A one-week theater intensive where young performers rehearse and stage Moana Jr., building confidence and ensemble skills in a supportive creative environment.
From the waves to the redwoods, it's all happening here.
Live music, festivals, art walks, surf contests, trail days and everything in between.
Every listing is something you can actually show up to, from Davenport down to Watsonville.
β Featured this season
Treehouse Dispensary First Friday
Treehouse Dispensary hosts a monthly First Friday event on the first Friday of every month. These events feature live music, local artists, makers, and an art market with up to 20 different vendors, along with shop-wide discounts and community activities. The shop is open 8:00 AM to 9:45 PM daily. We're proud to offer everyday savings for our community: New Members: 10% off your first order Wisdom Discount (65+): 5% off Medical Patients: 10% off Students & Teachers: 20% off with valid ID Veterans: 20% off *Please note that discounts do not stack with other deals. Ask staff for exclusions.
Enthusiastic Bird Watchers @ La Selva Beach
Tuesday, July 21 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm Join us for a bird talk and guided walk in La Selva Beach to spot local birds and enjoy nature together!
The Art of Building a Future (RSSC Discussion Group)
Join us 4th Wednesdays, 6-8pm at SubRosa for The Art of Building a Future - a cafΓ© for discussion and practice for creating the future we want to live in, now! Hosted by @rojavasc1 Bring your thoughts and experience and enjoy some light refreshments. Will be held in the courtyard weather permitting. COVID precautions encouraged. 6pm - 8pm // totally free! // all-ages // dry space // safe(r) space // anti-capitalist space // respect the space and each other! SubRosa is at 703 Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, CA Also part of the @freeskoolsantacruz 2026 session - more info about other class in bio at @freeskoolsantacruz and @subrosa_space β@@@@@β SubRosa is a collectively run anarchist community space - a place to meet people, share resources and ideas, challenge our assumptions and act on our passions. Letβs create together the world(s) we want to live in now. @subrosa_space And SubRosa is part of the Hub Community Center at 703 Pacific Ave in downtown Santa Cruz - a constellation
β
Featured
43rd Annual Capitola Art & Wine Festival
Stroll the festival with friends and family, sipping exceptional wines from Santa Cruz Mountain wineries while admiring the artistic talents of over 100 fine artists. Sway to live music and be inspired by local dance groups while taking in the ocean breeze and breathtaking view of the Monterey Bay. Feed your cravings with tantalizing cuisine from local food purveyors, and cruise through the Artisans Marketplace for locally handcrafted goods. If that isnβt enough, Capitola Village is filled with restaurants for every taste and charming boutiques to satisfy a shopperβs dream. Art, wine, music, and gourmet cuisine in the enchanting beach-side setting of Capitola Villageβ¦summerβs last hurrah, and truly a weekend in paradise! This event is from 10am to 6pm on Saturday, September 12 and from 10am to 5pm on Sunday, September 13. See link to the event in the orange box above.
β
Featured
The Cruz Room: Hosted Board Game Night
The Game Night Collective provides a curated experience. Every Monday night with a library of 30+ board games, guided game teaching, hosted featured games, and prizes! Whether you arrive alone or with a group, the goal is to make it easy to sit down and start playing. Hosted micβd board games 5 β 8 Trivia 8 β 10
βοΈ Happening today
Tuesday, July 2152 events on today. No plans required, just go.
What's happening
Filter by category, date, or area. Everything listed is in person, county-wide.
Showing 30 of 106 upcoming events Β· Art & Culture Β· from 2026-07-21 Β· to 2026-07-28
A three-week summer theater program culminating in a full production of Moana Jr., giving participants a deeper dive into performance, character work, and stagecraft.
CLAY INDEPENDENT LAB TIME
0 booked, 4 available Glazing
It's time to get those crayons sharpened, paints mixed and markers at the ready for our Summer 2026 PokΓ©mon Art Contest for kids 5-12! To join in, create a picture of your favorite PokΓ©mon having a fun moment or striking a cool, dynamic pose. Submissions should be on 8.5 x 11 paper. You can use any medium you like, such as paint, marker, crayon, pencil, etc. No digital art. There will be prizes awarded to two age groups, 5-7 and 8-12. Entries accepted June 1st-July 31st. Winners will be announced on August 6th. BONUS: All participants will receive a free PokΓ©mon:Chaos Rising 11x17 mini-poster (while supplies last) when you hand in your art.
A technical training camp for theater at All About Theatre in Santa Cruz, covering skills for behind-the-scenes production.
WATERCOLOR FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS AND RECOVERING PERFECTIONISTS (3/4)
1 booked, 7 available Maria Ayllon
Kaika Class: Te Hau Nui School of Hula and Tahitian Dance
Weekly hula and Tahitian dance class at The 418 Project. Learn traditional Hawaiian and Polynesian dance in a supportive environment.
