California built its state fair a permanent Disney-inflected campus on the American River. Cal Expo - formally the California Exposition and State Fair - opened in July 1968 at 1600 Exposition Boulevard in Sacramento, when Governor Ronald Reagan cut the ribbon on the 350-acre grounds he had dedicated the year before. The move ended six decades at the old Stockton Boulevard fairgrounds, which had hosted the fair since 1909; the state had bought the riverside land as far back as 1948 and chartered.....

The street address is 500 David J. Stern Walk - named for the NBA commissioner whose refusal to let the Kings leave town made the building possible. Golden 1 Center, in downtown Sacramento, opened on 4 October 2016 with two nights of Paul McCartney, replacing the suburban Sleep Train Arena and anchoring the downtown renaissance the city had chased for decades. The arena's green credentials rewrote industry standards: it was the world's first indoor sports venue certified LEED Platinum and the f.....

It opened as a cafe in 1982, named for 1930s Hollywood bombshell Jean Harlow - and grew into the venue where Sacramento sees tomorrow's headliners at club range. Harlow's, at 2708 J Street in Midtown Sacramento, is the city's defining independent music venue: an art-deco room holding around 530 that has run continuously for over four decades. The evolution was organic - cafe to restaurant to supper club to full-time venue - and the booking history reads like a who's-next list that kept being ri.....

The stadium that proved Sacramento was a soccer city went up in a matter of months on the state fairgrounds. Heart Health Park at 1600 Exposition Boulevard, on the Cal Expo grounds, opened on 20 June 2014 as Bonney Field, a roughly 3-million-dollar, 8,000-seat pop-up built at speed for Sacramento Republic FC's debut USL season - and the club promptly sold out every remaining home date on its way to winning the 2014 USL championship in the stadium's first year. The formula was deliberately simple.....

Phil Collins packed 20,000 people into this college stadium in 1992, the same summer a World League football team pushed its crowds past 26,000 - not bad for a ground that opened with 6,000 temporary seats. Hornet Stadium, at 6000 J Street on the California State University, Sacramento campus, has been the city's big outdoor stage since 20 September 1969. The stadium replaced old Campus Stadium and stayed modest until professional football forced its growth: the Sacramento Surge of the World Le.....

Located at 2708 J Street in Sacramento's Midtown district, Momo is a bar and live music venue that contributes to the neighborhood's vibrant nightlife scene. The space hosts concerts, DJ sets, and events across a range of genres, drawing both local talent and touring acts to one of Midtown's active entertainment corridors. Midtown Sacramento is known for its dense concentration of bars, restaurants, galleries, and music venues along the J Street, K Street, and R Street corridors. Momo fits into.....

Chelsea Handler, DL Hughley, Bill Bellamy and Shawn Wayans all worked out early material under this low ceiling. Punch Line Sacramento at 2100 Arden Way, Suite 225, has been the city's flagship comedy room since 30 December 1991, opened by Bill Graham Presents as the first expansion of the San Francisco Punch Line founded in 1978. The room seats about 240 cabaret-style facing the red stage curtains, with a wall of grinning comics' photographs at the entrance and a full kitchen and bar - craft d.....

Oak Park's last surviving movie house was rescued by a neighborhood kid who made the NBA. The Guild Theater at 2828 35th Street in Sacramento dates to 1915, when Joseph Lewis designed and financed the Victor Theater on a site that had held the Oak Park Theater since 1903 - the largest of three theatres that once lined 35th Street. The names and fortunes cycled for decades: the Victor closed in 1926, reopened in 1931 as the New Oak Park Theater with 484 seats, closed again in 1947, and relaunche.....

Upstairs from one of Sacramento's defining venues is the room where the city goes to hear what is coming next. The Starlet Room occupies the second floor of 2708 J Street in Midtown, directly above Harlow's, the restaurant-nightclub-venue that has anchored the J Street entertainment strip for decades. The space spent years as MOMO Sacramento - a lounge and side stage under the same ownership - before being rebranded as The Starlet Room, with new sound and lighting systems installed, the bar rew.....