Jump to: Food & Drink Events | Holiday Markets & Festivals | Geeky & Special Interest Festivals | Film | Arts & Performance Events | Major Concerts & Music Festivals | Sports & Recreations
FOOD & DRINK EVENTS
Seattle Night Market: Winter
This yearly market series (now indoors for the first time) gathers a lineup of over 125 vendors, food trucks, pop-ups, artists, and more, including favorites like Pecos Pit, Sticky Treats and Sweets, and Alexandra's Macarons. There's also a craft beer and cocktail garden with breweries like Reuben's Brews and Fremont Brewing, and this month will feature a "hot sauce fest" pop-up with a focus on local makers of the spicy stuff, like Ballyhoo Hot Sauce and Mike's Fine Brines.
Saturday, Magnuson Park Hangar 30 (Sand Point)
Seattle Pizza Week 2019
If you were a fan of The Strangerâs Burger Week this past summer, weâve got another exclusively crafted (and priced) food to deliver to your mouth: $2 pizza slices! During our inaugural Pizza Week, 11 restaurants are participating (Andare Kitchen & Bar, the Ballroom, Belltown Pizza, Humble Pie, Johnny Mo's Pizzeria, Little Maria's Pizza, Nine Pies Pizzeria, Ozzie's, South Town Pie, Southside Pizza & Gelato, and Watershed Pub & Kitchen), with three vegetarian offerings amid the meaty meats, and even one thatâs gluten-free. LEILANI POLK
FridayâSaturday, Various locations
Tacoma Distillery Festival
Sample spirits from over 20 Northwest distilleries in the form of cocktails and neat sips at this inaugural festival.
Saturday, Tacoma Armory
Washington Distillers Festival
Fight the November chill by sipping samples of local handcrafted spirits from regional distillers. Plus, bid in a silent auction to win distillery tours, special tastings, and limited-edition bottles.
Friday, McMenamins Anderson School (Bothell)
HOLIDAY MARKETS & FESTIVALS
Burien Art Market
Dozens of artists show and sell works to benefit the Burien Arts Association.
Saturday, Burien Community Center
Christmas Tree Lighting and Laser Light Show
This annual Christmas tree lighting and laser show features live family-friendly entertainment, appearances from holiday legends like Frosty the Snowman, and chances to take selfies with a red-nosed Rudolph.
Saturday, the Landing (Renton)
Downtown Decorating
Kirkland is asking its spirited denizens to lend a hand in setting up holiday lights and decorations in the downtown district. It'll be like Christmas with the Kranks, but different. Bring your own ladders.Â
Saturday, Downtown Kirkland
Holiday Express Train & Poinsettias Display
The Volunteer Park Conservatory will partake in the holiday season with their annual holiday express train and display of bright-red Poinsettias. (And, at the open house on Friday, cookies!)
Friday-Sunday, Volunteer Park Conservatory (Capitol Hill)
Meeker Holiday Bazaar
Find cute gifts for your loved ones at this early holiday market.
Saturday, Meeker Middle School (Tacoma)
Molbak's Garden Holiday Kick-Off Weekend
No need to hold back on holiday cheer until after Thanksgivingâthe garden supply and home goods store will play host to a weekend of wintery activities like a seminar on festive plant arrangements with Jodi Burkland (Sat), a meet-and-greet with holiday village artist Tom Bates (Sat), a glassybaby pop-up (Sat), and more.
Saturday-Sunday, Molbak's Garden + Home (Woodinville)
My Favorite Craft Fair
If you're a fan of the podcast My Favorite Murder, this market is specifically for you. Artists and artisans will sling their crafty wares related to the beloved program about serial killers, from candles and pet products to paper goods and jewelry.
Saturday-Sunday, South Park Hall
Nordic Holiday Bazaar
Pick out handmade Scandinavian commodities from over 20 vendors, snack on lefse and pickled herring, and enjoy traditional live music and performances.
Friday-Saturday, Sons of Norway Normanna Lodge (Everett)
Snohomish Harvested Holiday Market
Whether you want to stock up on fresh produce, jams, spices, and other goodies for Thanksgiving, or you're a proactive holiday shopper on the hunt for handmade goods from local artists and artisans, you'll have plenty to work with at this annual market.
