Asheville.com Events Calendar - Concerts, Nightlife & More

Upcoming events and things to do in Asheville, NC. Below is a list of events for festivals, concerts, art exhibitions, group meetups and more.

Interested in adding an event to our calendar? Please click the green “Post Your Event” button below.

Friday, December 10, 2021

COLLEGE STUDY HALL

Dec 10 @ 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Grind Coffee House

Mon-Fri from 2-5pm. You have access to high speed internet, work space and HALF-OFF pastries when you present your college ID.

Categories: Community Education

OAKS Afterschool Program

Dec 10 @ 2:30 pm – 5:30 pm

Oakley Community Center

OAKS Afterschool Program
Pre-registration required. FREE for the 2021-2022 school year
September 7-December 17, 2021 | Monday-Friday | 2:30-5:30pm
An inclusive recreation program designed to support rising 1st5th graders and their families. OAKS will provide homework
assistance and opportunities to play through a variety of activities
and field trips. Participants will benefit from lower child to
staff ratios, continuation of scholastic goals (as applicable),
and individualized treatment plans (facilitated by LRT/CTRS
and program staff). Participants who cannot meet eligibility
requirements may attend with a 1:1 worker.
Location: Oakley

Categories: Community Family Fun

Asheville Parks and Rec Afterschool Programs: Afternoon Adventures

Dec 10 @ 2:45 pm – 6:00 pm

Asheville Area

Pre-registration required. FREE for the 2021-2022 school year
August 23, 2021-June 3, 2022 | Monday-Friday | 2:45-6pm
K-6th graders.
Does your child enjoy having fun and making new friends? Offering
arts, crafts, special events, homework assistance and more!
Families currently enrolled in the school system’s reduced or free
meal program, please contact your recreation center for discount
fee information.
Locations: Burton, Grant, Montford, Shiloh, Stephens-Lee

Categories: Community Family Fun

Montford Pre-Teen Afterschool Program

Dec 10 @ 3:30 pm – 6:00 pm

Montford Community Center

Montford Pre-Teen Afterschool Program
Pre-registration required. FREE for the 2021-2022 school year
August 23, 2021 – June 3, 2022 | Monday-Friday | 3:30-6pm
5th-6th graders.
New program designed to meet the needs of your pre-teen.
Providing time dedicated to school assignments, life skills, arts,
communication, leadership, fitness, nutrition, and loads of fun.
Location: Montford

Categories: Community Family Fun

Teen Leadership Program

Dec 10 @ 3:30 pm – 6:00 pm

Asheville Area

Teen Leadership Program
Pre-registration required. FREE for the 2021-2022 school year
August 23, 2021-June 3, 2022 | Monday-Friday | 3:30-6pm
6th-9th graders.
Looking for a cool and enriching alternative for your Teen to attend
this school year? We offer creative activities, diverse projects,
field trips, and more.
Locations: Grant, Shiloh, Stephens-Lee

Categories: Community Family Fun

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Dec 10 @ 4:00 pm

Bon Secours Wellness Arena

#TSOGVL

Multi-platinum, progressive rock group Trans Siberian Orchestra’s highly-anticipated Winter Tour will be back for 2021. In celebration of the 25^th anniversary of the group’s landmark album Christmas Eve and Other Stories, this year’s multi-sensory extravaganza will stop at Bon Secours Wellness Arena on December 10.

Categories: Music

Holidaze for Habitat: A Community Concert to Help Build Homes, Communities, and Hope

Dec 10 @ 5:00 pm

The Orange Peel

WNCW is proud to announce our Holidaze for Habitat show, benefitting Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity. Featuring The Freeway Jubilee, Abby Bryant & The Echoes, The Darren Nicholson Band, Jeff Sipe’s Electric Buddha, Travers Brothers and Friends, Webb Wilder, and our headliners Acoustic Syndicate. Come enjoy a great night of live music from 7 amazing bands, as we all come together to support a great cause in our community.

Categories: Benefit Community Food & Drink Holiday

The Local Kitchen: A Virtual Workshop with Sunil Patel

Dec 10 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

online

Join us for our next free educational workshop focusing on ways to set yourself and your kitchen up to be as local and seasonal as possible.

