A Nextdoor thread in late July captured the mood before anyone official said a word about it: someone worried out loud that visitors would never find their way into the Village once the Bay Avenue exit disappeared, that they'd get lost hunting for Park Avenue on unfamiliar streets. The worry wasn't really about tourists. It was about the muscle memory every Capitola local carries: get on Highway 1, take the Bay Avenue off-ramp, you're in the Village in ninety seconds. That exit has been gone since the night of August 2, and it isn't coming back until sometime around Fall 2026, according to Caltrans and the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. Which means both of Capitola's marquee September events, the Art & Wine Festival on September 12 and 13 and the Beach Festival on September 26 and 27, are happening this year without the one exit almost everyone here has used for decades.
That overlap is the thing worth knowing before either weekend arrives. Not because either festival is new. Because the route to both of them is.
The Ramp That Isn't There This Year
The closure is part of a $78 million project building auxiliary lanes and a bus-on-shoulder facility on Highway 1 between the Bay Avenue/Porter Street and State Park Drive interchanges, with Granite Construction of Watsonville as the contractor. The southbound off-ramp at Bay Avenue closed overnight on August 2 and is scheduled to stay closed for approximately four months while crews reconstruct it, with completion targeted for Fall 2026. The official detour sends southbound drivers past Bay Avenue to the Park Avenue off-ramp, left onto Park, then a run along Soquel Drive back toward Porter Street and Bay, following posted signs the whole way.
Four months, counted from August 2, lands somewhere in early December. Both festival weekends sit well inside that window. This isn't a closure you can plan around by picking a quieter Sunday morning. It's the operating condition for the entire festival stretch.
Festival One: Art, Wine, and a Parking Lot You Already Know
The Capitola Art & Wine Festival returns for its 43rd year on September 12 and 13, produced by the Capitola-Soquel Chamber of Commerce. More than 150 juried fine artists line the Esplanade, the village streets, and the area around the Capitola Wharf, alongside roughly 22 Santa Cruz Mountains wineries pouring for the 21-and-over crowd. Admission is free. Wine tasting requires a $20 commemorative festival glass plus tokens purchased at Glass and Token booths around the grounds. Saturday runs 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with live music on the Bandstand Stage at Esplanade Park both days.
One detail locals will recognize before out-of-towners do: free bike valet parking, staffed by Harbor High Leadership, sits in the David Lyng Real Estate parking lot at the corner of Capitola and Stockton Avenues, right in the heart of the Village. If you're arriving by bike, that's your drop point regardless of which highway exit got you there. If you're driving, the chamber's free shuttle from Capitola Mall on 41st Avenue is the more reliable bet this year, since it sidesteps the closed ramp entirely by routing drivers to a lot that doesn't depend on Bay Avenue access at all.
Festival Two: Why This Isn't the Begonia Festival Anymore
If you're picturing a Labor Day weekend event with begonia-covered floats, you're thinking of a festival that hasn't existed since 2017. The Begonia Festival ran for 65 years, built around blooms donated by Golden State Bulb Growers, formerly the Brown Bulb Ranch. When Golden State Bulb Growers retired from the flower business, citing the declining economics of growing bulbs in California, the festival lost its namesake and its supply chain in the same year. Rather than let the Labor Day tradition disappear, the same volunteer base, with support from now-Mayor Michael Termini, launched a replacement: the Capitola Beach Festival.
The Beach Festival keeps the family-friendly bones of its predecessor without the flowers, and it runs later in September, not over Labor Day. This year's edition, themed "Toy Takeover," lands on September 26 and 27. Saturday opens with the Little Wharf 3-Miler, produced by Wharf to Wharf Race, Inc., followed by a sand sculpture contest, cornhole on the beach, children's art at Esplanade Park, and a Lighted Nautical Parade down Soquel Creek to the lagoon at 7 p.m. New this year: a drone show over the beach and creek immediately following the parade, sponsored by DeMattei Construction. Sunday brings a fishing derby off the Wharf, a paddleboard race, horseshoes on the sand, and chalk art on the seawall, a tradition carried over intact from the Begonia Festival days.
Here's the quick comparison, since the two events get confused constantly:
| Art & Wine Festival | Beach Festival | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 dates | Sept 12-13 | Sept 26-27 |
| Signature moment | 150+ juried artists, Santa Cruz Mountains wine tasting | Lighted Nautical Parade + first-ever drone show |
| Origin | Started 1982 with 50 artists on the Esplanade | Launched 2018 as the Begonia Festival's successor |
| Host | Capitola-Soquel Chamber of Commerce | Same chamber-adjacent volunteer network |
The Detour Habit Worth Building Before September 12
Both weekends fall on the same side of the closure, so the fix is the same for each. If you're coming from the north on Highway 1 and would normally exit at Bay Avenue, that ramp isn't there. Take Park Avenue instead, turn left, and follow Soquel Drive back toward Porter Street and Bay, where the signed detour rejoins the grid you already know. Caltrans has posted message boards along the corridor, but the habit of glancing for the Bay Avenue sign is exactly the kind of automatic behavior that doesn't update on its own. Locals who've made this drive hundreds of times are the ones most likely to miss the new turn, not the visitors following a phone.
For the Art & Wine Festival, that means building in extra time if you're driving to the Village directly, or better yet, using the Capitola Mall shuttle on 41st Avenue, which never depended on the Bay Avenue ramp in the first place. For the Beach Festival two weeks later, the same logic applies, especially if you're timing your arrival around the 7 p.m. Nautical Parade or the new drone show right after it. Traffic backing up on Soquel Drive at dusk on a Saturday in late September is not the moment to discover the detour for the first time.
None of this changes what either festival actually is. The Art & Wine Festival is still a two-day art walk with two dozen wineries pouring on the Esplanade. The Beach Festival is still a scrappy, chamber-run weekend of sand sculptures and lighted barges that grew out of a festival the city didn't want to lose. What's different this year is the fifteen minutes before you arrive, when the drive you've made on autopilot for years asks you to think again.
If you're weighing whether a Village address is worth the trade-offs of festival traffic and construction seasons, or you're comparing what a home near the Esplanade actually costs against one a few blocks up the hill, that's a longer conversation. Capitola rewards the people who understand its rhythms, construction included. If you want a local read on what a specific Capitola block is worth or how these seasonal patterns affect timing, Troy Hinds at Collective Real Estate is a phone call away. Let's connect, or download an offering memorandum if you're looking at the investment side of the Village.