Saturday, Snohomish High School
Snohomish Holiday Charm Walk
Bop around to various Snohomish businesses collecting charms to add to an unadorned bracelet chain. By the end, you'll have a unique piece of jewelry to give to someone you love (or to keep for yourself). Â
Saturday, Downtown Snohomish
Swanson's Reindeer Festival
Shop a variety of seasonal plants, bulbs, arrangements, and Christmas trees, as well as other gifts like books, jewelry, and home decor, at the decked-out nursery. Plus, visit with Santa and his real-life reindeer, check out model trains, and enjoy live music throughout the season.
Friday-Sunday, Swansons Nursery (Crown Hill)
GEEKY & SPECIAL INTEREST FESTIVALS
Crystallography Gem + Mineral Market
If you're in need of some mystical healing, shop from over 50 crystal, gem, and mineral vendors, visit tarot readers, psychics, and "crystal intuitives," and enjoy live painters and DJs.
Saturday-Sunday, Shoreline Community College
Dungeon Siege West
Lay waste to the tabletop in this festival celebrating all things fantasy, roleplay, and synth-related. Dungeon Siege West will make its West Coast debut with this three-day set of D&D/tabletop gaming sessions, live dungeon synth sets from groups like Sombre Arcane, Guild Of Lore, and Mors Certa, and vending by prominent genre labels, related magazines, and community tastemakers.
Friday-Sunday, Highline (Capitol Hill)
GeekGirlCon
For the ninth year, geek girls (and all gender identities) can revel in another great lineup of panel discussions, games, science experiments, and vendors. Some of this year's events include a wig-making workshop, a performance from local soul/hip-hop artist SassyBlack, a murder mystery party, and a panel discussion on the fluidity of Steven Universe.Â
Saturday-Sunday, Washington State Convention & Trade Center (Downtown)
2019 Seattle International Auto Show
Connoisseurs of sleek whips can tour over 500 new and classic vehicle models on the showroom floor, check out high-tech exhibitions, and even test-drive select cars.
Friday-Sunday, CenturyLink Field Event Center (Downtown)
FILM
'Charlie's Angels' Opening
Elizabeth Banks co-stars in and directs this reboot of the campy franchise, which also benefits from the considerable talents of Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska, Sam Claflin, Patrick Stewart, et al.
Friday-Sunday, Various locations
Dan Savage's HUMP! Film Festival
In the beginning... there was porn. And some of it was pretty awesome! But a lot of it, you know, wasn't. Mainstream porn can be problematic in all sorts of waysâmost notably that 90 percent of dirty movies are made for white dudes by white dudes. And why is there primarily only one body type (skinny and hairless)? And are any of the actors having fun? I mean, for real? These are the kinds of porn problems that inspired beloved sex columnist Dan Savage to create the HUMP! Film Festivalâan annual celebration of amateur dirty movies that are for the people, by the people! HUMP! invites folks to submit five-minute mini porn flicks written, directed, shot, andâin a lot of casesâperformed by these sex-positive amateur auteurs. The filmmakers are encouraged to express themselves sexually in whatever way they see fitâso instead of seeing the same, staid heteronormative clips you'll find on the internet, HUMP! is a virtual rainbow of diverse (AND HOT) sexuality! WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
Friday-Sunday, On the Boards (Queen Anne)
'Ford v Ferrari' Opening
If youâre a lover of car-racing movies, you should probably check out Ford v Ferrariâbecause this film is likely to be one of the last of its kind. A biopic about the late â60s rivalry between failing racecar company Ferrari and the âwants to be sexy soooo badâ Ford Motor Company, F v F is about how corporations canât help but crush the passion and innovation they so desperately need. In this case, the crushees are race car designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and driving phenom Ken Miles (Christian Bale), both of whom are forced to cajole, finagle, and manipulate the suits at Ford in an attempt to win the famed Le Mans road race. Director James Mangold (Logan) smartly avoids the emotionally manipulative tricks found in other sports biographies, and Damon and Bale are, unsurprisingly, excellent and affecting. The problem? Itâs impossible to ignore the two elephants in this room: The fetishization of white male toxicity and car culture, topics which society is trying to deal with and solve⌠not celebrate. This makes Ford v Ferrari a very good movie that, a decade ago, wouldâve been considered great. Now it feels like a brand-new film thatâs already an antique. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
