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.
| Asheville Mardi Gras Parade February 23 |
The 13th annual Asheville Mardi Gras parade will take place on February 23 in South Slope and we’re looking for parade day volunteers. The Asheville Mardi Gras parade is an all-inclusive, family friendly, full-color spectacle that is fun, entertaining, full of music, floats, dancing and celebrating. Spectators receive beads and candy and the photo opportunities are always amazing.
Details include: * About 20-25 volunteers needed for this rain or shine event. There will be 2 shifts, estimated to be from approx. 11a to 2/3p, and 2p to 5/6p.
*Setting up, manning and breaking down street barricades
*Assisting with krewe and float line up and timing as the parade begins
*Identifying parked cars that might need to be towed and checking for obstacles to smooth crowd control along the parade route.
*Coordinating with the Parade Logistics manager and city police
*Carrying 1 or 2 parade banners (Costumes optional but always encouraged!)
*Assisting with end of parade float disbursement
*Trash pick up following the parade set up and marching route. This is mostly paper trash and beads. It’s rarely more than a few bags total.
Returning barricades, cones, etc. to the post-parade collection point
Confirmed Volunteer perks include $10 gift card to Vortex Donuts & Coffee and a free beer at Catawba. Possibly more perks to come!
Email Dane if you’re interested in helping out, [email protected]
AMG is also seeking a Parade Day Logistics Manager as a PAID POSITION for Sunday, Feb. 23. Ideal person should have outdoor event coordination experience, flexibility and a good sense of humor. Duties include coordinating volunteers, ensuring cones and barricades are in place at all check points, answering any traffic/parked car/pedestrian concerns, acting as parade day primary contact for police and security and Mardi Gras leadership, coordinating compliance with City parade permit requirements, and helping ensure a timely start and finish to the parade. Candidate could plan to cover the parade route via bicycle or scooter or use walkie talkies to accomplish oversight of the .5 mile parade route. This position pays $125 for the day. More details available to any interested candidate. Email Dane if you’re interested in the position, [email protected]
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Join our Water Quality Coordinator, Laura Anderson, on a public roadside cleanup! This 2hr event will focus around picking up litter along one of Asheville’s heavily trashed roads.
Bingham Road is a frequently trafficked and polluted road within the Asheville City Limits. As it rains, water sweeps this man-made debris into drains that lead directly into our streams — polluting our land and water. Keeping these areas free from litter is important to us as a community, so lets work together to protect the areas we love!
We will meet in the Buncombe County School’s parking lot, look for the Asheville GreenWorks truck.
All supplies will be provided, including: gloves, grabbers, yellow safety vests and trash bags. Just bring yourself dressed in warm clothes that can get dirty!
The Perspective Collective presents the world premier of The Pride of Pripyat: tales from the Chernobyl disaster, an opera exploring the lives of everyday people living in the shadow of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. With a score by Sunny Knable and libretto by Jim Knable, singers Erin Brittain, Rachael Basescu, and Grant Mech bring multiple characters to life in a series of scenes accompanied by pianist Patrick Fink. Presented as part of the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival as a double feature with Biophilia Asheville
A Robert Burns 261st Birthday Celebration Dinner will be held on Saturday, January 25, 2020, at the Country Club of Asheville. The event is sponsored by the Dunkeld and Birnam Committee of Asheville Sister Cities, Inc. (a 501c3 non-profit) which will benefit from the net proceeds of the dinner, optional whisky tasting, and charity raffle & auction.
A formal Robert Burns Dinner Ceremony beginning at 5:30 pm will include a three course meal with Haggis, a piper, poets, dancers and other entertainment. Scottish attire is recommended. Cocktails and other refreshments will be available from a credit card bar. An optional Scotch Whisky Blind Tasting of five single malts will be conducted with a $50 entry fee. Guests may also buy raffle tickets for an assortment of Scottish themed gifts and bid on auction items.
Tickets for the dinner ($100 per person) may be purchased on Eventbrite.com, downloading a registration form from ashevillesistercities.org/burns/, or by sending a check payable to the Asheville Sister Cities, Inc. to 994 Clovertop Lane, Arden, NC 28704. You will receive a follow up letter with additional information.
Edvard Tchivzhel, Conductor
Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio Espagnol
Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite
Borodin: Symphony No. 2 (“Heroic Symphony”)
Borodin: Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor
It’s an array of dazzling colors with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol, followed by the fiery and exotic fantasies of Stravinsky with his Firebird Suite, while Borodin pulls out all the stops with his mighty and wild “Heroic Symphony.”
| Asheville Mardi Gras Parade February 23 |
The 13th annual Asheville Mardi Gras parade will take place on February 23 in South Slope and we’re looking for parade day volunteers. The Asheville Mardi Gras parade is an all-inclusive, family friendly, full-color spectacle that is fun, entertaining, full of music, floats, dancing and celebrating. Spectators receive beads and candy and the photo opportunities are always amazing.
Details include: * About 20-25 volunteers needed for this rain or shine event. There will be 2 shifts, estimated to be from approx. 11a to 2/3p, and 2p to 5/6p.
*Setting up, manning and breaking down street barricades
*Assisting with krewe and float line up and timing as the parade begins
*Identifying parked cars that might need to be towed and checking for obstacles to smooth crowd control along the parade route.
*Coordinating with the Parade Logistics manager and city police
*Carrying 1 or 2 parade banners (Costumes optional but always encouraged!)
*Assisting with end of parade float disbursement
*Trash pick up following the parade set up and marching route. This is mostly paper trash and beads. It’s rarely more than a few bags total.
Returning barricades, cones, etc. to the post-parade collection point
Confirmed Volunteer perks include $10 gift card to Vortex Donuts & Coffee and a free beer at Catawba. Possibly more perks to come!
Email Dane if you’re interested in helping out, [email protected]
AMG is also seeking a Parade Day Logistics Manager as a PAID POSITION for Sunday, Feb. 23. Ideal person should have outdoor event coordination experience, flexibility and a good sense of humor. Duties include coordinating volunteers, ensuring cones and barricades are in place at all check points, answering any traffic/parked car/pedestrian concerns, acting as parade day primary contact for police and security and Mardi Gras leadership, coordinating compliance with City parade permit requirements, and helping ensure a timely start and finish to the parade. Candidate could plan to cover the parade route via bicycle or scooter or use walkie talkies to accomplish oversight of the .5 mile parade route. This position pays $125 for the day. More details available to any interested candidate. Email Dane if you’re interested in the position, [email protected]
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Jack of the Wood : Sunday-Irish Session
Sundays
1 till who knows when?
Traditional Irish music is kept alive at Jack of the Wood with our unplugged Sunday session.
Jack of the Wood
95 Patton ave
Asheville, NC 28801
(828) 252.5445
Edvard Tchivzhel, Conductor
Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio Espagnol
Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite
Borodin: Symphony No. 2 (“Heroic Symphony”)
Borodin: Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor
It’s an array of dazzling colors with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol, followed by the fiery and exotic fantasies of Stravinsky with his Firebird Suite, while Borodin pulls out all the stops with his mighty and wild “Heroic Symphony.”

