Marin County Fair’s next theme: Celebrating insects

The theme of next summer’s Marin County Fair will be “BUG-Tastic!” — a salute to the unheralded insect population among us, officials announced.

“We will be celebrating all things that are creepy and crawly and wiggly and buzzy and everything in between to highlight the importance of bugs and how they keep our ecosystem balanced and healthy,” said fair director Jennifer Olvera.

The annual summer festival will be the county’s 82nd. It will be held from July 2 to 6 at the county fairgrounds in San Rafael.

The event will be the first under the direction of Olvera, a county event manager recently appointed to fair director. Previously, she coordinated events and supervised sales and services at the Orange County Fair and Event Center in Costa Mesa. Her new annual salary is $117,228, according to the county employment office.

“There is so much energy right now with so many changes to the organization,” Olvera said about the fair’s organizers. “We have tons of ideas and we now want to focus on what we want to do for 2025.”

Gabriella Calicchio, the head of the county’s Department of Cultural Services, which oversees the fair, is leaving to become director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

“I can’t wait to see her creativity and imagination come to life with the BUG-Tastic! theme,” Calicchio said of Olvera.

Fair organizers plan to invite educational exhibits on insects, including species that people usually don’t see on a street or at a park.

The next fair will also include its traditional mix of competitive exhibits, animal attractions and carnival rides.

Ticket prices for the 2025 fair have not been announced. Olvera said that her staff wants to continue offering free admission to children and seniors on July 2.

The 2024 fair, which occurred during a heat wave with record temperatures, had an attendance of about 77,800, a 16% drop from the prior year. The revenue was $1.7 million, compared to $1.9 million in 2023.

Olvera said that the fair staff intends to install more outdoor shading and provide six water stations for visitors to fill empty bottles. She noted that the nearby Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium will remain closed during the fair.

“The indoor space will always be activated, as much as we have of it, for a cooling center,” Olvera said.

The fair last summer marked the return of the Marin Bonsai Club’s exhibit of curated trees. Tung Dao, the club president, said he and other bonsai growers plan to return next year, and he wants visitors to learn more about the art of bonsai cultivation.

“I look forward to reaching out to the next generation of bonsai artists and making that spark happen — the one that got me into bonsai many years ago,” Dao said.

Olvera said she enjoys seeing families visit county fair exhibits and having a relative’s work on display.

“What drives the passion in me is to have people come into a space in their community and be able to showcase their talents,” she said. “You can go to many events, but there are not a lot of places where you can learn, you can showcase, and you can see your friends all in your backyard.”