Friday-Sunday, Various locations
'The Good Liar' Opening
Iâve been screaming about The Good Liar since August, when I found out that Bill Condon directed an AUSTERE SEXY ENGLISH THRILLER WITH A SEPTUAGENARIAN TWIST starring Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Ian McKellen. I canât wait to watch the two greatest actors of the Silent Generation eye-fuck one another over a dining room table and double-cross all the way to the bank. SUZETTE SMITH
Friday-Sunday, Various locations
'The Irishman' Opening
The time-honored trio of Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci are joined by Al Pacino for a grand, elegiac, haunting film about Frank Sheeran, a hitman who worked his way up in the mob and, allegedly, fatefully crossed paths with Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa. Ty Burr of the Boston Globe writes: "The final moments are both pitiless and some of the most emotionally devastating in Scorseseâs catalog, as age and infirmity cut out the legs from under men who once thought they were invincible."
Friday-Sunday, Cinerama (Downtown)
'The Report' Opening
The Report is short for âThe Torture Report,â which is short for âThe Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agencyâs Detention and Interrogation Program,â which is short for the 6,700-page account of one of Americaâs most horrifying and shameful stretches of history. Expertly distilling an infinitely complicated, infinitely disturbing chain of events, writer/director Scott Z. Burns follows the efforts of increasingly troubled Senate staffer Daniel Jones (Adam Driver, excellent as ever), who, under the oversight of Senator Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening), works to discover and document the CIAâs continued use of barbaric and ineffective âenhanced interrogation techniquesâ on prisoners captured after 9/11. Burns spends just as much time studying the failed, Republican-led efforts to cover up Americaâs war crimes as he does examining both the ways they were justified (âYou have to make this work. Itâs only legal if it works,â says one CIA official, played by Maura Tierney) and rewarded, with a coda that not-so-subtly alludes to the fact that Gina Haspel, the current director of the CIA, oversaw a black site in Thailand where some of the atrocities documented in the report were committed. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Friday-Sunday, Varsity Theatre (West Seattle)
Romanian Film Festival: Sixth Edition
The Romanian film industry has been producing international festival hits since 2004, and the so-called New Wave filmmakers and their successors have never stopped innovating. This brief but mighty film festival screens movies that range from caustically funny to fearlessly intellectual. This year's edition of ARCS's annual event, the sixth, is subtitled "Stories OFF the Wall," emphasizing overcoming barriers and borders (like the Berlin Wall, of course). You should check out the entire roster, but three features stand out: Corneliu Porumboiu's corrupt cop thriller The Whistlers (Sat), a Palme d'Or nominee and Romania's submission to the 2020 Oscars; Serge Loznitsa's Ukraine-Romania coproduction Donbass (Sun), a critically acclaimed dark comedy about propaganda and manipulation; and Andrei Gruzsnickzki's The Escape (Sun), a tense, morally thorny drama about two academics trying to smuggle a paper out of communist Romania. JOULE ZELMAN
Friday-Sunday, SIFF Cinema Uptown (Queen Anne)
ARTS & PERFORMANCE EVENTS
Beautiful
The dancers of Can Can and powerhouse singer Renee Holiday (formerly Shaprece, who "ranks among the Northwestâs most radiant, soulful vocalists and producers of torch-song-centric electronic music," per Dave Segal) collaborate on this sensuous coming-of-age story, featuring a leading performance by Holiday and new choreography.
Friday-Sunday, Can Can (Downtown)
The Brothers Paranormal (Closing Weekend)
This black comedy by Prince Gomolvilas, staged here for its rolling world premiere by Pork Filled Productions, concerns a pair of Thai American brothers who see a market opportunity in a surge of "Asian-looking" apparitions throughout the nation. Pork Filled says: "The Brothers Paranormal uses standard horror tropes (it's a ghost story! On Halloween!) to do a deep dive on issues affecting marginalized communities: displacement (whether from natural disaster or gentrification), mental health (a hidden killer in the Asian American community) and handling grief and trauma (well...that's everyone)."
