The Sacramento Greek Festival is back for its 63rd year, filling the grounds of the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church near McKinley Park with three days of food, music, dancing and culture starting Friday, Oct. 2. The festival opens at 11 a.m. that day and runs through 8 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 4, drawing visitors looking for Greek cuisine, entertainment and a taste of the community's cultural traditions.
According to KCRA, the festival takes place at the church, located at 616 Alhambra Boulevard, with the main festival entrance on F Street and a separate bicyclist entrance on 30th Street. The station reports that admission runs $3 on Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. for people ages 13 and older, and $5 during other times, while children 12 and under and bicyclists get in free all weekend. The Sacramento Greek Festival's own site describes itself as a cash-free event, so visitors should plan to bring a card rather than cash once they're inside.
Beyond the admission gate, the festival is built around the kind of hands-on cultural offerings that have made it a fixture in East Sacramento for decades. Free Greek dance lessons let guests join in rather than just watch, according to Sacramento365, alongside cooking and pastry-making demonstrations that give attendees a closer look at how the food actually comes together. KCRA's report also notes the festival includes new behind-the-scenes stories this year covering the festival's history, its volunteer army, and the pastry operation that keeps the dessert tables stocked.
A Parish Tradition Rooted in 1920
The festival is hosted by the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, which was founded in 1920 and is the oldest Greek Orthodox parish between the San Francisco Bay Area and Salt Lake City, per the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco. The event returned to its Alhambra Boulevard home in East Sacramento in 2017 after a period elsewhere, according to Sacramento365, and all proceeds go toward parish outreach, youth programs and local charities.
Pulling off a festival this size takes serious manpower. Sacramento365 reports that nearly 400 volunteers spanning four generations of the parish community come together to run the event each year, a figure echoed in earlier coverage from CBS News Sacramento, which described roughly 400 volunteers powering a previous three-day run of the festival that went through about 800 pounds of butter and rolled some 6,000 dolmathes.
How the Festival Has Grown
The festival's numbering has ticked up steadily in recent years, with KCRA identifying the 2025 event as the 62nd annual Sacramento Greek Festival before this year's official listing put the count at 63. That 2025 festival, per KCRA, ran 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. across Friday through Sunday and featured the same kind of early-Friday discount pricing structure that returns this year, along with free entry for kids 12 and under.
Longtime attendees may recognize the rhythm: food, wine, performances and a packed church grounds that Sacramento's Greek community has used for generations to share its heritage with the wider city. Whether it's the dance lessons, the pastry demonstrations or simply the draw of a cash-free food hall, organizers are positioning the 63rd Sacramento Greek Festival as another chapter in a tradition that has outlasted six decades of change in East Sacramento.
