Seasonal Recreation in Manhattan Beach, California
Manhattan Beach's annual calendar is built around a handful of genuinely major, long-running events -- not a thin, generic 'beach town events' list. This page covers the real ones, with founding dates and current status, from the summer volleyball and surf-festival season through the fall fair and winter holiday events.
Summer: The AVP Manhattan Beach Open
The AVP Manhattan Beach Open, established in 1960, is the longest-running and most prestigious beach volleyball tournament in the United States, and the largest event on the current AVP tour, drawing an estimated 60,000-plus attendees over three days each summer. Its defining structural feature -- unique among professional volleyball events -- is that amateurs can pre-qualify into the same tournament draw as touring professionals, and champions are memorialized with bronze plaques on a permanent "Volleyball Walk of Fame" mounted on the Manhattan Beach Pier itself. This is a real, continuously running, currently operating summer anchor event, not a historical footnote.
Summer: The International Surf Festival
Running since 1962, the International Surf Festival is a multi-day summer event spanning Manhattan Beach and neighboring Hermosa Beach, and includes the Dwight Crum Pier-to-Pier Swim (run continuously since 1963, except for a 2020 COVID cancellation) and youth volleyball competitions among its programming, per surffestival.org's own history. It's a genuinely significant, decades-old South Bay tradition distinct from the AVP Open, reflecting the area's broader open-water and beach-sports culture covered in depth on this site's boating-water-access and community-lifestyle pages.
Fall: The Manhattan Beach Hometown Fair
The Manhattan Beach Hometown Fair is a free, volunteer-run community tradition dating to 1972, typically held over a weekend in early October (the 2026 edition is scheduled for October 3-4). It features a parade, carnival games, food and drink, live music, arts and crafts, kids' rides, and community booths -- a genuinely community-organized, non-commercial event (per its own site, mbfair.org) rather than a corporate-sponsored festival, and one of the clearest expressions of Manhattan Beach's full-time-resident civic culture covered on this site's year-round-living page.
Winter Holiday Events: Pier Lighting, Santa Stroll, and Fireworks
Manhattan Beach runs a genuine cluster of currently operating winter holiday events. The annual Pier Lighting and Holiday Open House marks the official start of the holiday season downtown, with the pier itself lit in holiday colors while downtown restaurants and retailers host customers. The Santa Stroll features hundreds of costumed Santas walking The Strand between Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach in support of Mychal's Learning Place, a local nonprofit. A holiday fireworks display has also run as a recurring December tradition (December 14 in a recent year's scheduling). These are real, currently held events, though specific dates shift year to year -- check the City of Manhattan Beach's own event calendar for current-year scheduling.
Youth Volleyball and Club Sports Seasons
Beyond the marquee summer tournaments, Manhattan Beach's junior beach-volleyball clubs (MBsand, Manhattan Beach Surf Volleyball Club, WestCoast Volleyball Club among currently operating options) run their own seasonal camp, clinic, and competitive schedules through much of the year, feeding directly into the city's broader beach-sports identity covered on this site's community-lifestyle page. A family relocating specifically for youth volleyball involvement should contact these clubs directly for current season schedules and enrollment, since specific programs and offerings change year to year.
Spring: A Quieter Season, Still Genuinely Active
Spring in Manhattan Beach lacks a single marquee citywide event comparable to the Open, the Surf Festival, or the Hometown Fair, but it's when the city's mild, low-variance Southern California climate (covered on this site's year-round-living page) is arguably at its most pleasant for outdoor recreation -- Strand walks, running, and casual beach-volleyball play tend to pick up as summer tournament and camp seasons ramp up. Youth club volleyball seasons and school-year sports programming, run by Manhattan Beach Unified and the junior volleyball clubs covered on this site's community-lifestyle page, are typically in full swing during this period as well.
Comparing to Other Coastal Markets' Seasonal Calendars
Unlike many hurricane-belt or heavily tourism-dependent coastal markets on this site, where the annual calendar is organized around a single peak-vs-offseason distinction, Manhattan Beach's calendar is better understood as organized around specific, named, dated events layered onto a year-round full-time-resident community, covered in more depth on this site's year-round-living page. There isn't a real 'dead season' the way there might be in a market that empties out after Labor Day -- summer brings more visitors and event traffic, but the underlying community and its amenities operate consistently across the year.
What This Page Does Not Claim
This page does not provide a comprehensive, exhaustive list of every recurring Manhattan Beach event, nor current-year exact dates for every item above beyond what's specifically cited -- event scheduling shifts annually. Check the City of Manhattan Beach's own event calendar, mbfair.org, avp.com, and surffestival.org directly for confirmed, current-year dates before planning a visit around any specific event.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. The AVP Manhattan Beach Open's 1960 founding, amateur-qualification structure, estimated 60,000-plus attendance, and Volleyball Walk of Fame are drawn from Wikipedia's "Manhattan Beach Open" entry and AVP's own event pages. The International Surf Festival's 1962 founding and the Dwight Crum Pier-to-Pier Swim's 1963 founding (continuous except for a 2020 COVID cancellation) and Dwight Crum's biography are drawn from surffestival.org's own history and swim pages and Openwaterpedia. The Manhattan Beach Hometown Fair's 1972 founding, general October scheduling, and 2026 October 3-4 dates are drawn from the fair's own site (mbfair.org) and City of Manhattan Beach calendar listings. Winter holiday events (Pier Lighting and Holiday Open House, Santa Stroll benefiting Mychal's Learning Place, December fireworks) are drawn from thembnews.com's "Get Ready for a Busy Fall in Manhattan Beach" and related City of Manhattan Beach event coverage. Junior volleyball club activity is drawn from the clubs' own current sites (mbsand.com, mbsurfvb.com, westcoastvbc.com), detailed further on this site's community-lifestyle page. This page does not state exact current-year dates for every event beyond what's specifically cited, since scheduling changes annually. Confirm current-year dates directly with the City of Manhattan Beach, mbfair.org, avp.com, and surffestival.org before planning a visit. Nothing on this page is a paid endorsement.