Friday-Saturday, Theatre Off Jackson (Chinatown-International District)
Diwali Family Festival
At this celebration of the Hindu festival of lights, take a tour of the special exhibition Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum and take in live performances.
Saturday, Seattle Art Museum (Downtown)
Dracula (Closing Weekend)
Dracula will be breathed to life yet again when playwright Steven Dietz's adaptation of the Bram Stoker tale is revived and revised specifically for ACT Theatre. In this Dracula, the focus shifts to Mina Murray Harker. Her character has always been ripe for a reckoning or a refresh, or both. She is the source of endless fascination, because she is an obvious heroine in Stoker's novel, pure of heart and mind, and yet she's just as much a casualty of Dracula's desires as her poor friend Lucy. No matter how many gender norms Stoker challenged, it was still the Victorian era. Mina could be given only so much agency. "But to simply make her a victim was super unsatisfying to all of us," director John Langs explained. "So Steven has done some reworking of the story, and she really comes to the forefront. The hunted becomes the hunter in this particular adaptation." LEILANI POLK
Friday-Sunday, ACT Theatre (Downtown)
Global Party
This performance will celebrate the diversity of the Seattle community with music and dancing from various cultures.
Friday, Moore Theatre (Belltown)
The Great Moment (Closing Weekend)
Playwright Anna Ziegler earned a lot of attention in 2015 for Photograph 51, a well-received bio-drama about Rosalind Franklin, the woman who discovered DNA. Nicole Kidman played the starring role, everybody loved it, and Ziegler was praised for her "fair-minded and philosophical" (New York Times) approach to character building. Ziegler will likely bring that same talent for creating multidimensional characters to The Great Moment, which will have its world premiere at the Seattle Rep. According to press materials, the story follows a woman named Sarah, who is watching her grandfather slowly die while she raises her son. Alexandra Tavares plays the lead in this, and I've loved everything I've ever seen her in. RICH SMITH
Friday-Sunday, Seattle Repertory Theatre (Seattle Center)
The Hip Hop Nutcracker
This reinterpretation of the beloved ballet swaps out imperial Russia for 1980s Brooklyn as little Maria-Clara travels back in time to her parents' first meeting at a nightclub. It's acted out by a dozen hip-hop dancers, a DJ, and an onstage electric violinist.
Saturday-Sunday, Paramount Theatre (Downtown)
Jenny Slate: Little Weirds Tour
The star of acclaimed indie comedies Obvious Child and Landline as well as Venom (and, let's not forget, the creator and voice of Marcel the Shell), will appear in Seattle about a month after the Netflix debut of her comedy show Stage Fright. She'll be reading from her new book Little Weirds, a collection of nonfiction.
Sunday, Neptune Theatre (University District)
Jim Jefferies
Celebrated Australian stand-up comedian Jim Jefferies will perform his set at the Paramount. In 2015, Dan Savage wrote, "[Jefferies] does a better job making a case for gun controlâand puncturing the arguments against gun controlâthan any liberal American politician or gun-control advocate has ever done."
