Calendar of Events
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.
Western North Carolina and east Tennessee have rich social and performative dance traditions. From small square dances held at local homes to the modern incarnation of Warren Wilson’s Old Farmers Ball, from groups of flat-foot dancers cutting a rug at a front porch string band jam to cloggers performing on stage at the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, WNC residents have long enjoyed dancing together. Local dancer and dance caller Jesse Edgerton will present a program of southern Appalachian solo percussive dancing along with musings on the history of social and performative dance in Western North Carolina.
This event will take place as a Zoom webinar in order to make this event accessible to all. Registrants will receive a Zoom link before the event begins.
Jesse Edgerton was born in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, and raised in Asheville. He began dancing and calling square and contra dances while a student at Warren Wilson College. He has studied with, and stolen licks from, such masterful dancers as Rodney Sutton, Phil Jamison, and Thomas Maupin, among others.
About History Cafe
Ever wonder how Asheville came to get its drinking water from Black Mountain? What slavery looked like in western North Carolina (Yes, there were enslaved people here.)? How wagons, stagecoaches, and trains made it up the steep grade from Old Fort into Ridgecrest? Come to the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center one monday a month at 10:30am for a discussion about local history. Come start off your morning getting to know our region a little better!
Designed for adults and modeled after the popular Science Cafes taking place across the nation, Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center’s monthly History Cafe offers lectures and workshops led by local experts and researchers on regional history topics. These hour-long meet-ups engage the many stories that have shaped our southern Appalachian community as a place — from geological changes to native histories, musical innovations, pioneer experiences, and labor struggles — and will end with informal discussion bringing our shared history into context with contemporary issues.
This year, we weren’t able to host our “Strolling through History” series of walking tours, but thanks to some awesome work by interns we hosted from UNC Asheville this spring, they will be partially available virtually!
Enjoy “Scrolling” through history from your couch, or grab your tablet or smartphone and follow the tour in real life. (Make sure to follow local safety guidelines!)
The tours will be posted as links in this event discussion. Leave a comment and let us know what you think!
The Street Dances celebrates its 102nd anniversary! The Dance features Appalachian Fire playing mountain heritage bluegrass music, square dancing and clogging on Monday July 27, August 10, 24 & September 14. The evening starts at 6:30pm, when the caller, teaches audience members some basic square dancing moves so that everyone can join in on the fun led by the evening’s clogging group.
In addition to you dancing shoes, bring a chair to enjoy an evening filled with live music, dancing and entertainment from 7 – 9pm. The audience seating area opens after 5:30pm, and early admission is prohibited. Please leave your pets comfortably at home. Admission is free. No alcoholic beverages, backpacks or coolers allowed.
In case of inclement weather, the concert will be postponed until 8pm. If the weather does not improve by 8pm the performance will be cancelled.
What: Local musicians, singers, callers, and technicians have given us joy as they shared their love of music and dance with us. We now ask our community to return that joy as they struggle financially during this difficult time by donating to our “Spread the Joy” fundraiser.
Who: All donations will be paid directly and equally to local talent. Your contributions will support local callers, musicians, and technicians who participated, a minimum of 4 times, either in the past year (March 2019 – March 2020) or were scheduled in the near future (March – June 2020) for OFB events and who indicated a financial need to the OFB Board.
When: The OFB will distribute donations on a regular basis while dances continue to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so please give early and often. Consider donating the price you would have paid for admission to the dances for you, maybe several friends, and remembering that the dances were cancelled back in early March.
How: Click the link below to donate via Paypal and please add the note: “Spread the Joy fundraiser”. Donate conveniently via your credit card, debit card or your Paypal account.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=PYS3WHNV76CWA&source=url
Tap-Dancing Noses At
The Royal Opera House
Don’t miss this scene from Shostakovich’s surreal and vibrant first opera, featuring tap-dancing noses.
Despite the cancellation of the Flat Rock Playhouse’s 2020 season due to COVID-19, folks are being encouraged to take time to enjoy the lush gardens on the grounds of the historic campus.
With a QR code reader on any smartphone, garden visitors can tap into information about the individual plants wherever they’re standing. The codes direct the phone to webpages on a Muddy Sneakers site that the garden volunteers control.
The Master Gardners have been hard at work adding some tech to our gardens! QR codes can now be found on the 62 garden beds that make up the Playhouse gardens. Visitors can use their smartphones to learn more about the plants they are seeing. Congratulations and thank you to Tamsin Allpress and all of our gardening volunteers who work to keep our gardens beautiful! Photo by volunteer Mary Smit
This year, we weren’t able to host our “Strolling through History” series of walking tours, but thanks to some awesome work by interns we hosted from UNC Asheville this spring, they will be partially available virtually!
