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.

Sunday, October 20, 2019
‘Mountain Top Polka Band’ Oktoberfest Tour Dates
Oct 20 all-day
various locations see details

August 23, Appalachian Ridge Hard Cidery in Hendersonville
August 24, HiWire Brewing Company at the Big Top
Sept. 22, UpCountry Brewing on Haywood Road
Sept. 28, Southern Appalachian Brewery in Hendersonville
Oct. 4, Garden Deli in Burnsville
Oct. 6, Emmanuel Lutheran Church and School in West Asheville
Oct. 10, Highland Brewing Company and
Oct. 20, Saint Paul Mountain Vineyard in Hendersonville

49th Annual LEAF Festival
Oct 20 all-day
Lake Eden

Image result for leaf festival asheville nc

Fall-leaf-lineup-2019

LEAF Festival sits below Mt. Mitchell with mountain lakes and rolling hills with 600 stunning acres featuring rustic cabins, large camping fields with mountain views, hiking trails,  barns, streams, and lakes for canoeing, swimming, and the zooming zipline. This enchanting land offers lots of outdoors adventures for the whole family!

The 1st LEAF Festival premiered Fall 1996, and has become a tradition twice a year, May and October. The name Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF) was chosen to honor the lake and the former Lake Eden Inn & Resort. “Arts” embraces a broad creative palate and of course it was to be a “festival”. In envisioning LEAF, we sought to embrace world cultures, reflect the creativity of the Asheville area, and to complement the stunning landscape. The location and size, attendance is limited to 6,000  people on site per day, makes LEAF Festival one of the best small festivals in the world. The right place, the right size.

Craft Fair Of The Southern Highlands
Oct 20 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
US Cellular Center

nc craft fair, asheville arts festival, nc pottery, nc clay, asheville events

Meet the artisans of the Southern Highlands exhibiting contemporary & traditional works of clay, wood, metal, glass, fiber, natural materials, paper, leather, mixed media, & jewelry.

Thursday – Saturday, 10 – 6pm

Sunday, 10 – 5pm

Hendersonville Oktoberfest
Oct 20 @ 2:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards

A great afternoon at the vineyards with a German twist! Bring your Lederhosen and Polka shoes. We’ll have the wine and German party atmosphere ready.

Jack of the Wood : Sunday-Irish Session
Oct 20 @ 3:00 pm
Jack of the Wood

 

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

http://www.jackofthewood.com/

Ray LaMontagne US Cellular Center
Oct 20 @ 7:00 pm
US Cellular Center

ray lamontagne tour dates

Raymond Charles Jack “Ray” LaMontagne is an American singer-songwriter and musician. LaMontagne has released seven studio albums, Trouble, Till the Sun Turns Black, Gossip in the Grain, God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise, Supernova, Ouroboros and Part of the Light. He was born in New Hampshire and was inspired to create music after hearing an album by Stephen Stills. Critics have compared LaMontagne’s music to that of Otis Redding, The Band, Van Morrison, Nick Drake and Tim Buckley

Monday, October 21, 2019
Jazz Hour at Pack Library Back for the Fall
Oct 21 @ 6:00 pm
Pack Memorial Library

Our free Jazz Hour is back for the fall season!  Please join us in our auditorium to listen to an hour of jazz from Steinway pianist and composer Michael Jefry Stevens and his musician friends. Each performance is different and will take place on the third Monday evenings of each month. Everyone is welcome.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Unique ikebana techniques, Demonstration and Workshop
Oct 22 @ 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Folk Art Center

Unique techniques of leaf manipulation will be demonstrated by Suzanne Dillingham of the Ichiyo School. Leaves can be changed beyond recognition and provoke a bit of mystery.

A ‘Friendship Through Flowers’ workshop will follow and is open to members and non-members with a paid RSVP. This is an unusual opportunity for non members to participate with skilled ikebanists and stretch their imagination.