Topics:
What is the mindset and approach to
eating local and seasonal at home? Strategies and tips to make an
efficient Local Home Kitchen.
How to affect social and food systems change through your home kitchen.

Categories: Community Education Food & Drink Health & Wellness

Candlelight Stroll Weaverville

Dec 10 @ 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Weaverville

Join the Town of Weaverville on Friday, December 10th, from 6-9 pm as we celebrate the spirit of the holiday season in a small town way. Main Street will be lined with luminaries and alive with music and entertainment. Stroll through our shops and restaurants, take a horse and carriage ride through town, enjoy musical performances, refreshments, and activities in local businesses. Our brand new Community Center will be filled with music, stories, cookies, and offering shuttle service back and forth to Main Street. Kids will enjoy holiday-themed crafting, a scavenger hunt, and a visit from Santa.

Categories: Community Family Fun Holiday Music

SILENT DISCO: SNUGGIE DANCE PARTY

Dec 10 @ 6:30 pm

Rabbit Rabbit

Ticket price includes one set of wireless headphones.

Categories: Dance Music

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol A Play With Music

Dec 10 @ 7:30 pm

North Carolina Stage Company w/ Virtual option

This two man adaptation is a fast-paced and imaginative production that combines Dickens’ brilliant original text with both traditional and unexpected Christmas music, along with old-fashioned foley-style sound effects. These dynamic performers beautifully impart this epic, timeless story of discovery of the heart, appealing to both adults and children in a fresh way.

$25.00 Virtual Tickets at See Upcoming Dates for Zoom – A Christmas Carol at North Carolina (thundertix.com)

Categories: Holiday Music Theatre

A Flat Rock Playhouse Christmas

Dec 10 @ 8:00 pm

Flat Rock Playhouse

A Flat Rock Playhouse Christmas

Please note: Proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test and masks will be required at the performance. For more information on our COVID-19 safety protocols, please click here.

The tradition continues on the Rock after going virtual! Bring the whole family to this dazzling holiday celebration, Playhouse-style! An all-new show with the same great spirit and quality, A Playhouse Christmas 2021 will feature many seasonal classics along with several new adaptations and medleys. Showcasing a cast of Flat Rock favorites, this song and dance revue is sure to bring you great holiday joy!

Categories: Family Fun Holiday Music Theatre

Asheville Jazz Orchestra

Dec 10 @ 8:00 pm

White Horse Black Mountain

Asheville Jazz Orchestra – December 2021

Dedicated to advancing and preserving the big band jazz tradition, the 17-piece Asheville Jazz Orchestra is western North Carolina’s premier big band. Whether they are playing a swing dance, club date, or formal concert, the AJO is the hardest swinging band in Asheville.

Since its founding the Asheville Jazz Orchestra has been directed by Dr. David Wilken. In addition to directing the AJO, he also plays trombone and also composes much of their material. He can also be heard playing traditional New Orleans jazz with the Low-Down Sires and conducting the Land of the Sky Symphonic Band.

Categories: Food & Drink Music

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Dec 10 @ 8:00 pm

Bon Secours Wellness Arena

#TSOGVL

Categories: Music

An Evening with Steve Gunn + Jeff Parker

Dec 10 @ 9:00 pm

The Grey Eagle

Steve Gunn’s Way Out Weather, from 2014 was not only a career highlight for the artist himself, who had formerly travelled most often in more experimental and more improvisatory musical communities, but it was also an important milestone in the story of contemporary independent music of the rock and roll variety in the world at large. Unapologetically guitar-oriented, with an emphasis on finger-picking and pedal steel, country-and-folk-inflected but without being reductively so, full of reverence for the song as a form, Way Out Weather seemed, as the title suggests, both way out, as in turned on, as in certain great works past of the psychedelic period—Skip Spence, John Fahey, and Doug Sahm—but also way out, as in mapping a way out of rock and roll’s dead ends, its stylistic repetitions. It was a bit of a contemporary masterpiece, unexpected and rich.

And: perhaps most revelatory in retrospect was the singing.

