POMONA — Next year's LA County Fair, the 102nd anniversary of the event, will be from May 3-27, and it will be themed "Stars, Stripes and Fun," organizers announced Wednesday.

"County fairs are a community celebration, and county and state fairs across the nation reflect the unique characteristics of all their communities. Fairs celebrate people in all our wonderful and intriguing variety," Walter Marquez, president/CEO of Fairplex, said in a statement. "We are excited to embrace Southern California's cultural mosaic with Stars, Stripes and Fun."

The 16-day fair will begin on the first Friday of May, marking the third year of the event's shift to spring. The event was traditionally in September, but the move to spring was prompted by concerns about the late- summer heat, and in hopes that milder spring weather would boost attendance.

Organizers said next year's fair will include the return of the Big Red Barn and its array of animals and agricultural programming, along with the Fairplex Garden Railroad, an exhibition by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the NextFext LA independent music festival -- along with the usual array of create fair food offerings.

Performers for the fair's concert series will be announced in December, officials said.

The fair evolved from a commercial-industrial show along the Southern Pacific railroad siding in downtown Pomona in 1921. It proved so successful that the businessmen who produced it put on the first Los Angeles County Fair in October 1922.

The fair has been an annual event at Fairplex since 1922, except from 1942-47, when the facility was being used by the U.S. Army, including as a prisoner of war camp for German and Italian soldiers and a relocation camp for Japanese Americans, and in 2020 and 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.