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📍 Santa Cruz County, CA

From the waves to the redwoods, it's all happening here.

Live music, festivals, art walks, surf contests, trail days and everything in between.

In-person only, on purpose. Everything here is something you can actually show up to. No screens, no streams.

★ Featured this season

Promotional image for Free Beach BBQ Parties and Concerts ★ Featured
Thu, Jul 30, 2026 · Santa Cruz Harbor Beach

Free Beach BBQ Parties and Concerts

Every Thursday throughout the summer, enjoy a family-friendly party on the beach at no charge! There will be local bands and DJs performing on the outdoor stage, providing music for dancing and socializing. There will be BBQ food and drinks for purchase all in a beachside setting providing stunning views of the ocean and Walton Lighthouse. Parking is limited in the area, so consider enjoying a free water taxi ride from other parking areas! 2026 Lineup: May 21, 2026: Sambada May 28, 2026: Space Heater June 4, 2026: James Durbin & The Lost Boys June 11, 2026: Ancestree June 18, 2026: Jive Machine June 25, 2026: Cake by the Ocean July 2, 2026: Ripatti Rose Band July 9, 2026: Extra Large July 16, 2026: Fishhook July 23, 2026: Harry & The Hitmen July 30, 2026: Matt Masih & The Messengers August 6, 2026: The Houserockers August 13, 2026: The Joint Chiefs August 20, 2026: La Familia August 27, 2026: Alex Lucero Band September 3, 2026: Sambada

Food & Drink 📍 Seabright & Harbor
Music
★ Featured
Sat, Aug 1, 2026 · Westside Locations

Chamber Choir Now Auditioning

Beati Quorum, a new and growing Ensemble, is seeking new local members. Beati Quorum is a small, hybrid professional / volunteer ensemble based in Santa Cruz. We focus on a cappella singing, Renaissance through contemporary works, and collaborations with artists from our local network to international groups. Visit www.beatiquorum.org to set up an audition today.

Music 📍 Westside
Promotional image for Cascada de Flores Coming up
Thu, Jul 30, 2026 · Downtown Branch Library

Cascada de Flores

Get ready to dance, sing, and play with Cascada de Flores! Original stories told in Spanish & English, using song, musical instruments, dance, theater, and traditional Mexican & Latin American cultures. Families are invited to sing, dance, and play with beautiful traditional songs and dances. ¡Prepárate para bailar, cantar y jugar con Cascada de Flores! Relatos originales contados en inglés y español, utilizando canción, instrumentos musicales, danza, teatro y culturas tradicionales mexicanas y latinoamericanas. Se invita a las familias a cantar, bailar y jugar con hermosas canciones y bailes tradicionales. https://santacruzpl.libnet.info/event/16233495

Music 📍 Downtown Santa Cruz
Promotional image for Cascada de Flores con Cuéntame un Cuento Coming up
Thu, Jul 30, 2026 · Live Oak Branch Library

Cascada de Flores con Cuéntame un Cuento

¡Prepárate para bailar, cantar y jugar con Cascada de Flores! Relatos originales contados en inglés y español, utilizando canción, instrumentos musicales, danza, teatro y culturas tradicionales mexicanas y latinoamericanas. Se invita a las familias a cantar, bailar y jugar con hermosas canciones y bailes tradicionales. Get ready to dance, sing, and play with Cascada de Flores! Original stories told in Spanish & English, using song, musical instruments, dance, theater, and traditional Mexican & Latin American cultures. Families are invited to sing, dance, and play with beautiful traditional songs and dances. https://santacruzpl.libnet.info/event/16225700 https://santacruzpl.libnet.info/event/16233495

Music

☀️ Happening today

Thursday, July 30

80 events on today. No plans required, just go.

12:00 AM
See listing
Summer Beer Sails
📍 Discretion Brewing
Food & Drink
1:00 AM
$500
The Dickens Universe featuring ‘Bleak House’
📍 Humanities and Social Sciences Facility
Education
8:30 AM
$300
Beginning Botany Summer Camp
📍 Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History
Family
8:30 AM
$300
World of Birds Summer Camp
📍 Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History
Outdoors
9:00 AM
$59
Dynomite Farm: Private Dahlia U-Cut Experience
📍 Dynomite Farm
Community
9:00 AM
See listing
BEGINNING/INTERMEDIATE SEWING (1/6)
📍 Santa Cruz Mountains Art Center
Community
10:00 AM
See listing
CLAY INDEPENDENT LAB TIME
📍 Santa Cruz Mountains Art Center
Art & Culture
10:00 AM
$32
Santa Cruz Beach Train
📍 Roaring Camp Railroads
Family
10:30 AM
See listing
Storytime in the Park - Books and Bikes
📍 Callaghan Park
Family

What's happening

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18 upcoming events · Music · from 2026-07-30 · to 2026-07-30