Jeff Parker (b. Bridgeport, Connecticut USA, April 4, 1967) is a guitarist and composer.

Jeff Parker is recognized as one of contemporary music’s most versatile and innovative electric guitarists and composers. With a prolific output characterized by musical ideas of angularity and logic, he works in a wide variety of mediums – from pop, rock and jazz to new music – using ideas informed by innovations and trends in both popular and experimental forms. He creates works that explore and exploit the contrary relationships between tradition and technology, improvisation and composition, and the familiar and the abstract

Categories: Food & Drink Music

Saturday, December 11, 2021

Bob Moog Foundation And Moogseum Membership Programs

Dec 11 all-day

online

A wide range of Membership Program packages are available, offering benefits and perks including one-time or unlimited admission to the Moogseum for a year, guest passes, gift membership packages, access to virtual archival galleries and live streamed events, free or discounted admission to in-person and virtual events, and even private Moogseum tours. Membership packages are offered at price points from $25 – $500 per year.

Become a member of the Bob Moog Foundation and the Moogseum, which allows you access to tangible, members-only benefits and allows you to be an advocate in support of Bob’s legacy and contributions that revolutionized music!

Your membership provides invaluable resources and funding to support our mission to innovate, inspire, and ignite creativity.

Review the Membership Packages below and choose the one that best suits you!*

All packages include the Members-only “Synth-Insider” newsletter, sent quarterly,

and a 10% discount on Bob Moog Foundation Merchandise.

Categories: Music

Buncombe County Extends Indoor Mask Mandate to Jan. 4, 2022

Dec 11 all-day

Buncombe County

The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners has extended the county-wide face covering requirement for all indoor public spaces through Jan. 3, 2022. The indoor mask requirement also extends to Asheville, Biltmore Forest, Black Mountain, Montreat, Weaverville, and Woodfin.
In Buncombe County, COVID-19 case rates continue to be high, and per the CDC definition, the County remains an area of high transmission. The percent positivity remains in the moderate category, and the death rate remains in the substantial category.

“Unfortunately, COVID-19 cases continue to increase after a high level plateau. The percent positivity is now consistently above 5% again, and we are likely to see a further increase after the Thanksgiving holiday,” said Public Health Director Stacie Saunders. “Transitioning to living with COVID-19 means doing what we can now to reduce transmission and burden of new infections. Our goal is to dampen as much as possible any surge we may see during this holiday season with the hope of achieving decreasing case rate and spread as we enter the new year.”

Categories: Community Health & Wellness

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library

Dec 11 all-day

online

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library puts books into the hands and hearts of children across the world. The Imagination Library creates a home library of up to 60 books and instills a love of books and reading from an early age. DPIL is now mailing a free book each month to over 4,400 registered children in Buncombe County. Here is the online registration form.

Categories: Community Education Family Fun

Driving Tour with Smith-McDowell House

Dec 11 all-day

Online w/ Western North Carolina Historical Association

The residents of the Smith-McDowell House and grounds were woven in to the fabric of Asheville.

This driving tour begins at the Smith-McDowell House Museum on the campus of A-B Tech and continues through historic sites related to early occupants of the house.

Categories: Community Education Outdoors Tours

Elida Homes: Sponsor A Child for the Holidays

Dec 11 all-day

online

Eliada works hard to make the holidays a special time for the children in our care. This year, due to the ongoing pandemic and job insecurity, our children and youth need support more than ever.

Many children who are living at Eliada may be restricted to campus and won’t have the opportunity to go home for the holidays. Families in our child development center face financial hardship. Our older youth transitioning to adulthood have children of their own, and are struggling to find work and safe housing during this time.

With community support, Eliada can help parents and guardians provide a bright and joy-filled Christmas to their kids. For most of Eliada’s children and youth, the gifts they receive from sponsors are the only gifts they will get during the holiday season.

How to sponsor a child:

When you sign up to sponsor a child for the holidays, you’ll receive a wish list. Wish lists include information that help you get to know the child such as their favorite sports team, color, and movie. Wish lists also include their top three most need and most wanted items. Needed items include winter clothing, shoes, and hygiene products. Wanted items often include things like music, art supplies, and developmentally appropriate toys and games.

