Free, outdoors, and stocked with more independent makers than you’ll get through in one afternoon. Jackalope sets up on Preble Field at NTC Park in Liberty Station, and it costs nothing to walk in.

180 Makers Spread Across Preble Field

More than 180 hand-selected artisans fill the field, and the range runs wide: original fashion and jewelry design, paper goods, home decor and housewares, art, photography, food, and plenty more.

This is shopping you do slowly. Give yourself a couple of hours if you want to see every booth without speed-walking the back row.

Hand-Feed Butterflies, Then Send Them Off

Grace & Honor brings an interactive butterfly garden at booth 201, where you can say hello and hand-feed hundreds of butterflies. At the end of the event there’s a release that puts more pollinators back into the local ecosystem.

It’s the kind of thing you plan a weekend around, and you don’t need to bring a kid to justify it.

The Kids Markets Are Run by Kids

Young makers as young as five, up to age 17, get their own booths at the Kids Markets to sell what they’ve made. Buying from a ten-year-old’s first stall is a different feeling than buying from a website.

Slime, Crystals, and a Dino Egg Terrarium

Terra Tamar runs a hands-on terrarium workshop at booth 203 with everything provided – soil, live plants, moss, springtails, and decorations – and you walk away with a finished Dino Egg terrarium plus care instructions.

Elsewhere: Sparklez Slimez lets you customize your own slime, crystal miners Because I Rock hand over mud-caked crystals to wash off and turn into jewelry or wish jars, and Jackalope Gives runs free sunglasses decorating and seashell coloring at the info booth.

Round it out with Lucky Locks hair sparklers, henna from Infinity Henna Tattoo, face painting by Linda, live caricatures from Chubby Beagle Productions, Wunderkits bath and body kits, and small tattoos and piercings from Trailblazer Ink in a truck on Cushing Road.

Saturday Brings the Indigo Vat and Music Until 6

Three activities run Saturday only. San Diego Craft Collective hosts indigo dyeing at booth 211, where you learn simple resist techniques, dip your textile into a deep-blue vat, and leave with something one of a kind. Kids under eight need an adult with them.

The same booth teaches free cordage bracelet making, twisting plant fibers into string the way people have for thousands of years. Prixel and My Good Brain set up a modular rubber stamp printmaking booth at 214.

Music leans Saturday too. D.J. Villegas opens the Apt 4 Music booth from 11 AM to 12 PM, Reese Giles plays 12 PM to 3 PM, and Rusty Perez closes out 3 PM to 6 PM. Perez comes back Sunday from 1 PM to 3 PM.

Burgers, Beignets, and Kettle Corn on Cushing Road

Eleven vendors handle the eating. Badas Burgers, Le Beignet, and The Go Go Truck park on Cushing Road, and the rest set up in the field: Manna Kettle Korn, Twist New Zealand, Fuego Me Up, Middle Ground, LAOmazing Eats, Surf’nSlaw, MOCHINATICS, and The House of Lemonade.

Liberty Station’s restaurants are a short walk away if you’d rather sit down. Make a day of it.

Two Lots, and One is Right Next to the Field

The small lot adjacent to Preble Field sits at Cushing Road. Liberty Station Lot J on Historic Decatur Road is the backup when that fills, which it will by midday Saturday.

Admission is free, all ages are welcome, the site is accessible, and leashed pets are fine. Dulce Vida Animal Rescue will be at booth 221.

Want to be part of it? Applications for makers, food, and sponsorship are at Get involved, and the fair takes volunteers too.

See you there!

Two free days, 180 makers, and a field full of things to make. Go Saturday if you can only pick one, and give yourself more time than you think.

📆 August 29 – 30 | 11 AM – 6 PM
📍 2640 Cushing Road, San Diego, CA 92106
🎟️ Free to attend, no tickets required
ℹ️ Additional information can be found here

See you there, San Diego!