Enjoy “Scrolling” through history from your couch, or grab your tablet or smartphone and follow the tour in real life. (Make sure to follow local safety guidelines!)
The tours will be posted as links in this event discussion. Leave a comment and let us know what you think!
What: Local musicians, singers, callers, and technicians have given us joy as they shared their love of music and dance with us. We now ask our community to return that joy as they struggle financially during this difficult time by donating to our “Spread the Joy” fundraiser.
Who: All donations will be paid directly and equally to local talent. Your contributions will support local callers, musicians, and technicians who participated, a minimum of 4 times, either in the past year (March 2019 – March 2020) or were scheduled in the near future (March – June 2020) for OFB events and who indicated a financial need to the OFB Board.
When: The OFB will distribute donations on a regular basis while dances continue to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so please give early and often. Consider donating the price you would have paid for admission to the dances for you, maybe several friends, and remembering that the dances were cancelled back in early March.
How: Click the link below to donate via Paypal and please add the note: “Spread the Joy fundraiser”. Donate conveniently via your credit card, debit card or your Paypal account.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=PYS3WHNV76CWA&source=url
Tap-Dancing Noses At
The Royal Opera House
Don’t miss this scene from Shostakovich’s surreal and vibrant first opera, featuring tap-dancing noses.
Despite the cancellation of the Flat Rock Playhouse’s 2020 season due to COVID-19, folks are being encouraged to take time to enjoy the lush gardens on the grounds of the historic campus.
With a QR code reader on any smartphone, garden visitors can tap into information about the individual plants wherever they’re standing. The codes direct the phone to webpages on a Muddy Sneakers site that the garden volunteers control.
The Master Gardners have been hard at work adding some tech to our gardens! QR codes can now be found on the 62 garden beds that make up the Playhouse gardens. Visitors can use their smartphones to learn more about the plants they are seeing. Congratulations and thank you to Tamsin Allpress and all of our gardening volunteers who work to keep our gardens beautiful! Photo by volunteer Mary Smit
This year, we weren’t able to host our “Strolling through History” series of walking tours, but thanks to some awesome work by interns we hosted from UNC Asheville this spring, they will be partially available virtually!
Enjoy “Scrolling” through history from your couch, or grab your tablet or smartphone and follow the tour in real life. (Make sure to follow local safety guidelines!)
The tours will be posted as links in this event discussion. Leave a comment and let us know what you think!
The residents of Buck House 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.
Tap-Dancing Noses At
The Royal Opera House
Don’t miss this scene from Shostakovich’s surreal and vibrant first opera, featuring tap-dancing noses.
Despite the cancellation of the Flat Rock Playhouse’s 2020 season due to COVID-19, folks are being encouraged to take time to enjoy the lush gardens on the grounds of the historic campus.
With a QR code reader on any smartphone, garden visitors can tap into information about the individual plants wherever they’re standing. The codes direct the phone to webpages on a Muddy Sneakers site that the garden volunteers control.
The Master Gardners have been hard at work adding some tech to our gardens! QR codes can now be found on the 62 garden beds that make up the Playhouse gardens. Visitors can use their smartphones to learn more about the plants they are seeing. Congratulations and thank you to Tamsin Allpress and all of our gardening volunteers who work to keep our gardens beautiful! Photo by volunteer Mary Smit
This year, we weren’t able to host our “Strolling through History” series of walking tours, but thanks to some awesome work by interns we hosted from UNC Asheville this spring, they will be partially available virtually!
Enjoy “Scrolling” through history from your couch, or grab your tablet or smartphone and follow the tour in real life. (Make sure to follow local safety guidelines!)
The tours will be posted as links in this event discussion. Leave a comment and let us know what you think!
July is the Blue Ridge Craft Trails Month in Henderson County, hosted by the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area. Explore three distinct trails guide visitors through the towns of Hendersonville and Flat Rock, and into the Blue Ridge Mountain countryside, showcasing 18 nationally-renowned artists in their studios and galleries on this self-guided tour.
The residents of Buck House 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.
Tap-Dancing Noses At
The Royal Opera House
Don’t miss this scene from Shostakovich’s surreal and vibrant first opera, featuring tap-dancing noses.
Despite the cancellation of the Flat Rock Playhouse’s 2020 season due to COVID-19, folks are being encouraged to take time to enjoy the lush gardens on the grounds of the historic campus.
With a QR code reader on any smartphone, garden visitors can tap into information about the individual plants wherever they’re standing. The codes direct the phone to webpages on a Muddy Sneakers site that the garden volunteers control.