The value of a wish list is around $150. You can divide that cost with friends, or even sponsor several children.

To sign up to sponsor, please contact Rebecca Boline by email at [email protected].

Sponsor multiple children with a program wish list:

We also have wish lists which include items that children will need here at Eliada throughout 2022.

Cottage wish lists are for youth living at Eliada. They include toiletries, bedding and towels, books, games, art supplies, suitcases, and kitchen utensils. Many children will arrive at Eliada in 2021 with a few clothes in a garbage bag. Together we can ensure they feel at home at Eliada.

Other wish lists are for our Child Development, Day Treatment, Campus Farm and Equine Therapy programs with needed classroom and playground supplies.

Sponsor a last minute wish:

Some youth living at Eliada won’t arrive until right before the holidays! We won’t receive their wish lists until late November-early December. If you can shop at the last minute, we can use your support.

If you don’t have time to shop, Eliada will use your donation to purchase gifts for children who may arrive at Eliada very close to Christmas or right after Christmas. It shouldn’t matter when you arrive at Eliada–your wishes should be fulfilled! You can make a donation here. In the comment field, write “holiday wishes.”

To sign up to sponsor multiple children or a teen at the last minute, please contact Rebecca Boline by email at [email protected] or by phone at (828) 254-5356, ext. 306.

Categories: Community Donations Holiday

Farm to School Jumpstart Grants from Growing Minds

Dec 11 all-day

online

Growing Minds has announced a new Jumpstart Grant for farm to school projects. Pre-K through 12 schools, homeschool groups, teacher and nutrition education programs, and community organizations serving children and families within the 23 westernmost counties of North Carolina may apply for $500-$1,000 to provide children with positive local food and agriculture experiences. Eligible projects include edible school gardens, farm field trips, local food taste tests, or meals. In addition to funding, grantees may request supplemental training and/or technical assistance from the Growing Minds staff to help implement their project.

Grant applications are due Jan. 15, 2022.

Categories: Community Grants

GivingTuesday with Homeward Bound

Dec 11 all-day

online

Giving Tuesday 2021 is only two weeks away. This year, every dollar you donate on Giving Tuesday will be matched up to $50,000.

Let me tell you about Zach.

When Zach was 23 he was involved in a horrific car crash. He sustained a traumatic brain injury, severed his spinal cord, and was paralyzed from the neck down. Along with tremendous pain came addiction to prescription pain-killers, depression and anxiety. Eventually Zach lost his job, his marriage, and soon after he was homeless.

$27 a day will provide housing and case management support for one person for a year. Your Giving Tuesday donation to Homeward Bound will help folks like Zach get into their own homes this holiday season.

Donate Today and Double Your Gift!

Here’s how you can best prepare to help folks like Zach this year:

Mark your calendar. Giving Tuesday is two weeks from today, on November 30, 2021.

Give! Now through December 31, 2021, your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $50,000 as part of our Creating Hope and Homes Matching Gift Challenge!

Spread the word! Encourage friends, family, and colleagues to join you in Giving Tuesday 2021. Share on social media what our mission means to you, and tag us on Facebook [@homewardboundwnc] or Instagram [@homeward_bound_wnc] so we can share it!

Categories: Community Donations

Help Make a Child Smile this Holiday Season!

Dec 11 all-day

Eliada Homes

Eliada works hard to make the holidays a special time for the children in our care. You can help bring a smile to their face by fulfilling their holiday wishes!

Sponsor a Child:

When you sign up to sponsor a child for the holidays, you’ll receive a Wish List that a young person created. Wish Lists include their favorite things, clothing sizes, and most needed and wanted items. The value of a Wish List is around $150. You can divide that cost with friends, or even sponsor several children.

For most of Eliada’s children and youth, the gifts they receive from sponsors are the only gifts they will get during the holiday season.

Sponsor Multiple Children:

We also have Wish Lists which include items that children will need here at Eliada depending on what program they are in.

Cottage wish lists for youth living at Eliada, for example, include toiletries, bedding and towels, books, games, art supplies, suitcases and kitchen utensils. Many children come to Eliada with a few clothes in a garbage bag. Together we can provide them things that every home should have!