Demonstration is free. For workshop participation, contact Suzanne Dillingham by October 18 for details and payment of $20: [email protected]

For more information on our programs, teachers and workshops, contact Lynn Forbes, Chapter President, 828-273.2222; [email protected] or www.ikebanaasheville.org

Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Breakfast Cigarette
Oct 23 @ 8:00 pm
PULP

PULP presents

Breakfast Cigarette

Wed, Oct 23

Show : 8pm

at image

Doors : 7pm

$5 members
$7 non-members
$2 surcharge for under 21

Tickets at the door

RSVP on Facebook

breakfast.cigarette.com

Thursday, October 24, 2019
Clint Black Live at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium
Oct 24 all-day
Thomas Wolfe Auditorium

CLINT BLACK
It is one of the most storied careers in modern music. Clint Black surged to superstardom as part of the fabled Class of ’89, reaching #1 with five consecutive singles from his triple-platinum debut, Killin’ Time. He followed that with the triple-platinum Put Yourself in My Shoes, and then a string of platinum and gold albums throughout the ’90s. Perhaps most impressively, Clint wrote or co-wrote every one of his more than three dozen chart hits, including “A Better Man,” “Where Are You Now,” “When My ShipComes In,” “A Good Run of Bad Luck,” “Summer’s Comin’,” “Like the Rain” and “Nothin’ But the Taillights,” part of a catalog that produced 22 #1 singles and made him one of the most successful singer/songwriters of the modern era. Along the way, Clint has sold over 20 million records, earned more than a dozen gold and platinum awards in the U.S. and Canada including a GRAMMY, landed nearly two dozen major awards and nominations, and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Clint continues to tour throughout North America in 2019 as he celebrates the 30th Anniversary of Killin’ Time.

Haunts and Hollers N. Asheville Library
Oct 24 @ 6:30 pm
North Asheville Library

Haunts and Hollers

In this Halloween-themed program, ballad singer Saro Lynch-Thomason shares Appalachian songs and folklore of ghosts, death, magic, and mystery.

Chris Staples Living Room Show
Oct 24 @ 7:00 pm
House Show (address provided with ticket purchase)

Chris Staples is a Seattle based multi-instrumentalist and song maker. His songs are narratives that are plainspoken and universal, with simple, disarming arrangements and delicate melodies that seemed to float on air. His music has been covered by NPR Music, Washington Post, NY Times, American Songwriter, and Apple Music. Staples tours relentlessly and has played over 500 shows since he started releasing solo material in 2012. His newest record “Holy Moly” came out June 28th on Barsuk Records. He’s worked as a side-man for Father John Misty, David Bazan, Jeremy Enigk(Sunny Day Real Estate), and Telekinesis.

This show is an intimate performance, hosted by a fan in their home. A truly unique environment to hear music and a great way to meet people in your own community. Online tickets sales only. When you buy a ticket you receive the address and other pertinent info via email.

Clint Black US Cellular Center
Oct 24 @ 8:00 pm
US Cellular Center

Clint Black

Clint Patrick Black is an American country music singer, songwriter, musician, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and actor. Signed to RCA Records in 1989, Black’s debut album Killin’ Time produced four straight number one singles on the US Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts. Although his momentum gradually slowed throughout the 1990s, Black consistently charted hit songs into the 2000s. He has had more than 30 singles on the US Billboard country charts, twenty-two of which have reached number one, in addition to having released twelve studio albums and several compilation albums. In 2003, Black founded his own record label, Equity Music Group. Black has also ventured into acting, having made appearances in a 1993 episode of the TV series Wings and in the 1994 film Maverick, as well as a starring role in 1998’s Still Holding On: The Legend of Cadillac Jack.

Friday, October 25, 2019
Mt. Joy & Susto at The Orange Peel
Oct 25 @ 9:00 pm
The Orange Peel

Mt. Joy w/ Special Guest SUSTO
Show: 9pm
Doors: 8pm
$23 – $73
Ages 18+

Tickets & Info: www.theorangepeel.net/event/mt-joy/

“These dreams are more than paper things,” sings Matt Quinn on Mt. Joy’s infectious folk-rocker “Astrovan,” a warm, yearning bit of road-trip philosophy that posits the existence of a Deadhead Jesus cruising the dusty highways of the countryside, nursing a roach on his way to only He knows where. It’s an auspicious line from a band predicated on the revival of teenage dreams.

