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.
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
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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.
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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
Wednesday, July 2263 events on today. No plans required, just go.
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Filter by category, date, or area. Everything listed is in person, county-wide.
Showing 30 of 107 upcoming events Β· Art & Culture Β· from 2026-07-22 Β· to 2026-07-29
GARDEN TOTEMS: HANDBUILDING (3/5)
0 booked, 14 available Noelle Lightbourne
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.
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
Event date: July 22, 2026 Event Time: 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM Location: 2021 Freedom Blvd Freedom, CA 95019 Watsonville, CA 95076
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.
A one-week theater intensive where young performers rehearse and stage Moana Jr., building confidence and ensemble skills in a supportive creative environment.
BEGINNING/INTERMEDIATE SEWING (6/6)
2 booked, 7 available Katy Kenyon-Abel
CLAY INDEPENDENT LAB TIME
0 booked, 4 available Glazing
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
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.
Step into the MAH's Archives Reading Room during our weekly Open Archives hours. Meet the archivist, see a unique item from the collection on display, and discover where Santa Cruz history is preserved. Please note: Open Archives is an informal drop-in experience, not a time for in-depth research appointments. If you'd like to schedule research time, please contact us in advance by email or phone. We usually pop open the archives every week-though every now and then we take a break. For more information, email [email protected]
A technical training camp for theater at All About Theatre in Santa Cruz, covering skills for behind-the-scenes production.
Tech CafΓ©: Ipad Stop Motion Movies
Event date: July 23, 2026 Event Time: 04:30 PM - 06:30 PM Location: 275 Main Street, Suite #100 Watsonville, CA 95076
Are you interested in learning about technology? Visit us during our weekly Tech CafΓ© program where you have the opportunity to get basic tech-related questions answered and test a new piece of technology. This program will take place on Thursdays from 4:30-6:30pm at the Main Library (unless otherwise indicated). The technology we demo will change each month; here is a list of what technology will be featured: - January (program starts on the 15th): Doodle Pens - February: Makey Makeys (circuit boards) - March: 3D Printer - April: Spheros (programmable robots) - May: Cricut - June: Glowforge - laser cutter (This program will take place at the Freedom Branch) - July: iPad Stop Motion movies - August: Spheros (programmable robots) - September: 3D Printer - October: Doodle Pens - November: Cricut - December: Makey Makeys (circuit boards) Audience: All Ages ΒΏLe interesa aprender sobre tecnologΓa? VisΓtanos durante nuestro programa semanal Tech CafΓ©, donde tendrΓ‘s la oportunidad de obtener respuestas a preguntas bΓ‘sicas relacionadas con la tecnologΓa y probar una nueva tecnologΓa. Este programa se llevarΓ‘ a cabo los jueves de 4:30 a 6:30pm en la Biblioteca Principal (a menos que se indique otro horario o lugar). La tecnologΓa que mostraremos cambiarΓ‘ cada mes; las tecnologΓas que se presentarΓ‘n: - enero (el programa comienza el dΓa 15): Doodle Pens - febrero: Makey Makeys (placas de circuitos) - marzo: Impresora 3D - abril: Spheros (robots programables) - mayo: Cricut - junio: Glowforge - cortadora lΓ‘ser (este programa se llevarΓ‘ a cabo en la sucursal Freedom) - julio: iPad Stop Motion (pelΓculas) - agosto: Spheros (robots programables) - septiembre: Impresora 3D - octubre: Doodle Pens - noviembre: Cricut - diciembre: Makey Makeys (placas de circuitos) Audiencia: Para todas las edades
Tech CafΓ©: iPad Stop Motion Movies
Learn to create stop-motion movies using iPads at Watsonville Main Library. Part of a weekly Tech Cafe series.
A weekly Congo dance class in Santa Cruz. Participants learn traditional African dance movements in a group setting at The 418 Project.
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.
Motion Pacific: Adult Intermediate Modern
This is Motion Pacific's Adult Intermediate Modern class for adult dancers.
INSPIRED BY NATURE: BEGINNING HANDBUILDING (4/5)
0 booked, 7 available Kathryn Pierno
Bookshop Santa Cruz: Daniel Mason | COUNTRY PEOPLE
FREE IN-STORE EVENT: Bookshop welcomes Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason (North Woods) for a reading and signing of his new novel Country Peopleβa rollicking, lyrical year in the life of a family as they strike out into the unknown (aka Vermont), leaving all of the comforts of home behind.
A story written by Capitolaβs very own, Joe Ortiz, comes to life at The SC Actors Theatre. Escaping Queens follows an immigrant family as they navigate the challenges of poverty and a fatherβs problems with gambling, alcohol, and women. This funny, edgy, ultimately hopeful musical paints a cast of colorful characters, from neighborhood bookies to a doo wop group to all the shades and personalities in a mixed Italian and Puerto Rican family. Based on Oritzβs own memoir, PastinaβMy Fatherβs Misfortune, My Motherβs Good Soup, the emotional turbulence of navigating an escape from New York is presented as a compelling and sophisticated story that asks if children are fated to repeat their parentsβ mistakes. -Shelly Novo; Good Times Santa Cruz
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