A full production of the contemporary musical Dear Evan Hansen, staged with a cast and creative team. A powerful story about connection, grief, and belonging.
INTERMEDIATE HANDBUILDING (4/5)
5 booked, 2 available Kathryn Pierno
Ocean Vuong - The Emperor of Gladness
The hardest thing in the world is to live only onceβ¦ Bookshop Santa Cruz and The Humanities Institute are pleased to welcome critically acclaimed author and staff favorite Ocean Vuong (Time Is a Mother, On Earth Weβre Briefly Gorgeous) for an event celebrating the paperback release of The Emperor of Gladness, Vuongβs bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. Vuong will be in conversation with UC Santa Cruz Professor Ronaldo V. Wilson. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuongβs writingβformal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tendernessβare on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of lifeβs most fleeting mercies: a second chance. Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time Is a Mother, as well as the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth Weβre Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the American Book Award, he was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and currently splits his time between western Massachusetts and New York City. The Emperor of Gladness is his latest novel. More information at: Bookshop Santa Cruz β Ocean Vuong Co-Sponsored by The Humanities Institute
0 booked, 7 available
A one-week theater intensive where young performers rehearse and stage Moana Jr., building confidence and ensemble skills in a supportive creative environment.
A free weekly dance jam for babies and their caregivers at The 418 Project in Santa Cruz, with movement, music, and play in a joyful environment.
GARDEN TOTEMS: HANDBUILDING (3/5)
0 booked, 14 available Noelle Lightbourne
Event date: July 22, 2026 Event Time: 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM Location: 2021 Freedom Blvd Freedom, CA 95019 Watsonville, CA 95076
Spring Exhibitions at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences
Visit the IAS, UCSCβs premier art galleries, for our spring exhibitions. On view April 10βAugust 16, 2026 are three diverse and interdisciplinary shows: Libia Posada: Everything is Going Right , the first US solo exhibition by the Colombia-based artist and medical doctor; Gina Athena Ulysse: A Redwoods Rasanblaj , a site-specific and immersive exploration of the Haitian kreyol conception of rasanblaj; and Ronaldo V. Wilson: There Are No Words, But Melodies , a mixed-media exhibition emerging at the intersections of Black poetics, performance, and visual art. The IAS Galleries are open Wednesday-Sunday, 12 pm β 5 pm. Admission is free to the public. Libia Posada: Everything is Going Right Libia Posadaβs first solo exhibition in the United States features installations, sculptures, and drawings meticulously constructed from surgical instruments, gauze bandages, crutches, used books, and domestic picture frames. The new and existing works in the exhibition powerfully stitch together the personal, social, and political disorders and afflictions that currently trouble the world, from the wars that resonate across the globe to the violences of aging in US prisons. Gina Athena Ulysse: A Redwoods Rasanblaj: Origins & Disentanglements The internationally-lauded work of humanities professor Gina Athena Ulysse is on view as a premier Faculty Spotlight Exhibition. The site-specific installation, produced in community from things collected, found, purchased and donated, centers on the Haitian concept of rasanblaj, a form of assembly and collage that transcends the formal use of materials to draw together people, spirits, and ideas. Ronaldo V. Wilson: There Are No Words, But Melodies Collage is both a material practice and a structural interrogation in the Faculty Spotlight Exhibition artworks by literature professor Ronaldo V. Wilson. In video, painting, and installation, layers and folds conceal and reveal, delving into the experience, both bodily and emotive, of living in time
A technical training camp for theater at All About Theatre in Santa Cruz, covering skills for behind-the-scenes production.
Event date: July 22, 2026 Event Time: 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM Location: 275 Main Street, Suite #100 Watsonville, CA 95076
A regular tango class in Downtown Santa Cruz, offering a way to learn Latin dance in a social, cultural setting.
Frequency: The Secret of Everything Screening with filmmaker panel
The award-winning documentary Frequency: The Secret of Everything comes home to Santa Cruz β the community that helped create it. Evening opens with a talk by bestselling author and longtime local Dr. Bruce Lipton (The Biology of Belief), followed by the film and a Q&A panel with Lipton, Foster and Kimberly Gamble (Thrive), and filmmaker Kaia Roman (The Joy Plan). Sponsored by Coherence Education. dvance tickets recommended.
Motion Pacific: Advanced Contemporary Jazz
This is Motion Pacific's Advanced Contemporary Jazz Dance class for adults.
A weekly evening of tango in Santa Cruz, offering a chance to learn, dance, and connect with a new community.