Jul
30

Cascada de Flores

📍 Downtown Branch Library
🕒 1:30 PM · See listing

Get ready to dance, sing, and play with Cascada de Flores! Original stories told in Spanish & English, using song, musical instruments, dance, theater, and traditional Mexican & Latin American cultures. Families are invited to sing, dance, and play with beautiful traditional songs and dances. ¡Prepárate para bailar, cantar y jugar con Cascada de Flores! Relatos originales contados en inglés y español, utilizando canción, instrumentos musicales, danza, teatro y culturas tradicionales mexicanas y latinoamericanas. Se invita a las familias a cantar, bailar y jugar con hermosas canciones y bailes tradicionales. https://santacruzpl.libnet.info/event/16233495

Jul
30

Cascada de Flores con Cuéntame un Cuento

📍 Capitola
🕒 4:30 PM · See listing

¡Prepárate para bailar, cantar y jugar con Cascada de Flores! Relatos originales contados en inglés y español, utilizando canción, instrumentos musicales, danza, teatro y culturas tradicionales mexicanas y latinoamericanas. Se invita a las familias a cantar, bailar y jugar con hermosas canciones y bailes tradicionales. Get ready to dance, sing, and play with Cascada de Flores! Original stories told in Spanish & English, using song, musical instruments, dance, theater, and traditional Mexican & Latin American cultures. Families are invited to sing, dance, and play with beautiful traditional songs and dances. https://santacruzpl.libnet.info/event/16225700 https://santacruzpl.libnet.info/event/16233495

Jul
30

Cascada de Flores con Cuéntame un Cuento

📍 Live Oak Branch Library
🕒 4:30 PM · See listing

¡Prepárate para bailar, cantar y jugar con Cascada de Flores! Relatos originales contados en inglés y español, utilizando canción, instrumentos musicales, danza, teatro y culturas tradicionales mexicanas y latinoamericanas. Se invita a las familias a cantar, bailar y jugar con hermosas canciones y bailes tradicionales. Get ready to dance, sing, and play with Cascada de Flores! Original stories told in Spanish & English, using song, musical instruments, dance, theater, and traditional Mexican & Latin American cultures. Families are invited to sing, dance, and play with beautiful traditional songs and dances. https://santacruzpl.libnet.info/event/16225700 https://santacruzpl.libnet.info/event/16233495

Music BIPOC Details →
Jul
30

Crow's Nest: Free Beach BBQ Parties and Concerts

📍 Santa Cruz Harbor
🕒 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM · See listing

Every Thursday throughout the summer, enjoy a family-friendly party on the beach at no charge! There will be local bands and DJs performing on the outdoor stage, providing music for dancing and socializing. There will be BBQ food and drinks for purchase all in a beachside setting providing stunning views of the ocean and Walton Lighthouse. Parking is limited in the area, so consider enjoying a free water taxi ride from other parking areas! 2026 Lineup: May 21, 2026: Sambada May 28, 2026: Space Heater June 4, 2026: James Durbin & The Lost Boys June 11, 2026: Ancestree June 18, 2026: Jive Machine June 25, 2026: Cake by the Ocean July 2, 2026: Ripatti Rose Band July 9, 2026: Extra Large July 16, 2026: Fishhook July 23, 2026: Harry & The Hitmen July 30, 2026: Matt Masih & The Messengers August 6, 2026: The Houserockers August 13, 2026: The Joint Chiefs August 20, 2026: La Familia August 27, 2026: Alex Lucero Band September 3, 2026: Sambada

Music Family Details →
Jul
30

Medicine Road

📍 Discretion Brewing
🕒 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM · See listing

5:30-7:30pm Medicine Road Throughout the course of their exciting journey as a group, the members of Medicine Road have won over the hearts of music lovers around the Bay Area, performing at a variety of venues and making countless public appearances. A talented rock band, Medicine Road has earned the admiration and affection of critics and fans alike from Santa Cruz to San Francisco. Medicine Road formed in their hometown of Boulder Creek, California in 2007. Since then they evolved into popular and versatile talented group of musicians. They consist of 4 members, Pablo Eagle (singer-songwriter, guitarist), Jonathan (Skippy) Sherred (bass guitar, vocals), Doug Underhill (drums, background vocals), and Sean Woodward (lead guitar, background vocals). The sound can be anything from psychedelic, country, hard rock, jazzy, and or folky, all in one show. The band will not and never has wanted to be one style of music, and pleases people of all ages and musical tastes. They take pride in being an original music band, and playing the music they love, and it shows! A Medicine Road show is like non other, and not to be missed!

Music Family 📍 Soquel Details →
Jul
30

Bite Me!

