edited presentation combining the first two nights will air on FXX on Saturday, September 12, at 8 p.m. ET/PT. It will then be available to stream on Hulu the following day.

So keep the dates straight:

• September 5-6: Creative Arts ceremonies.
• September 12: Edited Creative Arts broadcast on FXX.
• September 13: Creative Arts presentation available on Hulu.
• September 14: Main Emmy ceremony live on NBC and Peacock.

Television loves a complicated timeline. Apparently awards season does too. The Emmys 2026 arrive on September 14 with Mariska Hargitay hosting, NBC broadcasting, Peacock streaming, and some seriously competitive television waiting for its moment. The Pitt, Pluribus, Hacks, Widow's Bay, Beef, DTF St. Louis, and plenty of other shows enter the Emmy season with nominations. Predictions may point toward certain favorites, but they're still forecasts until somebody is standing onstage holding a trophy.And don't forget the Creative Arts Emmys. Those ceremonies happen September 5 and 6, with their edited broadcast arriving before the main show. So pick your favorites, prepare your snacks, and practice your best “I knew they were going to win” face. Even if you absolutely did not.