We know special events and festivals have long been employed as powerful tools in supporting business, motivating entrepreneurship, and promoting the arts. Additionally, the City of Asheville is focusing on special events and how they can help build an equitable and inclusive community. But government doesn’t just change on its own. What internal and external efforts are needed to maximize returns? Hear from the City’s Outdoor Special Events office about their collaborations with the City’s Office of Equity & Inclusion. Learn about the confines we’re all working within as community members, and why it takes an inside effort within government to push forward. Where are your opportunities to create and participate in special events that help build an equitable and inclusive community?
Speakers: City of Asheville Outdoor Event Manager Jon Fillman and Business Inclusion Manager Rosanna Mulcahy
UNC Asheville’s annual commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr:

Tuesday, Jan. 28 – Arthur Flowers – Memphis-born blues-based poet, novelist, essayist, and practitioner of literary hoodoo, Arthur Flowers is an associate professor of English at Syracuse University and is former director of the Harlem Writers Guild. His books include Another Good Loving Blues, Mojo Rising: Confessions of a 21st Century Conjureman, and Brer Rabbit Retold.
- Literary Blues and the Hoodoo Way – In the Footsteps of MLK – This performance and lecture by Arthur Flowers will also feature opening music by UNC Asheville’s Afro Music and Dance Ensemble – 7 p.m., Highsmith Student Union Blue Ridge Room.