The Master Gardners have been hard at work adding some tech to our gardens! QR codes can now be found on the 62 garden beds that make up the Playhouse gardens. Visitors can use their smartphones to learn more about the plants they are seeing. Congratulations and thank you to Tamsin Allpress and all of our gardening volunteers who work to keep our gardens beautiful! Photo by volunteer Mary Smit
The Hemp X Hot Box:Roll with us Fridays from 5-10pm as we coast a route through West Asheville and Downtown. Stops at UpCountry Brewing, One World Brewing West, Foggy Mountain, and The One Stop. We’ll have smokable and edible hemp products for purchase to enjoy alongside any wine or beer you bring yourselves (closed containers only). We’re happy to provide an affordable way for locals and visitors to Roll Up, Stay Safe and Party Down! Cruisin Asheville July 10th, July 31st, August 7th, August 21st. More dates to come!
Purchase Tickets on board! One Way Pass $3 and All Night Unlimited Pass $5
Private Rentals: Spark up your next Asheville area celebration with our personalized rental platform! We offer several packages at different price tiers to best cater to your party’s needs! Our team is dedicated to working with you to create an experience that will leave your guests (and your smoke) blown away!
The Hemp Xpress is dedicated to the safety of the Asheville community; public routes and experiences are operating at half capacity within social distance guidelines. Hand sanitizer is readily available to riders, and surfaces are regularly sanitized. Buncombe County requires a face mask be worn in public places.
Experience an immersive dance performance from the comfort of your car at the Asheville Outlets. Drive-In passes are sold per car and include a parking space to enjoy the performance from inside your vehicle. Wearing of face-masks is required at any Wortham Center performance and event. All guests will be required to wear masks except when in personal vehicle.
Stewart/Owen Dance: What Remains
Vanessa Owen and Gavin Stewart are the co-founders of the WNC based Stewart/Owen Dance, where they co-produce original dance, film and music. Their careers span many genres of concert dance, and most notably took them across the globe on fifteen U.S. State Department tours to teach, perform and choreograph contemporary dance with Washington DC-based Company E. Their work abroad influences them to share dance as a universal language that can connect people across different cultures and beliefs and they use this as a driving force in their collaborations. They won the Audience Choice Award at the Dance Gallery Festival 2018 in New York City and were commissioned to create new work as Level UP Artists for Dance Gallery 2019. Vanessa and Gavin are recipients of a McDowell Regional Artist Grant and were voted “Artists Who Most Pushed the Boundaries with the Human Body” by Asheville Fringe Arts Festival.
What: Local musicians, singers, callers, and technicians have given us joy as they shared their love of music and dance with us. We now ask our community to return that joy as they struggle financially during this difficult time by donating to our “Spread the Joy” fundraiser.
Who: All donations will be paid directly and equally to local talent. Your contributions will support local callers, musicians, and technicians who participated, a minimum of 4 times, either in the past year (March 2019 – March 2020) or were scheduled in the near future (March – June 2020) for OFB events and who indicated a financial need to the OFB Board.
When: The OFB will distribute donations on a regular basis while dances continue to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so please give early and often. Consider donating the price you would have paid for admission to the dances for you, maybe several friends, and remembering that the dances were cancelled back in early March.
How: Click the link below to donate via Paypal and please add the note: “Spread the Joy fundraiser”. Donate conveniently via your credit card, debit card or your Paypal account.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=PYS3WHNV76CWA&source=url
The residents of Buck House 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.
Despite the cancellation of the Flat Rock Playhouse’s 2020 season due to COVID-19, folks are being encouraged to take time to enjoy the lush gardens on the grounds of the historic campus.
With a QR code reader on any smartphone, garden visitors can tap into information about the individual plants wherever they’re standing. The codes direct the phone to webpages on a Muddy Sneakers site that the garden volunteers control.
The Master Gardners have been hard at work adding some tech to our gardens! QR codes can now be found on the 62 garden beds that make up the Playhouse gardens. Visitors can use their smartphones to learn more about the plants they are seeing. Congratulations and thank you to Tamsin Allpress and all of our gardening volunteers who work to keep our gardens beautiful! Photo by volunteer Mary Smit
Experience an immersive dance performance from the comfort of your car at the Asheville Outlets. Drive-In passes are sold per car and include a parking space to enjoy the performance from inside your vehicle. Wearing of face-masks is required at any Wortham Center performance and event. All guests will be required to wear masks except when in personal vehicle.
Stewart/Owen Dance: What Remains
Vanessa Owen and Gavin Stewart are the co-founders of the WNC based Stewart/Owen Dance, where they co-produce original dance, film and music. Their careers span many genres of concert dance, and most notably took them across the globe on fifteen U.S. State Department tours to teach, perform and choreograph contemporary dance with Washington DC-based Company E. Their work abroad influences them to share dance as a universal language that can connect people across different cultures and beliefs and they use this as a driving force in their collaborations. They won the Audience Choice Award at the Dance Gallery Festival 2018 in New York City and were commissioned to create new work as Level UP Artists for Dance Gallery 2019. Vanessa and Gavin are recipients of a McDowell Regional Artist Grant and were voted “Artists Who Most Pushed the Boundaries with the Human Body” by Asheville Fringe Arts Festival.