Busy
A three-week summer theater program culminating in a full production of Moana Jr., giving participants a deeper dive into performance, character work, and stagecraft.
BEGINNING/INTERMEDIATE SEWING (6/6)
2 booked, 7 available Katy Kenyon-Abel
A one-week theater intensive where young performers rehearse and stage Moana Jr., building confidence and ensemble skills in a supportive creative environment.
CLAY INDEPENDENT LAB TIME
0 booked, 4 available Glazing
Spring Exhibitions at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences
Visit the IAS, UCSCβs premier art galleries, for our spring exhibitions. On view April 10βAugust 16, 2026 are three diverse and interdisciplinary shows: Libia Posada: Everything is Going Right , the first US solo exhibition by the Colombia-based artist and medical doctor; Gina Athena Ulysse: A Redwoods Rasanblaj , a site-specific and immersive exploration of the Haitian kreyol conception of rasanblaj; and Ronaldo V. Wilson: There Are No Words, But Melodies , a mixed-media exhibition emerging at the intersections of Black poetics, performance, and visual art. The IAS Galleries are open Wednesday-Sunday, 12 pm β 5 pm. Admission is free to the public. Libia Posada: Everything is Going Right Libia Posadaβs first solo exhibition in the United States features installations, sculptures, and drawings meticulously constructed from surgical instruments, gauze bandages, crutches, used books, and domestic picture frames. The new and existing works in the exhibition powerfully stitch together the personal, social, and political disorders and afflictions that currently trouble the world, from the wars that resonate across the globe to the violences of aging in US prisons. Gina Athena Ulysse: A Redwoods Rasanblaj: Origins & Disentanglements The internationally-lauded work of humanities professor Gina Athena Ulysse is on view as a premier Faculty Spotlight Exhibition. The site-specific installation, produced in community from things collected, found, purchased and donated, centers on the Haitian concept of rasanblaj, a form of assembly and collage that transcends the formal use of materials to draw together people, spirits, and ideas. Ronaldo V. Wilson: There Are No Words, But Melodies Collage is both a material practice and a structural interrogation in the Faculty Spotlight Exhibition artworks by literature professor Ronaldo V. Wilson. In video, painting, and installation, layers and folds conceal and reveal, delving into the experience, both bodily and emotive, of living in time
It's time to get those crayons sharpened, paints mixed and markers at the ready for our Summer 2026 PokΓ©mon Art Contest for kids 5-12! To join in, create a picture of your favorite PokΓ©mon having a fun moment or striking a cool, dynamic pose. Submissions should be on 8.5 x 11 paper. You can use any medium you like, such as paint, marker, crayon, pencil, etc. No digital art. There will be prizes awarded to two age groups, 5-7 and 8-12. Entries accepted June 1st-July 31st. Winners will be announced on August 6th. BONUS: All participants will receive a free PokΓ©mon:Chaos Rising 11x17 mini-poster (while supplies last) when you hand in your art.
Rules Are Not Neutral: Play As Sense-Making, Acts Of Resistance, And Imagining Otherwise
This exhibition brings together a range of analog games β including board, card, role-playing, and other participatory works β that engage social and political realities in different ways. The works span widely circulated commercial games to independently produced projects, one-of-a-kind artworks by artists, faculty, alumni, and students, and materials drawn from UC Santa Cruz Special Collections and Archives. In part, the exhibition challenges the persistent assumption that games and play are detached from social and political life. On the contrary, game designers and artists across diverse perspectives and positions have long used play to engage questions of social systems, lived experience, and how power operates. This exhibition does not attempt to represent that full spectrum. Instead, it brings together a particular set of works that foreground how games can make systems visible, intervene in them, and imagine alternatives. All games embody values, whether intentional or not. β Mary Flanagan , game designer and scholar Across all of these works, games are not only forms of entertainment, though they may be that as well. They are encountered in multiple ways: as objects, as systems, as artworks, and as experiences that unfold unpredictably through interaction. In each case, rules and constraints shape what participants can do. In these different forms, the works stage systems β such as housing and land ownership, capitalism, race and identity, civil rights and protest, fascism, and colonialism β in ways that are simplified and easy to see, opening space to recognize similar structures beyond the game. In this sense, the works suggest that rules are not neutral β they organize experience, distribute power, and produce meaning. Games are the art of agency. β C. Thi Nguyen , philosopher The exhibition is intentionally dense. This abundance reflects the breadth of ways games operate across contexts, from activism and education to art and everyday life. While it cel
76 more events further out
Hosting something rad?
If it's happening in person anywhere in Santa Cruz County, whether it's a show, a market, a paddle-out, or a gallery night, we want it on the calendar. Submissions are free and reviewed by our editors.
Submit your event β