Mt. Joy started off as a rekindling of shared musical ambitions between Philadelphia high school friends Matt Quinn (vocals, guitar) and Sam Cooper (guitar). Reunited in Los Angeles thanks to the ebbs and flows of adult life, the pair met multi-instrumentalist Michael Byrnes through a Craigslist ad. They named themselves Mt. Joy as an ode to a mountain in Valley Forge National Park near Sam’s childhood home, and together, with Byrnes’ roommate Caleb Nelson producing, they recorded three songs and sent them out into the world, hoping for the best. “I knew I still wanted to write songs, but the realities of life made that dream seem pretty impossible,” Quinn says.

Much to the band’s amazement, “Astrovan” accomplished the impossible. Without initial promotion or fanfare, the song took off on Spotify, racking up 5 million streams to date. “The irony of ‘Astrovan’ was that song was really about being stuck in a life and wanting to have the opportunity to pursue a dream, and in an instant it gave us that opportunity. ” Quinn says. Mt. Joy quickly transitioned from a part-time calling into a full-fledged band rounded out by Byrnes on bass, Sotiris Eliopoulos on drums and Jackie Miclau on keyboard.

Come 2017, Mt. Joy hit the road, and hit it hard: They played tour dates alongside the likes of The Shins, The Head and The Heart, The Lone Bellow, and Whitney, and popped up at some of the summer’s biggest festivals, including Bonnaroo, Newport Folk Festival, Lollapalooza and Made In America. “We were put on some big shows very quickly,” Quinn says. “The growth for us has been exponential – we’ve really just become a family that’s constantly pushing each other and the live show to be great.” They eventually caught the attention of Dualtone Records and began work on their debut album.

Steeped in folk-rock tradition and powered by the intuitive creative connection between Quinn and Cooper, the songs on ‘Mt. Joy’ depict Quinn wrestling with his own conscience, where the mundane and the fantastic collide as he processes tragedy, society, and love. Opener “I’m Your Wreck” describes “monsters in (the) closet, using up the wi-fi” as it cycles from its desperate, spiraling verses to its swinging, stubbornly optimistic coda, while the loping, plaintive chords of “Younger Days” meditate on a frayed psyche and the fear of choosing the wrong path. “Sheep,” with its collapsing, hoarse-voiced cry of “freedom was paid in blood,” is a post-Trump salvo on the responsibilities of the fortunate to overcome political and social despondency. And on “Silver Lining,” perhaps the album’s brightest moment, Quinn surveys the damage of hard drugs and the vicious cycle of addiction, as the song’s melancholic sentiment kicks into its fervid, defiant chorus, all shout-along vocals and trilling guitars.

Taken together, the self titled ‘Mt. Joy’ LP is a startlingly open document, wracked with the anxieties and fears that come just as life seems to start working out. It’s a natural reaction from a wary band like Mt. Joy – the result of a sort of professional vertigo, as they’ve gone from virtual unknowns to hot young commodity in little over a year. But there’s a sense of hope underlying everything, girded by the fact that the Mt. Joy LP is an impressive, honest portrayal of a young band facing that moment where dreams become reality, and finding beauty in the exhilarating uncertainty of it all.

www.mtjoyband.com

https://www.facebook.com/events/1096683710504247/

Friday The 25th w/ Dj Audio + Brent Brown
Oct 25 @ 9:00 pm – Oct 26 @ 2:00 am
Ole Shakeys Getaway

On Friday OCT the 25th, DJ AUDIO + Brent Brown are coming to Ole Shakey’s to kill everything! Get ready to dance that ass off to big beats under the most amazing light show ever . Music Powered by the Hottest Dj’s in the city. NO COVER. 21+. RSVP NOW & Tag a friend!

Saturday, October 26, 2019
The Weave October 26th Fall pop-up market @ Salvaterra Pottery in Weaverville
Oct 26 all-day
Salvaterra Pottery

This Fall outdoor market will feature over 25 local artists and small businesses. Watercolor paintings, wire bonsai tree art, jewelry, organic clothing, natural home cleaning products, locally sourced seasonings and herbs, leather goods, home décor, Hemp/CBD Products and much more!
October 26th 10am-4pm

Asheville Fine Art Show
Oct 26 @ 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Pack Square

Asheville, North Carolina, and its surrounding communities are well-known for its vibrant art scene and historic architecture.  From the dome-topped Basilica of Saint Lawrence, to the 19th-century Biltmore Estate, and an Art District filled with galleries and museums, Asheville is an excellent place to host up to 150 renowned Juried Artists. Come join us and see for yourself why the Asheville Fine Art Show was voted as one of the Top 100 art shows in America!