The world is a vastly different place than it was just a few years ago, and Atmosphere’s seventh album, Mi Vida Local, reflects the ways in which the world, and Atmosphere’s place in it¬, has changed. The idyllic domesticity of their past few records has morphed into anxiety over keeping loved ones safe during turbulent times. Instead of bragging about backstage misadventures it’s about grappling with mortality. The easygoing collaboration between Ant and Slug has started to feel more like the life-or-death intimacy of two men trapped together on a lifeboat.
At times it’s a heavy album (“I might be the last generation of grandparents,” goes a key line from “Virgo”), but it’s far from grim. There are jokes being cracked, joints getting smoked, a little trash talking here and there- after all, it’s still a rap record.
And Atmosphere’s never sounded better.
As the name implies, Mi Vida Local is intensely focused on the place it was created- the southside of Minneapolis- where Slug and Ant work tirelessly in their “beautiful basements”, refining their sound without interruption, save for a handful of friends from the Minneapolis hip-hop community who showed up to contribute. A year of one-on-one collaboration resulting in an album that matches complex subject matter with equally deep beats- ones that show a clear lineage back to the psychedelic funk landmarks from an earlier era where America was going through a post-utopian hangover, and prove that there won’t ever be a time where boom-bap beats don’t sound perfectly of the moment.
Mi Vida Local might be the best album Atmosphere’s ever made. It’s definitely the one they needed to make right now, and one listeners need to hear just as urgently. If it’s sometimes an album about how the fight to find happiness never really ends- even after you get the house and the kids and the artistic freedom to make dad-rap records- it’s also about discovering that there’s happiness to be found just in fighting.
Twenty years after they began releasing records as the Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have politely declined the opportunity to slow down with age. With a legacy of releases and countless U.S. and international tours behind them, the Indigo Girls have forged their own way in the music business. Selling over 14 million records, they are still going strong.Amy & Emily are the only duo with top 40 titles on the Billboard 200 in the ’80s, ’90s, ’00s and ’10s.
“Along with Simon & Garfunkel and The Everly Brothers, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers rank at the very top of all-time great duos. The sublime music-making-machine-skewering “Making Promises” is one of their finest rockers.”–The Boston Herald
After signing to Epic Records in 1988, the Indigo Girls released their critically acclaimed eponymous album to thunderous praise; it remained on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart for 35 weeks, earned double platinum status, received a Grammy nomination for “Best New Artist” and won “Best Contemporary Folk Recording.” They were overnight folk icons who continued to live up to the high standards they’d set for themselves: they’ve since released 14 albums (3 platinum and 3 gold), received six Grammy nominations and have won one. Indigo Girls have toured with innumerable star acts including Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, Joan Baez, R.E.M., Sarah MacLachlan, Natalie Merchant, Jewel and Mary Chapin Carpenter.
The duo has balanced their long, successful musical career by supporting numerous social causes–the Indigo Girls don’t just talk the talk; they walk the walk. Having established an intensely dedicated fan base, the duo continues to remain relevant and attract new fans. With their latest release, Beauty Queen Sister, released on IG Recordings distributed by Vanguard Records,Emily Saliers and Amy Ray have secured their spot as one of the most legendary musical acts of this generation.
“Their 14th studio album finds the Indigo Girls operating as powerfully as at any time in theircareer, on a set of uncommonly strong songs performed with the kind of typically understated Nashville polish that affords their signature harmonies the full spotlight.”–The Independent (UK)
In 2015 Indigo Girls released their 14th studio album, One Lost Day, produced by Jordan Brooke Hamlin and mixed by Brian Joseph.
We are dedicated to promoting health equity and reducing the disparity in diabetes outcomes that disproportionately affect the Black community in Buncombe County.
If you have type 2 diabetes or are at risk the YWCA offers a life-changing journey!

