The Garberville Summer Arts Fair, a fixture of southern Humboldt’s summer calendar since 1996, is moving. After 30 years on the town square, the fair will relocate to the Benbow Lake State Recreation Area grounds for its 2026 edition, set for the last weekend of July.

The move, announced by the Southern Humboldt Community Arts Council last week, resolves a space problem that has been building for a decade. The town square (which is really just the grassy area between Garberville’s main drag and the community center) can accommodate about 45 vendor booths, a stage, and a food row. The fair has been turning away vendors for the past five years. Last year, 112 artists and craftspeople applied for 44 available spots.

“We were rejecting more people than we were accepting, and that’s not what a community arts fair should be doing,” said arts council director Priya Sharma. “Benbow gives us room. We can have 80 to 90 booths, a bigger stage, a real food court, and people can actually move around without stepping on each other.”

The Benbow grounds sit about two miles south of Garberville along the South Fork Eel River. The site is best known for the Benbow Inn, the Spanish Colonial hotel built in 1926 that has served as SoHum’s closest thing to a grand dame resort for a century. The state recreation area adjacent to the inn includes flat meadow space, river access, existing restroom facilities, and, critically, a large parking area that can handle several hundred vehicles.

Parking was the proximate cause of the move. The Garberville town square has roughly 60 adjacent parking spots. On fair days, the overflow spilled onto Redwood Drive, into the Evergreen Lodge lot, along the residential streets behind the community center, and onto the narrow shoulders of Sprowel Creek Road. The Garberville Volunteer Fire Department sent a letter to the arts council last September warning that emergency vehicle access was compromised during the 2025 fair and requesting the event either reduce attendance or relocate.

“Nobody wanted to hear that, but they were right,” Sharma said. “We couldn’t keep growing in a space that was designed for a much smaller event.”

Not everyone is happy about the change. Several Garberville business owners said the fair’s presence on the town square drives foot traffic to their shops and restaurants, and that moving the event two miles south will reduce that spillover.

“The fair is the busiest weekend of the year for us,” said Martin Cole, who owns a coffee shop on Redwood Drive. “When it’s right here on the square, people walk in after they browse the booths. If it’s down at Benbow, they drive past us.”

The arts council said it is working on a shuttle that would run between the Garberville square and the Benbow grounds every 20 minutes during the fair, giving attendees a reason to visit both locations. Sharma said the council is also in talks with Garberville businesses about a coordinated sidewalk sale during fair weekend.

The Benbow site introduces some logistical changes. The state recreation area charges a day-use fee, which the arts council will cover for fair attendees through a bulk arrangement with the parks department. Power at the site is limited, so the council is renting a generator for the stage and food vendors. And the river access, while appealing, means the council needs to coordinate with State Parks on safety signage and liability coverage.

The fair itself will keep its format: juried art and craft vendors, a main stage with live music, a kids’ area, food from local vendors, and the annual raffle that has funded the arts council’s youth programs for the past 15 years. The application window for 2026 vendors opened April 1 on the arts council’s website.

Previous vendors who held spots on the town square will get priority placement at Benbow, Sharma said, and the expanded footprint means anyone who was waitlisted last year should have a good shot at getting in.

“Thirty years on the square was a great run,” Sharma said. “But the fair isn’t about the location. It’s about the people, and the people need more room.”

The 2026 Garberville Summer Arts Fair runs July 25-26 at Benbow Lake State Recreation Area. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.