10 things to do in Boston this weekend
BosTen is your weekly guide to not-lame events in the city.
BosTen is your weekly guide to events and cool happenings in and around Boston. Skip Netflix this weekend—here are 10 ways to get out of your home and not be bored in the city. If you’d like BosTen delivered to your inbox every Thursday, click here. Want more things to do? Check out our events calendar at boston.com/events.
HONK! Fest
The 11th annual HONK! festival returns to Somerville this weekend, with three days of rambunctious, uplifting performances. There will be more than 25 drum and brass bands playing all over Somerville on Saturday, plus a raucous parade from Davis to Harvard Square on Sunday. (Friday, October 7 from 4 p.m. to 12:20 a.m., Saturday, October 8 from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, October 9 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.; various locations; free; all ages)
Ipswich Ale Brewery and Cape Ann Brewing Co. Octoberfests
For those of you on the North Shore who have felt left out by all the Boston-centric Octoberfests, both Cape Ann Brewing Co. and Ipswich Ale Brewery are holding beer hall celebrations this Friday. Ipswich will transform the quaint Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury into an authentic German beer hall and offer a range of beers and soft pretzels. Cape Ann will host a sausage buffet and endless oompah music to pair with their own line of beers. (Ipswich: Friday, October 7 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, Newbury; $25; 21+. Cape Ann: 6:30 p.m. to 12 a.m.; the Pub at Cape Ann Brewing, Gloucester; $25; 21+)
Anthony Bourdain at Symphony Hall
The entertainingly blunt chef and TV personality is bringing his new one-man show to Boston on Saturday. Audiences can expect Bourdain to deliver a typically acerbic monologue on world cultures, street food, and his many travel adventures to the world’s hidden gems. A word of warning: According to Symphony Hall, the only seats left are ”orchestra seats behind poles, or are small obstructed-view ‘jump’ in the balcony that have very little legroom.” (Friday, October 7 at 8 p.m.; Symphony Hall; $50 GA or $250 VIP; all ages)
Pam Grier at Harvard
Pam Grier rose to prominence in the 1970s as the kickass heroine of blaxploitation movies like Foxy Brown, and later shone as the titular lead in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. This weekend, the actress will be at Harvard as one of the recipients of a W.E.B. Du Bois medal, and will participate in a conversation with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates following a Friday screening of Foxy Brown. She’ll also stick around following a screening of Jackie Brown on Saturday. (Friday, October 8 and Saturday, October 9 at 7 p.m.; Harvard Film Archive; $12 per film; all ages)
Yoga and Donuts
The most flexible yogis can contort their bodies into pretzels with ease, but Saturday’s practice at Brooklyn Boulders will feature a different doughy treat. After an invigorating two-hour vinyasa session, attendees can snack on Union Square Donuts and sip on High Brew Coffee. (Saturday, October 8 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Brooklyn Boulders Somerville; $20 for BKB members, $25 for guests; all ages)
Boston Brunch Battle
For the second straight year, some of Boston’s tastiest restaurants are facing off in a brunch battle royale, all for a good cause. Lulu’s Allston, The Living Room, The Tap Trailhouse, Row 34, and last year’s champion, Gather, are just some of the restaurants cooking up a storm to raise money for Community Servings, a local nonprofit that provides meals to individuals and families who are homebound due to an acute life-threatening illness. (Saturday, October 8 from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. District Hall; $25; 21+)
Spooky World Presents Nightmare New England
The long-running “scream park” has changed locations several times over the years, but what hasn’t changed is the fright factor. With five separate attractions spread across 80 acres in Litchfield, New Hampshire, from the Haunted Hayride to the Festival of Fear, Spooky World is hoping to scare the living daylights out of you every weekend until November 5. (Friday, October 7 through Monday, October 10, from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Spooky World; $35-40 GA, $60-65 VIP, $75-80 Super VIP; all ages)
Future Arts Festival 2016
Boston’s largest contemporary art festival will feature more than 40 artists from around the world at the Boston Center for the Arts. Along with food, drinks, and both live music and live painting, the artists will sell their artwork to benefit the Boston Children’s Hospital. (Saturday, October 8 from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m.; Boston Center for the Arts; $16 GA, $50 VIP; 21+)
Harvard Oktoberfest
The HONK! parade will finish in the midst of the 38th annual Harvard Oktoberfest, where hundreds of thousands of people will gather to sample the wares of local restaurants, head to one of the five beer gardens in Harvard Square, and listen to more than 50 bands perform. (Sunday, October 9 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.; Harvard Square; free; all ages)
Free Admission to 21 Boston Museums, Theaters, and Cultural Organizations
The Fenway Alliance is putting on its 15th annual Open Our Doors Festival, during which member organizations like the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Huntington Theatre Company, the YMCA of Greater Boston, and the Mary Baker Eddy Library open their doors for a host of free activities. Visitors can enjoy music, theater, historic tours, kids’ activities, food trucks, and more, all while taking a free shuttle from one location to another. (Monday, October 10, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; event kickoff at the Christian Science Plaza; free; all ages)
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