What are the benefits?
- Weekly educational support groups
- Membership to the YWCA Fitness and Aquatic Center
- Consultations with a pharmacist
We will explore important topics such as:
- Monitoring blood glucose (sugar)
- Engaging in physical activity
- Making healthy food choices, planning meals and controlling portion size
- Knowing your medications
- Understanding complications associated with diabetes
- Managing stress and social situations
- Setting goals and problem solving
All of this is offered to you for an affordable, sliding scale, monthly fee!
For more information or to sign up, call Leah Berger-Singer at (828)254-7206 x 212
We are dedicated to promoting health equity and reducing the disparity in diabetes outcomes that disproportionately affect the Black community in Buncombe County.
If you have type 2 diabetes or are at risk the YWCA offers a life-changing journey!

What are the benefits?
- Weekly educational support groups
- Membership to the YWCA Fitness and Aquatic Center
- Consultations with a pharmacist
We will explore important topics such as:
- Monitoring blood glucose (sugar)
- Engaging in physical activity
- Making healthy food choices, planning meals and controlling portion size
- Knowing your medications
- Understanding complications associated with diabetes
- Managing stress and social situations
- Setting goals and problem solving
All of this is offered to you for an affordable, sliding scale, monthly fee!
For more information or to sign up, call Leah Berger-Singer at (828)254-7206 x 212

Live Music – never a cover charge!

The Lumineers have announced a 2020 headlining North American tour of arenas and amphitheatres. The tour dates are in support of their upcoming album III out September 13 on Dualtone (an Entertainment One Company) in the U.S. and Canada, and on Decca Records for the rest of the world.
The Lumineers will once again partner with CID Entertainment to offer fans the opportunity to pair a premium concert ticket with merchandise or pre-show access to the III Lounge, with hospitality and entertainment. Packages will be available beginning August 12th at 10am local time. For details, visit cidentertainment.com/events/the-lumineers-tour/
Seven Singers Singing is cabaret-style musical revue, featuring some of the area’s finest vocal talent. The songs, written by local musician Dave Bates, run the gamut from bouncy show tunes to soulful ballads. Seven singers will also delight audiences with comic novelty songs and uplifting inspirational numbers. If you’ve ever said you want to leave the theatre with a song to hum, this is the show for you.
Seven Singers Singing includes well known singers, Richard Blue, Mandy Bean, Alex Guazzo, Nana Hosmer Griffin, Tasha Pepi, Matt Wade and Hannah Williams.
Call for tickets
Yonder Mountain String Band’s first new album in two years, LOVE. AIN’T LOVE is undeniably the Colorado-based progressive bluegrass outfit’s most surprising, creative, and yes, energetic studio excursion to date. Songs like “Chasing My Tail” and “Alison” are rooted in tradition but as current as tomorrow, animated by electrifying performance, vivid production, and the modernist power that has made Yonder one of the most popular live bands of their generation. Melding sophisticated songcraft, irrepressible spirit, and remarkable instrumental ability, LOVE. AIN’T LOVE is a testament to Yonder Mountain String Band’s organic, dynamic, and intensely personal brand of contemporary bluegrass-fueled Americana.
“I think this is our best album yet,” says Adam Aijala, guitarist.
Yonder founding members Aijala, banjo player Dave Johnston, and bassist Ben Kaufmann reconfigured Yonder Mountain String Band as a traditional bluegrass instrumental five-piece in 2014 with the recruitment of new players Allie Kral (violin) and Jacob Jolliff (mandolin). The reconstituted group debuted with 2015’s acclaimed BLACK SHEEP, but truly gelled as they toured, the new players’ personalities seamlessly blending and elevating the intrinsically tight Yonder sound. Yonder made certain to show off the current roster’s growing strength with the 2017 release of MOUNTAIN TRACKS: VOLUME 6, the first installment in their hugely popular live recording series since 2008.

The 13th annual Asheville Mardi Gras parade will take place on February 23 in South Slope and we’re looking for parade day volunteers. The Asheville Mardi Gras parade is an all-inclusive, family friendly, full-color spectacle that is fun, entertaining, full of music, floats, dancing and celebrating. Spectators receive beads and candy and the photo opportunities are always amazing.