Experience an immersive dance performance from the comfort of your car at the Asheville Outlets. Drive-In passes are sold per car and include a parking space to enjoy the performance from inside your vehicle. Wearing of face-masks is required at any Wortham Center performance and event. All guests will be required to wear masks except when in personal vehicle.
Stewart/Owen Dance: What Remains
Vanessa Owen and Gavin Stewart are the co-founders of the WNC based Stewart/Owen Dance, where they co-produce original dance, film and music. Their careers span many genres of concert dance, and most notably took them across the globe on fifteen U.S. State Department tours to teach, perform and choreograph contemporary dance with Washington DC-based Company E. Their work abroad influences them to share dance as a universal language that can connect people across different cultures and beliefs and they use this as a driving force in their collaborations. They won the Audience Choice Award at the Dance Gallery Festival 2018 in New York City and were commissioned to create new work as Level UP Artists for Dance Gallery 2019. Vanessa and Gavin are recipients of a McDowell Regional Artist Grant and were voted “Artists Who Most Pushed the Boundaries with the Human Body” by Asheville Fringe Arts Festiva
What: Local musicians, singers, callers, and technicians have given us joy as they shared their love of music and dance with us. We now ask our community to return that joy as they struggle financially during this difficult time by donating to our “Spread the Joy” fundraiser.
Who: All donations will be paid directly and equally to local talent. Your contributions will support local callers, musicians, and technicians who participated, a minimum of 4 times, either in the past year (March 2019 – March 2020) or were scheduled in the near future (March – June 2020) for OFB events and who indicated a financial need to the OFB Board.
When: The OFB will distribute donations on a regular basis while dances continue to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so please give early and often. Consider donating the price you would have paid for admission to the dances for you, maybe several friends, and remembering that the dances were cancelled back in early March.
How: Click the link below to donate via Paypal and please add the note: “Spread the Joy fundraiser”. Donate conveniently via your credit card, debit card or your Paypal account.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=PYS3WHNV76CWA&source=url
Despite the cancellation of the Flat Rock Playhouse’s 2020 season due to COVID-19, folks are being encouraged to take time to enjoy the lush gardens on the grounds of the historic campus.
With a QR code reader on any smartphone, garden visitors can tap into information about the individual plants wherever they’re standing. The codes direct the phone to webpages on a Muddy Sneakers site that the garden volunteers control.
The Master Gardners have been hard at work adding some tech to our gardens! QR codes can now be found on the 62 garden beds that make up the Playhouse gardens. Visitors can use their smartphones to learn more about the plants they are seeing. Congratulations and thank you to Tamsin Allpress and all of our gardening volunteers who work to keep our gardens beautiful! Photo by volunteer Mary Smit
What: Local musicians, singers, callers, and technicians have given us joy as they shared their love of music and dance with us. We now ask our community to return that joy as they struggle financially during this difficult time by donating to our “Spread the Joy” fundraiser.
Who: All donations will be paid directly and equally to local talent. Your contributions will support local callers, musicians, and technicians who participated, a minimum of 4 times, either in the past year (March 2019 – March 2020) or were scheduled in the near future (March – June 2020) for OFB events and who indicated a financial need to the OFB Board.
When: The OFB will distribute donations on a regular basis while dances continue to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so please give early and often. Consider donating the price you would have paid for admission to the dances for you, maybe several friends, and remembering that the dances were cancelled back in early March.
How: Click the link below to donate via Paypal and please add the note: “Spread the Joy fundraiser”. Donate conveniently via your credit card, debit card or your Paypal account.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=PYS3WHNV76CWA&source=url
What: Local musicians, singers, callers, and technicians have given us joy as they shared their love of music and dance with us. We now ask our community to return that joy as they struggle financially during this difficult time by donating to our “Spread the Joy” fundraiser.
Who: All donations will be paid directly and equally to local talent. Your contributions will support local callers, musicians, and technicians who participated, a minimum of 4 times, either in the past year (March 2019 – March 2020) or were scheduled in the near future (March – June 2020) for OFB events and who indicated a financial need to the OFB Board.
When: The OFB will distribute donations on a regular basis while dances continue to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so please give early and often. Consider donating the price you would have paid for admission to the dances for you, maybe several friends, and remembering that the dances were cancelled back in early March.
How: Click the link below to donate via Paypal and please add the note: “Spread the Joy fundraiser”. Donate conveniently via your credit card, debit card or your Paypal account.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=PYS3WHNV76CWA&source=url