National Orange Show Festival

The National Orange Show is an annual fair held in San Bernardino each May, on a permanent fairgrounds site in the southern part of the city. Founded in 1911 to celebrate the Inland Empire's citrus industry, it evolved into a general fair with carnival rides, livestock shows, entertainment acts, and the expected orange-themed food and display.

Today the NOS Events Center on the fairgrounds hosts concerts and events throughout the year, making it one of the region's main entertainment venues. The annual fair itself is a good-natured Southern California tradition — nostalgic, family-oriented, and unpretentious. The Orange Show Speedway, a dirt track on the same grounds, runs racing events on weekend nights.

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The Orange Show was founded in 1911 to promote the citrus industry that had made the Inland Empire prosperous. At its peak in the 1920s and 1930s, it was a major California institution, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors to marvel at orange pyramids, citrus-themed floats, and the crowning of an Orange Queen. The citrus groves are long gone — replaced by subdivisions — but the festival continues.