Our 37th Annual Event!

Take a typical southern California spring weekend in May, add tall trees, snow-streaked mountain peaks, blue sky and pine-scented air, and you have the beginnings of a recipe for Family Fun.
Begun in 1982 as a way to forget winter and welcome the approaching summer, the Lilac Festival started as little more than a bake sale and a Maypole Dance, and has grown into a full-fledged Mountain tradition. The Lilac was chosen as a centerpiece for the Festival because it thrives in our mountain climate, and its short flowering season falls roughly at the same time as the Festival. The powerful scent of lilacs is one of the few that outshines the always-present scent of sugar pine.
This year’s Festival is Saturday & Sunday, May 18th & 19th, and begins at 9 am each day, and ends at 5pm or so. The traditional Parade is at 11 am on Saturday. Over 100 Arts & Crafts booths will be open all day, along with international food vendors, restaurants and unique shops, live music throughout the Festival, and a kiddie amusement area. There are also lots of places to sit, relax, and enjoy the beautiful surroundings of the Village and all of Pine Mountain Club.

Directions


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Address to use for directions 16200 Mil Potrero Hwy
Pine Mountain Club, CA 93222
Lat/Lon: 34.851095 / -119.165402

About The Festival

The most unique items at the festivals are all the handmade crafts, clothing, sundries, food and much more. Many of the vendors at the Festival are local mountain residents showing off their talents, adding a local flavor to the wide variety of artisans who travel here from not only southern and central California, but from throughout the Southwest, and even further: some from New York state and New England.
Weather in May is usually the first signs of warming from our cold mountain winters and flora and fauna are abundant. This includes, of course, all the lilac bushes and trees that have been planted in Pine Mountain Club. Although the actual blooming lilacs that are so popular in our culture are not a native plant, they thrive in the climate up here. What few people know is that there is an actual native bush in the California Mountain areas. The ones that grow up here are called “White Bark California Lilac”. This shrub has blue flower shoots and very sticky, fragrant leaves. More about these lilacs can be found here:
http://www.laspilitas.com/nature-of-california/plants/ceanothus-leucodermis
there are many varieties of wild California Lilacs so don’t be surprised if you’ve seen others up here as well as these!
The Festival has grown in popularity so much over the years that vendors (as well as visitors) venture here from as far away as Nevada and Arizona each year. Thousands of people can be seen in and around Pine Mountain Club during a Lilac Festival weekend—Hiking, biking, playing golf and tennis, fishing, sitting or strolling in the clear, crisp alpine air.



A Little History

The original event was the brainchild of Judy Watkins, then the owner of the Pine Cone Parlor, the original restaurant occupying the space where La Leña Mexican Restaurant is now. In the next couple of years, as the event grew rapidly in size and popularity, the Festival was made a permanent annual event sponsored by the Pine Mountain Club Commercial Property Owners Association. Rosetta Burgelin took over as Event Chair and successfully put on the event (with a lot of help, of course) every year for the next 25 or so. Now another longtime valuable member of the community, Mark Bailey who owns Madd Bailey’s Pub, has taken the reigns for this annual event.
The original festivals also incorporated a small car show for locals and visitors to show off their “hot rods” and “classic” cars. The car show also grew in popularity so it is now a separate event typically held on the second Saturday of August each summer. The Lilac Festival has always had a parade to kick things off. The parade was originally directed through the village center in Pine Mountain Club, but because of the size of the event growing it soon was held on Mil Potrero Hwy (the only main road that runs through Pine Mountain Club).

Local Places to Stay

Houses & Cabins for Rent
Pine Mountain Inn
Pine Mountain Rentals
Jennings Resort Rentals
Pine Mountain Village Hotel
Places of Interest
Los Padres National Forest
Mountain Communities Weather Station
Pine Mountain Club Commercial Property Owners Association
Pine Mountain Club Village Merchants Association
Pine Mountain Club Property Owners Association
Mountain Communities Chamber of Commerce
     
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