For everyone who already lives here, the first weekend of October is less a festival than a hinge. Summer's tribute bands at Chumash Park are done, the school calendar is settled, and the town gathers on the same patch of ground where it started. This year marks the 22nd Annual Reyes Adobe Days, and the schedule rewards residents who treat it as one continuous weekend rather than three separate events.
The weekend at a glance
| Date | Event | Where | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fri, Oct 2 | Night at the Adobe (21+) | Reyes Adobe Historical Site, 30400 Rainbow Crest Dr | Live music, food, art, craft beer and wine |
| Sun, Oct 4, 9:00 a.m. | RAD 5K + Kids Mile | Start/finish at Whizin Market Square, 28914 Roadside Dr | Flat, certified course; benefits Malibu/Lost Hills Search and Rescue |
| Weekend | RAD Festival | Reyes Adobe Historical Site & Park | Parade, beer garden, rancho-era activities |
Three days, one site, one throughline. The rest of this post is about how to use them.
Friday belongs to the grown-ups
The city bills Night at the Adobe as a casually elegant evening of live music, craft beer and wine, food, local artisans, and an immersive art experience at the Reyes Adobe Historical Site, proudly sponsored by Malibu Brewing Company, framed as a 21+ evening. Advance tickets are listed at $20 with no added fees.
Two things make this Friday different from a generic city event. First, the venue is not a parking lot or a hotel ballroom. It is the actual adobe, the courtyard, and the surrounding park. Second, the price. Twenty dollars is a deliberate signal. If you have lived in Agoura Hills long enough to have watched ticket prices for local wine walks and gala nights creep past three figures, a $20 flat entry to a curated food, wine, beer, and art evening is worth reading carefully. It is meant to be attended, not admired from a distance.
If you go, plan the night around the site itself. Walk the courtyard before the light drops. The event footprint is small enough that you will run into your neighbors more than once, which is arguably the point.
Sunday morning is a 5K, and it is not incidental
The RAD 5K is often treated as an appendage to the festival. Look at where it starts.
The race takes place on a previously certified flat and fast course, starting and ending at Whizin's Market Square, 28914 Roadside Dr, Agoura Hills. That is not a random parking lot. It is the same Whizin Market Square where Sunrose California Eatery lives, and it functions all year as one of the town's few genuine third places. Starting the run there and finishing back there is what makes the morning work. You cross the line, you walk fifty feet, and you are already at breakfast.
The 5K steps off at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday, October 4, with the Kids Mile following at 9:45 a.m. and medals for all kids' mile finishers. A percentage of proceeds benefits the Malibu/Lost Hills Search and Rescue Team. That last detail is not window dressing. This is the volunteer unit that responds when a hiker goes down on Ladyface, in Cheeseboro, or off the Backbone Trail. If you have ever taken a family walk on any of those trails, you are effectively their neighbor.
There is also a small bonus that changes the calculus for anyone weighing whether to sign up: every participant receives two tickets to an upcoming show at The Canyon Club. A pair of Canyon tickets on their own is worth more than the entry fee for most age groups. Read that as the city and the venue nudging you to show up.
Saturday and Sunday at the site: what a festival looks like when the town owns the land
Here is the piece most residents underestimate. The Reyes Adobe is not a themed backdrop. It sits at 5464 Reyes Adobe Road and represents the first home built in Agoura Hills, dating to 1850; the City of Agoura Hills purchased the site from Los Angeles County in 1983 and maintains the adobe as a museum and cultural center. The house was built by Jose Paulino Reyes, son of Jose Jacinto Reyes, whose grandfather Juan Francisco Reyes was a Mexican soldier on the Portola expedition granted local land in 1837.
That is the ground the festival stands on. Which is why the programming reads differently than a typical street fair.
Historically the weekend has run with:
- A one-mile parade route that begins at the intersection of Reyes Adobe Road and Lake Lindero Drive and ends at the historical site
- Live music through the day, rancho-era activities for kids, pony rides, and a petting zoo
- Food trucks, local vendors, and a beer garden with pours from Ladyface Brewery and Tavern Tomoko
- Guided tours of the original adobe, the barn, and the museum
The details worth flagging for locals are the beer garden partners. Ladyface has been Agoura's own brewery for more than a decade. Tavern Tomoko is the kind of pour list you cannot get at a generic festival. Between them, the beer garden is closer to a curated tap takeover than a plastic-cup afterthought.
Why residents underrate this weekend
Ask around and you will get two consistent reactions to Reyes Adobe Days. Longtime residents nod. Newer residents, especially anyone who moved into Old Agoura, Morrison Ranch Estates, or Lake Lindero in the past five years, often admit they have driven past the site for years without stopping.
The information gap is worth closing, because the festival is one of the few weekends the whole town uses the same space at the same time. The Sunday concerts at Chumash draw a specific slice of Agoura. The Canyon draws another. Reyes Adobe Days is the weekend the slices overlap. You will see the tribute-band regulars, the trail-run crowd, the Whizin brunch set, and the families with strollers all inside the same fence line.
Which brings me back to the thesis. Do not think of this as three events. Think of it as one weekend anchored to the oldest building in town, priced deliberately low, and structured so that Friday's crowd, Sunday's runners, and Saturday's families all end up at the same adobe.
Practical notes for locals
- Parking is easier than it looks if you time it. The parade route uses Reyes Adobe Road, so plan festival arrivals either before the 10 a.m. parade step-off or after 11 a.m. once the road reopens.
- Bring a hat and sunscreen. October in Agoura still runs warm midday. The adobe courtyard has partial shade, but the festival footprint is largely open.
- If you have out-of-town family visiting on the July 4 weekend and again in early October, save the Reyes Adobe weekend for the October visit. It is the more distinctively Agoura Hills of the two.
- Confirm event details on the city site before you leave the house. The city notes more information on Reyes Adobe Days 2026 is coming soon, and specific set times and vendor lineups tend to firm up in the final weeks. The City of Agoura Hills page is the authoritative source, and Night at the Adobe tickets and the RAD 5K registration live on their own pages.
- After the race, stay at Whizin. The point of starting there is being able to walk to breakfast without moving your car. Use it.
One more thing worth noting
The Reyes Adobe Historical Site is open beyond festival weekend. Self-guided tours of the adobe, the barn, and the museum are available on the third Tuesday of the month starting at 10 a.m. If Reyes Adobe Days pulls you in and you want a quieter look at the site, the third Tuesday is the answer. Bring the kids. It is a fifteen-minute walk-through that will change how they think about the road they cross on the way to school.
Agoura Hills does not have many weekends where the whole town shows up on the same patch of ground. This is the one. Put October 2 through 4 on the calendar, and treat them as a single event.
If you are thinking about what a longer chapter in Agoura Hills looks like beyond this weekend, the team at Altera Real Estate Services is happy to walk that conversation with you. Schedule a confidential buying or selling consultation when you are ready.