Friday, Paramount Theatre (Downtown)
Locally Sourced (Closing Weekend)
Three local choreographers will present three brand-new works for Pacific Northwest Ballet, all of which pique my curiosity for different reasons. Tony-nominated choreographer Donald Byrd often uses dance to examine acts of violence levied against minorities, so it'll be interesting to see how music by Emmanuel Witzthum, who creates warm, morning-light compositions, works into his vision. Bellevue-based choreographer Eva Stone, who produces the CHOP SHOP: Bodies of Work festival, will have a new piece called F O I L. She often challenges assumptions about gender in her work, and her recent collaboration with Au Collective at PNB & SAMâs Sculptured Dance ruled. And PNB corps member Miles Pertl makes his choreographic debut with music from Stranger Genius Award finalist Jherek Bischoff, whose soaring indie compositions always make me feel better about life. RICH SMITH
Friday-Sunday, McCaw Hall (Downtown)
The New Negroes
Inspired by the Harlem Renaissance, actor Baron Vaughn and MC/comedian Open Mike Eagle host The New Negroes on Comedy Central. Vaughn and OME are politically and culturally savvy entertainers whose humor transcends race and opens minds with unerring accuracy. Their show combines rap music with stand-up routines to address topics like racism, social-justice warriorism, police brutality, office rage, conspicuous consumption, drug abuse, and more. "It's mostly an all-black stand-up showcase, and it's interspersed with live musicâmostly me," Open Mike Eagle explained when we chatted prior to The New Negroes tour stopping in Seattle. He said the live show's material varies on a night-by-night basis. "If I find the crowd is hungrier for straight-up comedy, I'll do stuff from the show. If I feel like they're there for a little balance, I'll do stuff that's more varied out of my catalog." DAVE SEGAL
Friday, Fremont Abbey Arts Center
Novel Nights
Raise money for Seattle's most beloved writing center, Hugo House, at this book club series featuring special guests (including the authors). The books you'll discuss this weekend are A Pilgrimage to Eternity (with Timothy Egan, Fri) and Exhalation (with Ted Chiang, Sat).
Friday-Saturday, Hugo House (Capitol Hill)
Pilobolus: Come to Your Senses
Pilobolus is a troupe that depicts science-related narratives through dance. For Come to Your Senses, they've collaborated with Radiolab and MITâs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, plus Song Exploder podcast host Thao Nguyen, to craft choreography based on the origins of life, humanity's place on earth, and "the beauty and strength of human connection." The UW Chamber Singers will accompany the multimedia performance with a live score. JOULE ZELMAN
Friday-Saturday, Meany Center for the Performing Arts (University District)
SAM Remix
SAM Remix is a recurring and ever-changing art party that includes performances, tours, and dancing, all inspired by their current special exhibit. This time, it'll revolve around the special exhibition Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum.
Friday, Seattle Art Museum (Downtown)
Shout, Sister, Shout!
Rejoice in the music and power of the "Godmother of Rock 'n' Roll," Rosetta Tharpe, the amazing singer and guitarist who transformed American music.
Friday-Sunday, Seattle Repertory Theatre (Seattle Center)
The Thanksgiving Play (Closing Weekend)
In this holiday comedy, Lakota playwright Larissa FastHorse takes aim at a group of white teaching artists who end up reasserting colonial ideology in their attempt to rid their teaching practice of that very same ideology. According to Jesse Green's review in the New York Times, the more cringe-inducing skits in the show are based on actual school lesson plans lifted from social-media posts: "They include potted history and offensive ditties and, in one case, a suggestion to split the pupils into Pilgrims and Indians 'so the Indians can practice sharing.'" Sounds like it'll be another fine entry into the growing canon of plays about white people fucking up something they're trying to fix. I'm unfamiliar with the actors in the show, but I have no doubt they'll flourish in the highly capable hands of director Kelly Kitchens. RICH SMITH
Friday-Saturday, Seattle Public Theater (Green Lake)
Where is home : birds of passage (Closing Weekend)
You know what's really scary? Concentration camps for asylum seekers at the border, constant ICE raids, border patrol separating children from their parents and not having the administrative infrastructure to unite them, and the state generally doing everything it can to dehumanize people who want to immigrate to this country. In her brand-newâand first-ever (!)âsolo show, Where is home : birds of passage, local Italian American choreographer Alice Gosti aims to push back against the xenophobic narratives that drive these anti-immigrant policies. She'll draw from her own history with immigration as well as the larger history of Italian immigration to the United States in a spectacle that will run about three hours. As always with Gosti's work, you'll get to decide how much attention you want to devote to this performance. And the act of making that decision, of course, is part of the performance. RICH SMITH
