The City of Santa Clara held its night market on Friday from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., consisting of more than 130 vendors.
The summer event, which takes place at 900–1000 Lafayette Street, will next be held on July 17 from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and July 18 from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“We’re transforming the Downtown corridor into a magical wonderland,” a city statement reads. “Enjoy the best in food, culture, music, and art, and make unforgettable memories with us.”
The vendors included a variety of small local businesses that sold a range of foods, vintage clothes, hats, jewelry, art, stuffed animals, and other items.
Live music was played by different performers and bands throughout the afternoon and night.
The 626 Night Market, a separate, large Asian night market that travels around California, will be held about 40 minutes away in Pleasanton on October 9–11.
Santa Clara, with a population of more than 120,000, is one of the largest cities in the San Francisco Bay Area and has long been one of its major cultural and technology hubs.
The city hosted Super Bowl LX this past February at the Levi’s Stadium, which hosts the San Francisco 49ers.
The event, where the Seattle Seahawks outlasted the New England Patriots 29 to 13, was the first Super Bowl held in Santa Clara and Levi’s Stadium since Superbowl 50, ten years ago.
The stadium will also hold multiple matches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, just a few miles from where the San Jose Earthquakes play at PayPal Park in downtown San Jose.
Santa Clara is also home to California’s Great America, an amusement park owned by Six Flags that has a lease nearing its end amid speculation the park may permanently close.
The Silicon Valley city is also home to the headquarters of some of the largest tech companies, such as Nvidia, AMD, and Intel.
The city was founded in 1777 with the establishment of Mission Santa Clara, which was rebuilt five times throughout the years, most recently after a fire in 1926.
The church sits on the campus of Santa Clara University, a private Jesuit school that enrolls over 6,000 undergraduate students and ranked 59th in the nation by U.S. News, only behind Stanford and UC Berkeley in the Bay Area.
It’s the Bay Area’s first new medical school in more than a century, funded in part by a $175 million donation from Venture Capitalist and Nvidia board member Mark Stevens and his wife, Mary.