Other wish lists are for our Child Development programs, Foster Care program, Farm program, Summer Camp program, and Recreation programs. Our Equine Therapy program also has some needs this holiday season! We never know when we’ll get a call for a child in Foster Care who needs a home immediately. Let’s help Foster Parents provide these children everything they deserve!

Sponsor a last minute wish:

Some youth living at Eliada won’t arrive until right before the holidays! We won’t receive their wish lists until mid-late November. Can you sign up to help one of these teens at the last minute?

Categories: Community Donations Holiday

History @ Home – Visit Virtually Western North Carolina Historical Association

Dec 11 all-day

online w/ Western North Carolina Historical Association

Deep Dive into Archives is a living exhibit shining a light on the individuals who were once enslaved at the Smith-McDowell House through primary documentation.

Douglas Ellington: Asheville’s Boomtown Architect presents a look at Ellington’s iconic Asheville creations along with other buildings he completed throughout his career in other cities.

HillBilly Land explores the power, prevalence, and persistence of the hillbilly stereotype from the days of its beginnings in the late 19th century to the present day.

In 1918 vs 2020, we take an in-depth look at the 1918 influenza epidemic in Western North Carolina through newspaper clippings, advertisements, ephemera, photographs, and oral history and place the events of 1918 into context with our present-day response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Categories: Community Education

Make the Holidays Brighter for a Senior, Adult with a Disability, or a Child in Foster Care

Dec 11 all-day

online

Your favorite giving opportunity is back! Help make this holiday special for a child in Foster Care or a Senior in Buncombe County by becoming a Holiday Sponsor.

Foster Care Wish List

Each year, the Buncombe County Foster Care Team organizes a gift drive for children in foster care in Buncombe County. Bringing a smile to a child’s face this year is easier than ever. Just follow the link below, select the child you would like to sponsor, and check your email for confirmation, a reminder of what your child would like this holiday season, and drop-off instructions. We are taking extra precautions due to COVID-19 so be sure to read the follow-up email in its entirety.

Click here to sponsor a child.

Senior Wish Tree

There are a lot of seniors and adults with disabilities in Buncombe County who look forward to the sense of community the holiday season brings. Spread the love this year by supporting one of our adults or seniors. Signing up to sponsor an adult is easy. Just follow the link below, select the adult you would like to sponsor, and check your email for confirmation, a reminder of what your adult would like this holiday season, and drop-off instructions. We are taking extra precautions due to COVID-19 so be sure to read the follow-up email in its entirety.

Click here to sponsor a Senior or Adult with a Disability.

Give the gift of community this year by becoming a Holiday Sponsor for a child in foster care or a senior in Buncombe County. Nearly 2 years of limited social opportunity has left many feeling isolated this holiday season. Your sponsorship is more than a few gifts under the tree, it’s a sense of belonging for those in our community who need it the most. Thank you for your generosity and for bringing the spirit of the season to our community.

Categories: Community Donations Holiday

On this Day in WNC History Tidbit

Dec 11 all-day

online

On this Day in WNC History Tidbit

Do you follow us on social media? If not, you’ve missed our new 2021 series –
On This Day in WNC History!

Every week we explore the headlines and overlooked events that happened
on a particular day in Western North Carolina history.

ON THIS DAY in WNC history: On October 2, 1929, deputies fired into a crowd of striking workers in Marion, NC. Six were killed and even more wounded at the Marion Manufacturing Company in one of the deadliest acts of strike busting in the South.

This year marked an apogee of strikes and labor organization in southern textile mills. Eight years prior, over 100 miners were killed at the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia in a period of coal clashes and unionization attempts. Later in the 1920s, many textile workers reacting to grueling and dirty work conditions under the “stretch-out” system, along with a reduction of their pay in company scrip, began organizing and demanding better conditions. Spearheaded by the National Textile Workers Union (an organization supported by the Communist Party), concurrent strikes began early in 1929 at the Bemberg-Glanzstoff Rayon Corporation in Elizabethton, Tennessee and at Loray Mills in Gastonia, North Carolina. Female employees were key to the organization of both strikes, and the latter is most famously remembered for the death of Ella May Wiggins. National Guard members, local police, and union-busting mobs were called to both of these events.