Meet renowned glass artist, Jack Pine Oct. 26 – 27
Oct 26 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Bellagio Art to Wear

Meet renowned glass artist, Jack Pine, and preview his new collection featured at Bellagio Art to Wear in Historic Biltmore Village.

Saturday, Oct. 26th 10am – 6pm
Sunday, Oct. 27th 12pm – 5pm

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Having grown up in Southwestern Ohio, which is the birth place of the North American Studio Glass Movement, Jack was constantly exposed to glass artists and their varied techniques. As a child, Jack would experiment with molten bottle glass in campfires on his family’s farm. Today he is the creative force behind Jack Pine Studios, which has become a mecca for talented soft glass artisans. At the heart of the studio are the designs and techniques developed by Jack.

“I enjoy the intense demand on my skill and the focus involved with working with molten glass. All the energy I use to create a piece is captured in the glass, and thus is frozen in time forever.”
— Jack Pine

Watercolor Class with local artist Joan Doyle
Oct 26 @ 2:00 pm
Skyland/South Buncombe Library


Join us for a free watercolor class with local artist Joan Doyle.  Class limited to 10 participants – teens over 15 and adults. No group sign ups please. All materials provided.

13th Annual Lynn Boggess Exhibition Opening Reception
Oct 26 @ 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
The Haen Gallery

Lynn Boggess is one of the most unique and noteworthy American landscape painters of the 21st Century. He resides in West Virginia, a state whose diverse mountains, forests, and rivers provide abundant inspiration for the artist’s plein air paintings. In place of brushes he uses palette knives and trowels to thickly layer the broad sweeping strokes and exquisite fine detail that capture all the colors of the seasons in rushing rivers, snow covered hillsides, and thick forest vegetation.

Mr. Boggess’ work is recognized internationally for its incredible three-dimensional texture, rendered solely in oils. These remarkable paintings combine elements of Abstract Expressionism and Photorealism to create a style that is totally unique and original.

To preview the exhibition catalog, please click here.

Different Strokes! Masquerade Ball
Oct 26 @ 6:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Henry LaBrun Studio at Wortham Center for the Performing Arts

Put on your best formal wear, slip into your dancing shoes, and join Different Strokes! Performing Arts Collective on October 26 for an elegant, exclusive Masquerade Ball. With a red carpet, live music by Rhoda Weaver (Best Vocalist, Mountain Xpress Best of X 2018), silent and live auctions, and catering by Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. Win season tickets to Different Strokes! in the best-decorated mask contest (judged by a panel of experts), and get to party in the brand-new Henry LaBrun Studio at the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts.

All proceeds benefit Different Strokes! Performing Arts Collective and its mission of Making Theatre that Makes a Difference. 

m-pact
Oct 26 @ 7:00 pm
Diana Wortham Theatre

m-pact, October 26, 2019 at 7pm

m-pact’s website

Hailed as “one of the best pop-jazz vocal groups in the world” by the San Francisco Chronicle, m-pact is respected worldwide as a trailblazer in a cappella arts — harnessing the raw power of nature’s first instrument, the human voice. With the smooth soul of Sam Smith, the percussive power of Stomp, the funk and groove of Bruno Mars, the sophisticated harmonies of Take 6 and the brass bite of the Michael Bublé Big Band, m-pact takes vocal acrobatics to new levels, creating technicolor soundscapes that have earned the group accolades like Vocal Group of the Year (LA Music Awards) and Best Vocal Arrangement (the CARA Awards).

Big Freedia
Oct 26 @ 9:00 pm
The Orange Peel

Big Freedia

October 26, 2019 9:00 PM
Doors Open: 8:00 PM
Support:
Low Cut Connie

Big Freedia (pronounced “FREE-da”), known as the Queen of Bounce, is at the forefront of the Bounce rap movement (a subgenre of hip-hop born out of New Orleans and known for its call and response style and lightening speed booty-shaking dance). Performing five out of seven nights in any given week with dancers she calls The Divas, Big Freedia’s show is nothing short of dazzling. She tours every city in America from New York to San Francisco and is always a favorite at festivals such as Electric Forest, Hangout Fest, FunFunFun Fest, SXSW, and Bonnaroo, among many others.