📍 Cat Alley Street
🕒 6:00 PM – 1:30 AM · FREE

BITE ME! No Cover • Last Thursday of Every Month Cat Alley Street (upstairs above The Catalyst) – Santa Cruz https://catalleystreet.com A high-energy Goth / Industrial / Deathrock / EBM / Techno night in a swanky new vampire venue. THE DANCE CHAMBER Be among the first to experience our brand-new, state-of-the-art sound system. Our DJs will make you shake your fine goth ass from 6 PM onward. THE BAR Exclusive Bite Me cocktails, including the Banshee and London After Midnight. THE LOUNGE A cozy, quieter space across from the bar featuring hand-picked furnishings curated by the Baron's cat of Cat Alley Street himself. Plus the Macabre Makers Faire: • Jewelry and clothing makers • Tintype photography • Goth makeovers • Other dark delights BEST DRESSED Select free drink tickets awarded to our most impeccably dressed guest vampires. COME EARLY DJs start at 6 PM, and our new kitchen will be serving pizza. Vampires may not be assumed to eat human pizza, but trust the cat, it’s totally worth it! We’ve created a beautiful, comfortable, and welcoming vampire lounge and can’t wait to share it with the greater Goth community and kind-hearted misfits of all sorts. Fly upstairs. Last Thursday of each month. Bite Me!

Jul
30

a show!

📍 SubRosa Community Space, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA
🕒 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM · See listing

Whatchadoin Thursday July 30th? - how about going to a show at SubRosa with… * CASINO YOUTH ** BEAUTIFUL FREAKS *** NOTHING OVER SILENCE **** UTILITY CARD 7pm - 10pm // $15 at door - notaflof!* // all-ages // dry space // safe(r) space // anti-capitalist space // respect the space and each other! *no one turned away for lack of funds SubRosa is at 703 Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, CA —@@@@@— 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. Let’s 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 of projects that support skill-sharing, appropriate re/use of resources, and interconnected, creative communities - since 1994! More about the Hub is at linktree in bio @santacruzhub Arushi bottomline

Jul
30

Bargetto Winery's Thursday Night Music

📍 Bargetto Winery
🕒 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM · FREE

Join us at Bargetto Winery in Soquel on Thursday evenings for Live Music and Wine! 6-8PM No cover charge. Wine by-the-glass for purchase. Food will be available for purchase. Open seating, no reservations required. No outside food is permitted. For more info please call: (831) 475-2258

Jul
30

The Joint Chiefs LIVE at Thursday Night Music!

📍 Soquel
🕒 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM · See listing

Join us at Bargetto Winery in Soquel on Thursday evenings for Live Music and Wine! 6-8PM No cover charge. Wine by-the-glass for purchase. Food will be available for purchase by ItaliaFire Open seating, no reservations required. No outside food is permitted. For more info please call: (831) 475-2258 ext. 110

Jul
30

Musical Storytelling: MLK's Legacy Through the Lens of Music

📍 Civic Auditorium
🕒 6:15 PM – 6:45 PM · See listing

On August 1st, composer James Lee III’s piano concerto Shades of Unbroken Dreams will receive its West Coast premiere at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. The concerto is inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, and the “shades” that Lee refers to “represent the various people of color who aspire to be part of that great dream.” Before the premiere, in a pre-rehearsal talk on July 30, Lee will speak with Dr. David H. Anthony III, Professor Emeritus of African History, about the piece’s connection to the rhetoric of MLK’s iconic words, and the ability of music to speak powerfully to history, as a crucial agent of social and cultural discourse. Free and open to the public.

Jul
30

Steve Abrams at The Alley-Oop

📍 The Alley-Oop
🕒 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM · FREE

Steve Abrams has been a mainstay on the jazz and Afro-Cuban music scene in the Bay Area for over 25 years. His groups have performed at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and the San Jose International Jazz Festival and others. His New Zealand sextet, Pleasure Point, has performed at the Nelson International Jazz Festival, the Tauranga National Jazz Festival, the Manawatu Jazz Festival and the Wellington International Jazz Festival. Steve is also a musical director and accompanist for Mountain Community Theater and Little People’s Repertory Theater in Ben Lomond. He has a BA in Music from UCLA, with an emphasis on arranging and African drumming, and teaches piano and flute at his home in Ben Lomond.

Music Free Details →
Jul
30

Escaping Queens

📍 Santa Cruz Actors' Theatre
🕒 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM · $16

A story written by Capitola’s 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 father’s 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 Oritz’s own memoir, Pastina—My Father’s Misfortune, My Mother’s 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 parents’ mistakes. -Shelly Novo; Good Times Santa Cruz

Jul
30

Moe's Alley Presents: The Cash Box Kings with special guest Aki Kumar

📍 Moe's Alley
🕒 8:00 PM · See listing

Jump blues, small-band swing and R&B are all ingredients in the stew that came to be known as rock ‘n’ roll. This music of Cash Box Kings builds on those foundations, adding a healthy helping of the blues (Chicago style) into the mix. Distorted harmonica, shouted vocals, beefy horn sections and a rhythm section that won’t quit are the hallmarks of this spirited outfit from the windy city. As exemplified on their latest release, Oscar’s Motel, it’s all lovingly done with a lot of style and – more importantly – love and understanding. Bay Area blues sensation Aki Kumar is also on the bill. -Bill Kopp; Good Times Newspaper

Music Adults 21+ 📍 Midtown Details →

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