Friday-Sunday, ACT Theatre (Downtown)
MAJOR CONCERTS & MUSIC FESTIVALS
Big Freedia, Low Cut Connie
A friend told me that the relationship between Seattle and New Orleans is strong because, traditionally, our fair city was always the first or last stop for touring jazz bands from the Big Easy. That connection facilitates a cultural exchange thatâs readily apparent in the acts that come through town. And I suppose it would help explain why Big Freedia comes through at least twice a yearâSeattle needs A LOT more bounce. This New Orleans rapper is the best version of what every MC should be: She knows how to get the motherfucking party going. Bring some Icy Hot for your knees and get ready for the Queen of Bounce to make you MOVE. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Friday, Neptune Theatre (University District)
Carissa's Wierd - An Evening with Mat Brooke & Jenn Champion
In Carissa's Wierd, Jenn Champion and Mat Brooke traded bar-stool confessions over aching, sparsely orchestrated slowcore, each singing in barely more than a whisper, lyrics over-lapping, leaning on each other (with lines like "If I could just see straight/I'd probably head straight for the door"). They'll reunite this fall for the 20th Anniversary of Ugly But Honest. ERIC GRANDY
Saturday, Fremont Abbey Arts Center
Noah Gundersen
In the 11 years since his 2008 debut, Brand New World, Noah Gundersen has evolved from his Olympia beginnings in stripped-down indie folk to a fuller, more emotionally complicated sound that brings an unabashed sentimentality to each songâeven the one about porn stars (check out the track âBad Actorsâ on 2017âs WHITE NOISE). Gundersenâs committed, melancholy vocal power has a raw honesty that beckons comparisons to Thom Yorke, the Lonely Forest, and Johnny Cash. SOPHIA STEPHENS
Saturday, the Showbox (Downtown)
Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2
Rachmaninov's music generally causes audiences to melt into sopping puddles of their own feelings, and the Second Symphony is no different in this regard. The whole thing is a violet-tinted croon sung in strings and weepy woodwinds, and if you can just allow yourself to sit back in your chair, let your eyes soften for a bit, and think of the one who got away, then the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, conducted in this program by James Feddeck, will lead you down a gentle path of watercolor memories. The stirring finale, however, will jolt you back to the present, feeling fully refreshed. Alongside this emotional reverie, one of the symphony's bass clarinet players, Angelique Poteat, will present a new cello concerto inspired by the environs of the Pacific Northwest. RICH SMITH
Friday-Saturday, Benaroya Hall (Downtown)
Ray LaMontagne, Kacy & Clayton
Lifelong independent film soundtracker Ray LaMontagne will bring his soft rasp and folky bluesy forest-laden indie rock back to Seattle this autumn with folk/roots duo Kacy & Clayton in tow.
Saturday-Sunday, Moore Theatre (Belltown)
Seventh Annual Freakout Fest 2019
If the acts at Capitol Hill Block Party and Bumbershoot skew a bit too young and EDM-ish for you, you may want to check out Freakout Festival, which has been gradually improving in quality over the last seven years. What began as a psych-rock-heavy event has morphed into something more diverse, while still retaining elements of its original mission statement (see the festival name). This yearâs lineup looks strong, with appearances by Death Valley Girls, Actionesse, Bearaxe, Elephant Stone, Federale, Khu.ĂŠex', Razor Clam, and Terror/Cactus. DAVE SEGAL
Friday-Sunday, Various locations (Ballard)
X Ambassadors, Bear Hands, VĂRITĂ
Considering their Top40 radio ubiquity, it's been basically impossible to not recognize the Jeep commercial-ready stadium party rock sound of X Ambassadors. They'll return to Seattle on their Orion Tour.
Sunday, Showbox Sodo
SPORTS & RECREATION
Green Lake Gobble & Mashed Potato Munch-Off
Run a 5 or 10K around Green Lake, then re-energize by entering a mashed potato munch-off at the finish lineâit is almost Thanksgiving, after all.
Sunday, Green Lake Park
Harlem Globetrotters
The Harlem Globetrotters, a family-friendly exhibition basketball team that combines athleticism, theater, and comedy in their style of b-ball, will come to the Northwest once again on their Fan Powered World Tour. Join the Globetrotter stars after the game for autographs, pictures, and high fives.
Friday-Sunday, Various locations