Ticket price includes applicable sales tax.

Sunday, October 27, 2019
Asheville Community Band 40th Anniversary Concert
Oct 27 all-day
Lipinsky Hall, on the Campus of UNCA

The Asheville Community Band opens our 2019-2020 season with something very special: our 40th Anniversary Celebration Concert! That’s right, 40 years of community-based musical excellence, serving players and listeners in the Asheville area!
The Asheville Community Band is a community-based symphonic winds band for musicians of all ages and professions. Now composed of over ninety musicians (with more than a dozen new players in Fall 2019!), the band truly represents Western North Carolina with members representing six counties. The all-volunteer band ranges in age from high school to octogenarian. Our 40th Anniversary Celebration Concert will celebrate three things: Great conductors, great music, and great community-based musicianship. Tickets are $12, students and children with paying adults are free.

Asheville Fine Art Show
Oct 27 @ 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Pack Square

Asheville, North Carolina, and its surrounding communities are well-known for its vibrant art scene and historic architecture.  From the dome-topped Basilica of Saint Lawrence, to the 19th-century Biltmore Estate, and an Art District filled with galleries and museums, Asheville is an excellent place to host up to 150 renowned Juried Artists. Come join us and see for yourself why the Asheville Fine Art Show was voted as one of the Top 100 art shows in America!

Jack of the Wood : Sunday-Irish Session
Oct 27 @ 3:00 pm
Jack of the Wood

 

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

http://www.jackofthewood.com/

Music of Phish for Kids Halloween Spooktacular at The Grey Eagle
Oct 27 @ 3:00 pm
The Grey Eagle

Music of Phish for Kids Halloween Spooktacular

The Rock and Roll Playhouse, a family concert series hosted at historic music venues across the country, allows kids to “move, play and sing while listening to works from the classic-rock canon” (NY Times). Performing songs created by the most iconic musicians in rock history, The Rock and Roll Playhouse band offers its core audience of families with children age ten and under games, movement, stories and an opportunity to rock out in an effort to educate children and explore their creativity. The Rock and Roll Playhouse is an early and often first introduction to a child’s lifelong journey with live music and rock and roll. See you at the show!

This concert for kids and families shares the music of the artist named above with a new generation of music lovers, but is not associated with or endorsed by the artist. All children must be accompanied by a parent or adult caregiver.

The Rock and Roll Playhouse knows that little ears are sensitive, so we turn down the volume at our shows. However, all kids experience music differently and you may find that your child is more comfortable wearing hearing protection earmuffs, such as Baby Banz, which are available for purchase here.

By attending this event, I consent to my image (with or without my voice) being included in photographs and/or film and videotape of the event, and give Grey Eagle, The Rock and Roll Playhouse and their respective licensees and assigns the absolute and irrevocable right and permission to use and publish such content in any and all media, whether now known or hereafter developed.

Griffin House @ ISIS Music Hall
Oct 27 @ 8:00 pm
The ISIS Music Hall

Recording and performing for over 15 years, Griffin House is a traveling modern-day troubadour, who continues to headline almost 100 shows a year in the U.S.   He has toured with John Mellencamp, The Cranberries, Josh Ritter, Mat Kearney, and Brett Dennen just to name a few and has been featured on the CBS Sunday morning show, CNN Newsroom, and appeared on Late Night with Craig Ferguson.

On 6/28, House released Rising Star his 12th full Studio Recording.

Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Open Mic
Oct 29 all-day
Alley Cat Social Club

Open Mic Open format. We host it all at the Alley Cat. Come out and see an amazing display of talent. Every Tuesday 8pm. Sign ups start at 7pm or earlier

Large Format Puppet Hand Building Workshop for Holiday Parade
Oct 29 @ 6:30 pm
Pack Memorial Library

The Buncombe County library system is trying to get into the Asheville Holiday Parade this year and we need your help!  We’re building large format puppet hands and small props to support our theme and we need all of the creative help we can get. We’ll be having creator’s workshops on Tuesday evenings beginning September 24 at Pack Memorial Library. We’ll also have stations at branches starting in October for origami bird making. All of the birds made will be a big part of our holiday parade!    If you like to work in teams, get your hands dirty, and get crafty come join us, everyone is welcome! Open workshops, drop in and help when you can on posted dates