Downtown Danville is about to get a heavy dose of Stars Hollow. A new fan festival called Flannel & Foliage will bring six actors from “Gilmore Girls” to the walkable East Bay town this fall, along with scavenger hunts, trivia, live music and screenings of the beloved series that ran for seven seasons on The WB and The CW.
The lineup includes Kelly Bishop, Scott Patterson, Yanic Truesdale, Emily Kuroda, Sean Gunn, Todd Lowe and John Cabrera, according to The Press Democrat. Ticket holders will be able to attend live hosted panels and meet-and-greets with the cast, take photo opportunities with the actors, and browse autumn-themed artisan booths while sipping fall-flavored coffee and snacking their way through the festival's food offerings.
General admission is free, and fans can join a waitlist for those tickets through Small Town Venture, the company producing the event. VIP tickets will also be available for those who want a more curated experience, though pricing details have not yet been made public.
A Real Town Doubling as a Fictional One
Festival organizers plan to spread activities across four sites: the Village Theatre, the Danville Community Center, the Veterans Memorial Building and Hap Magee Ranch Park, according to Patch. The festival itself will be held in downtown Danville, a town incorporated in 1982 that covers 18 square miles of Contra Costa County's San Ramon Valley and is home to roughly 43,582 residents, about 30 miles east of San Francisco.
Danville Mayor Newell Arnerich publicly welcomed the event in August, saying the town's walkable downtown and small-town feel make it a natural fit, per the same Patch report. Town staff have also submitted a report to the Danville Town Council with an eye toward making the festival an annual fall tradition, signaling that this year's event could be the first of many.
Out-of-town visitors flying into Bay Area airports will have a place to stay close by. Organizers arranged a room block with discounted rates at the Hyatt House San Ramon, about 3 miles from downtown Danville, since the historic downtown itself has limited hotel capacity.
From Beyond the Gazebo to Small Town Venture
The festival is the brainchild of Ariana Arghandewal, a travel writer and founder of the blog Pointchaser, who created Flannel & Foliage after an autumn trip to the East Coast left her wanting to bring that region's fall fan-festival culture to Northern California. Her company was originally established under the name Beyond the Gazebo before changing its name to Small Town Venture in July, a shift that followed unexpected administrative hurdles during early planning.
Dedicated “Gilmore Girls” fan festivals trace back to October 2016 in Washington Depot, Connecticut, the town that inspired series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino after a stay at the Mayflower Inn, according to i95 ROCK. Similar gatherings later spread to Unionville, Ontario, and Guilford, Connecticut, before Danville's event marked one of the first major West Coast entries into the decade-old phenomenon.
“Gilmore Girls” aired from 2000 to 2007 but found a second life after Netflix released all seven seasons in October 2014, a resurgence that helped cement the show's reputation as a seasonal autumn staple, as reported by The Press Democrat. Reddit users have attributed the show's enduring fall association to its depictions of a cozy fictional New England town, warm autumnal colors, fall clothing and academic-year plot points, per the same report.
No Studio Involvement, But Plenty of Fan Momentum
Flannel & Foliage is a grassroots, independent gathering run by Small Town Venture with no formal affiliation, license or endorsement from Warner Bros. Television, according to Patch. That structure is common among fan conventions built around actor appearances rather than official studio branding.
The Danville event arrives amid a broader wave of cast activity and renewed interest in the franchise. The Press Democrat reports that Amy Sherman-Palladino and Lauren Graham are expected to publish a book about the making of “Gilmore Girls” in 2027, and that HBO is reportedly developing a documentary about the series. Netflix also produced a four-episode sequel miniseries, “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life,” back in 2016.
Cast members have kept up active touring schedules elsewhere in California this year, too. Actress Keiko Agena, who played Lane Kim, performed at San Diego's inaugural ImprovCon in August alongside comedy groups Asian AF and Chekhov High School, as Hoodline previously reported. For Danville, though, the focus stays local: a walkable downtown standing in for Stars Hollow, six familiar faces from the show, and a free general-admission ticket that puts the whole experience within reach for East Bay fans.