The Marion strikes (which occurred at the neighboring Clinchfield Mill as well) began July 11. Workers struck without official union support, resisting involvement by communist organizers. After frequent violence and threats, with two National Guard units present, workers returned to these mills September 11, with no raise in pay and a mandated 55-hour workweek. Marion Manufacturing Mill refused to rehire 114 of the strikers, leading to further anger. Workers struck again on October 2, and deputies were dispatched by the local sheriff. Though some details are murky, deputies shot into a crowd of strikers, killing four on site, wounding at least fifteen, with two others dying later. Nearby hospitals refused medical care to strikers, and churches of the mill village refused to administer their funerals. Eight deputies were charged, but acquitted in December. They contended the strikers were armed, but no guns were found, and the New York Times reported those killed were shot in the back.

The memory of these events will be examined in our upcoming event, Marion Mill Massacre in Memory, on Thursday, Oct 14.

Image: Raleigh News and Observer, Oct. 4, 1929

Categories: Community Education

RAIL: The Railroad and Incarcerated Laborer Memorial Project

Dec 11 all-day

Online w/ Western North Carolina Historical Association (WNCHA)

The construction of the Mountain Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad is widely considered one of the greatest human accomplishments in regards to both engineering and construction ever undertaken at the time it occurred. The project took place over a period of several years in the late 1800s. Many people are aware that the railroad provided the first dependable access to and from much of Western North Carolina for the rest of the state as well as much of the nation. Many also know the names of some of those who were instrumental in seeing through the completion of this ambitious project. Names such as Colonel Alexander Boyd Andrews, of Andrews’ Geyser fame. However, what most people are unaware of is that at least 95% of the labor which built the railroad across the Blue Ridge Escarpment was completed by inmates from the North Carolina State Penitentiary… and approximately 98% of those inmates were African American men… the majority of whom were unjustly imprisoned…

This project was created to share the true story behind this human endeavor and to honor the memory of those who labored and those who died here.

Categories: Community Education

Regional Resources: Historical Research

Dec 11 all-day

Online w/ Western North Carolina Historical Association (WNCHA)

Western North Carolina has a rich assortment of county historical societies, archives, and museums. The Western North Carolina Historical Association seeks to help researchers, historians, genealogists, and the general public take full advantage of these resources.

Categories: Community Education

Volunteer at MANNA during the holidays

Dec 11 all-day

MANNA’s Volunteer Center

Holiday Season Volunteering

During the holiday season, our volunteer shifts usually fill up very quickly. If you are interested in volunteering during the holidays, please contact us as early as possible (at least 6-8 weeks in advance). Due to increased call and email volumes at this time, please allow for 4-5 business days to receive a reply.

Hunger does exist year-round, and we often have a greater need for volunteers during January and February. If you have flexibility in your volunteering schedule, please consider volunteering after the holidays.

Categories: Community Food & Drink Volunteers

HOLIDAY POP UP SHOP AT CITIZEN VINYL

Dec 11 @ 9:00 am – 7:00 pm

Citizen Vinyl

May be an image of text that says 'S U P P o SIZEN Holiday POP-ÚP SHOP መመ0N S c A L DECEMBER 8TH THROUGH NEW YEARS EVE 9aM- 7PM EVERY WEDNESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY AT CITIZEN VINYL 14 O'HENRY AVENUE'

Join Citizen Vinyl for a Holiday Pop Up shop with local vendors including:

@loomimports (home goods/decor)
@hummingbirdcandles (candles)
@twindenimco (apparel)
@jennypickens616 (art)
@codaavl (vinyl records + art)
+ more!

Food and beverages from @sessionavl

Categories: Holiday Market Music

December 2021 Dec 2021

Calendar of Events

#TSOGVL

A Flat Rock Playhouse Christmas

Please note: Proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test and masks will be required at the performance. For more information on our COVID-19 safety protocols, please click here.

Asheville Jazz Orchestra – December 2021

#TSOGVL

Foster Care Wish List

Senior Wish Tree

Holiday Season Volunteering