Good morning. The Fourth’s in the rearview, the marine layer’s back on schedule, and OC settles into the good part of summer — the long, slow, salt-air stretch of it. Coffee up. ☕

This week in OC: Laguna’s Festival of Arts opened its summer season this week — it’s been running since 1932, which makes this its 94th summer of turning a canyon into an open-air gallery. And its show-stopper, the Pageant of the Masters, opens Thursday (more below).

In today’s Buzz:

— Kevin

Laguna’s living-art show is back — and there’s nothing else like it on earth. The Pageant of the Masters opens Thursday, July 9 and runs nightly through September 4. If you’ve never been: real people pose inside recreations of famous paintings and sculptures, held perfectly still, so the whole thing looks like the artwork came to life. A full orchestra, narration, the works. It’s been Laguna’s summer signature for over 90 years, and it genuinely has to be seen to be believed.

It’s the crown jewel of the Festival of Arts (open July 7–Sept 3), so you can wander the fine-art grounds first and make a night of it. Tickets move — this is the one to plan ahead for.

More: Festival of Arts / Pageant of the Masters

Forward this to the friend who still hasn’t been to the Pageant even though they’ve lived here for 20 years.

Things worth leaving the house for (Fri July 10 – Sun July 12):

🎭 Pageant of the Masters / Festival of Arts (Laguna Beach) — opens this weekend. The living-art spectacle plus the fine-art festival grounds. The marquee OC night out.

🎨 Sawdust Art Festival (Laguna Beach) — all weekend. Right across the canyon, the 60-year-old artists’ village with handmade everything, glass-blowing demos, and shaded sawdust paths. Pair it with the Pageant.

🎵 Seal Beach Summer Concerts — Wednesdays, 6–8pm, Eisenhower Park. Free live music at the base of the pier all summer. (This week’s spotlight — more below.)

🌭 Wienerschnitzel Wiener Nationals (Los Alamitos) — Sat July 11. Exactly what it sounds like: dozens of dachshunds sprinting down a racetrack for glory. Free, hilarious, and peak-summer OC.

🍖 Mission Viejo BBQ & Music Fest(Oso Viejo Park) — July 10–12. Pitmasters, live bands, and a South-County festival vibe.

(Double-check times before you go — events move.)

I’ve got three, and here’s the honest truth: nothing this week beats wiener dog races for the under-10 crowd.

Dachshunds. On a racetrack. Sprinting. Wienerschnitzel Wiener Nationals run Saturday, July 11 at the Los Alamitos Race Course — free to watch, ten seconds of pure chaos per heat, and my kids will talk about it until Christmas. Easy win.

Free movies in the park keep rolling. OC Parks’ Sunset Cinema runs free Friday-night movies all summer — free parking, food trucks on site — across Craig, Mason, Yorba, Irvine and more. Blanket, snacks, zero dollars.

Standing summer plays: Knott’s Soak City is open, the Crystal Cove tide pools are free and great, and the Seal Beach pier is a perfect cheap afternoon (bring quarters for the bait shop telescopes).

🍽️ Eat / Drink

Walt’s Wharf — Seal Beach. The Main Street seafood institution is officially back after a stretch closed for restoration, and Seal Beach is better for it. Oak-grilled fish, those Pacific hard-shell clams, and a low-key old-Seal-Beach feel a block from the pier. Get a table on a warm night, order whatever’s grilled over the oak.

201 Main St — walk it off on the pier after.

(beachhead spotlight #4)

Seal Beach gets the spotlight — the little Old Town that time (thankfully) forgot:

Next issue: Laguna Beach.

(realtor-bridge section)

Market pulse (July 2026): OC’s median sold price for single-family homes is running about $1.45M — down a touch week-over-week — with condos and townhomes around $772K. The ultra-luxury tier is cooling a bit: homes over $2.5M are closing about 3.5% under asking, a little softer than earlier this year. Still expensive, still moving, just less frantic.

The wild one: an Emerald Bay estate in Laguna Beach just sold for $110,000,000 — the most expensive home ever sold in Orange County. It’s a ~10,000 sq ft contemporary beachfront place that went for around $11,000 a square foot, all cash, off-market. The buyer’s LLC is named “Dlareme” — that’s “Emerald” spelled backward, which is the most Laguna-billionaire detail imaginable. (For scale: the old record was a $70M Abalone Point sale.)

More: Check It out here

(Soon we’ll feature a real for-sale home here every week. OC agent with a listing people should gawk at? Reply to this email — let’s talk.)

Seal Beach was “the Coney Island of the Pacific.”

Sleepy little Seal Beach? For a hot minute, it was the wildest beach town in Southern California. In 1916, the Joy Zone amusement park opened at the foot of what was then the longest pleasure pier on the Pacific Coast — lit at night by 50 “scintillator” searchlights you could see for miles.

There was a wooden roller coaster called the Derby, a dance hall, the Jewel Café, bathhouses, games, and in the ‘20s a very lively after-dark scene (this was Prohibition, and the pier had… deliveries). Locals called it the Vegas of the coast. Then the Depression hit, Prohibition ended, and by the late 1930s the whole Joy Zone was gone — leaving behind the quiet Main Street beach town we know now.

What’s the old OC spot you wish you could time-travel back to? Hit reply with your favorite OC memory — best one gets featured next week.

That’s the week. Go see something made by hand in Laguna, and put the wiener dog races on the calendar — trust me.

Three tiny favors:

1. Hit reply with the long-gone OC spot you’d bring back — I’m collecting them for Remember When.

2. Refer 2 friends with your link below and I’ll send you the OC Insider’s Guide (free). It’s genuinely good.

3. Forward this to the one friend who’s lived here forever and still hasn’t seen the Pageant of the Masters. This is the year.

See you next week.

— Kevin

Want your OC business in front of these readers? This spot’s open. Reply to this email and let’s talk.