Maker Faire Bay Area 2026

Start: Friday, September 25, 2026 10:00AM
End: Sunday, September 27, 2026 5:00PM

Maker Faire Bay Area returns for its landmark 20th anniversary, September 25–27, 2026, at the Historic Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California. For two decades, Maker Faire has been the world's largest celebration of invention, creativity, and hands-on ingenuity, the original gathering that launched a global movement of makers, tinkerers, engineers, artists, and innovators. We're marking that milestone at one of the most storied industrial sites in America: a place where generations of builders once assembled ships, submarines, and the machinery of history, and where a new generation of makers will now gather to build the future. Mare Island isn't just a backdrop, it's part of the story. This former naval shipyard, in continuous operation for over 140 years, is steeped in a legacy of craftsmanship, engineering, and large-scale fabrication. That same spirit runs through everything Maker Faire Bay Area represents, and 2026's site-wide layout will reflect it directly. The Faire's programming this year is organized around three regional themes inspired by the Bay Area's own maker DNA: the South Bay as the home of invention startups, robotics, and emerging technology; the East Bay as the home of building at scale, industrial fabrication, large installations, and maker-run manufacturing; and the North Bay as the home of craft and cultivation artisans, food systems, textiles, and sustainable design. Together, these threads weave a Faire that spans the full spectrum of what it means to make something real. Expect three days packed with everything Maker Faire is known for and more: towering kinetic sculptures and fire art, robotics battles and demos, 3D printing and digital fabrication showcases, DIY electronics and wearable tech, a maker-built midway of rideable art cars, drone and flight exhibits, textile and fiber arts, urban farming and food innovation, youth invention showcases, and live music and performance woven throughout the grounds. Hands-on workshops let visitors of every age build, solder, sew, code, and create alongside the makers themselves, because at Maker Faire, nobody just watches. This is a Faire built for doing. Historic Mare Island offers dramatic waterfront views, cavernous former industrial buildings repurposed as exhibit halls, and open shipyard spaces perfectly suited to large-scale maker installations that need real room to come alive. Attendees will walk grounds where naval history and maker culture now sit side by side. A fitting setting for an event built on the idea that anyone, with enough curiosity, can build something extraordinary. Maker Faire Bay Area is produced by Make Community LLC, the organization behind Make: magazine and the global Maker Faire movement, which coined the term “Maker” and has inspired hundreds of independently produced Maker Faires across more than 40 countries since its founding in the Bay Area in 2006. Twenty years later, the original Faire returns to its roots, bigger, bolder, and building toward the next twenty. Whether you're a lifelong maker, a curious first-timer, or bringing the whole family for a weekend of wonder, Maker Faire Bay Area 2026 is where invention, craft, and community come together to celebrate two decades of making and the countless years still ahead.