category: Allston/Brighton

The 40 Biggest Festivals and Events Coming to Boston in Spring 2019

By: - Tuesday, Mar 19, 2019 - 2:34pm

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March 20th marks the official first day of spring, the best season in Boston. OK, fall is probably number one because the weather is just as good and there’s football and foliage. And in the summer you can go to the beach and ride the T without getting hit in the face by some college kid’s backpack. But we can all agree spring is in the top three seasons. Here’s 40 of the biggest events and festivals coming to Boston in the next three months. (more…)

New Year’s Eve in Boston: The Ultimate Guide

By: - Wednesday, Dec 19, 2018 - 1:30am
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Photo by Lei Han / Creative Commons 2.0

It happens earlier every year: That first group text asking “Any New Year’s plans?” Or you’re walking through a mall with an extremely well-curated holiday playlist and hear the Orioles classic “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” and realize you don’t have an answer. Let’s do something about that: Here’s our guide to ringing in 2019 in style, on any budget. (more…)

The Ten Spring-iest Spring Events in Boston (Because Spring is Seriously Almost Here)

By: - Tuesday, Mar 20, 2018 - 12:57pm

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Today is the first day of spring. Another nor’easter is on its way to dump even more snow on top of three blizzards worth of old snow. Both of those things are true. But it’s also true that any day now it’s going to warm up and all this snow is going to melt and you’re going to forget all about winter like it was a bad date. So take today to mark your calendar with ten of Boston’s biggest and best annual spring events that will be here before you know it. (more…)

30 Free Things to Do in Boston in November

By: - Tuesday, Oct 31, 2017 - 4:31pm

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We start off November with a Halloween hangover and finish it in the middle of the holiday season. In between, there are plenty of free things to do around Boston. Check out our picks and save your money for Black Friday sales or Christmas shopping.  (more…)

100 Halloween Events (for Grown-Ups) in Boston

By: - Thursday, Oct 19, 2017 - 1:33am

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Halloween’s pretty great as a kid: Your whole objective in life is getting candy, and it’s the one day a year everyone is giving it away for free. But as an adult? It’s an excuse to party extra hard and put on a mask. (I mean, besides the figurative mask you wear every day just go get through life in 2017.) Here’s 100 ways to celebrate Halloween around Boston.

Above photo via reddit Boston.

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30 Free Things to do in Boston in October

By: - Wednesday, Oct 4, 2017 - 12:39pm

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October isn’t just one of Boston’s best months for weather, it’s also home to some of the area’s best free events, from Somerville’s Honk! festival to the Head of the Charles Regatta. Here’s our monthly recap of the best free things to do in Boston this month. (And because it’s October, don’t miss our picks for pumpkin and apple and picking and Halloween events around Boston.) (more…)

50 Free Things to do in Boston in September

By: - Wednesday, Aug 30, 2017 - 5:57pm

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Whether you’re a student moving back to town or just feel like one after a summer spending splurge, everyone loves free things to do. From Allston Christmas to free museums, street fairs and cultural festivals, here’s 50 free events to keep your calendar — and your wallet — full through September. (more…)

100 March Events Around Boston

By: - Thursday, Mar 2, 2017 - 3:20pm
Screen Shot 2017-03-02 at 3.18.44 PMPhoto by @yayitsyanan via @thebostoncal

March is here! Break out your light jacket. Or your winter coat. Or shorts and a T-shirt. I don’t know, March is weird. Make the most of the moodiest month with our picks for 100 things to do around Boston — concerts, theater and film, food and drink, fitness, festivals and more.  (more…)

125 Halloween Events (for Grown-ups) around Boston

By: - Thursday, Oct 27, 2016 - 10:10am

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Kids get one night to party on Halloween — you get all week. (Image source.)

What’s the difference between Halloween as a kid and Halloween as an adult? There’s alcohol, for one thing. And more creative costumes. But most importantly: Halloween as a kid lasted one day, but now you get at least three or four nights to party. Here’s our ultimate list of everything happening over Halloweekend in Boston. 
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Things to do in Boston: Sept. 29 to Oct. 5

By: - Wednesday, Sep 28, 2016 - 6:57pm
tbc__newsletterPhoto by Wenjie Qiao | Creative Commons

October gets a lot of love as the best month of the year in Boston, so get out and enjoy the weather, the festivals, and our sports teams just owning everyone. Here’s everything going on around the city this week.

* If you’ve never seen the Chicken Slacks play a Thursday night at the Cantab, what are you even doing here, man. What concerts are you going to, artists you heard on the radio? Come on. The band celebrates its 11th anniversary of holding it down in Central Square with a combination of old school funk/R&B and strong mixed drinks that are guaranteed to get you out on the dance floor. 9.29. 9:30p. $6

* The HUBweek festival keeps rolling this week (like a wheel, get it, wheels have hubs) showcasing Boston’s innovation, creativity, and ability to throw a pretty good party when we need to. The week’s biggest social event, Celebrate Boston takes over six floors of the WeWork South Station building Thursday for the kind of not-stuffy night where you won’t feel bad for partying a little at a networking event or for networking a little at a party. Then the festival wraps up Saturday with a warehouse party in the South End featuring Brew the Charles, which is exactly what you’re afraid it is: six local breweries making beer from the Charles River. It’s filtered by a water tech company in Newton, so you can take a big sip and say “I love that dirty water!” and you’ll really mean it. 9.29 + 10.1. Various times, prices

* The fall edition of ArtWeek Boston is back with ten days of mostly free events (yeah that’s more than a week, give ‘em a break they’re artists not mathematicians). The festivities kick off at Thursday’s free Party on the Greenway, a block party meets nighttime arts festival featuring one-of-a-kind musical performances at Rings Fountain, food trucks, games, artistic activations and more. ArtWeek events begin Friday, check the website or the list below for more events. 9.29. 6p. FREE

* If you stopped at the phrase “artistic activations” in that last sentence and wondered if that was just a fancy way to say “art” then yeah, basically. It’s like the neighborhood is a gift card on the shelf before you bring it to the cashier (the artist) and they swipe it (make art) so it’s not worthless anymore. Artists are activating Franklin Park for Saturday’s Franklin Park Art Grove with sculptural installation, music, performance, and dance. And food, because who doesn’t love a picnic on a nice fall Saturday. 10.1. 12p. FREE

* It’s getting to be that time of year when we scare ourselves on purpose, at least a kind of superficial scare that temporarily takes our minds off the existential dread that plagues us all. The Imaginary Beasts ensemble’s production of Angela Carter’s ‘The Fall River Axe Murderers’ at the BCA Black Box Theatre takes a closer look at the tale of Lizzie Borden, Fall River’s second most famous resident, after Emeril. 10.1 to 10.22. Various times. $24

* Yeah, when I was a teen, Emeril was that dude. Sure he didn’t have tattoos or a drug problem like cool chefs, but he made cooking look fun. And now I cook myself restaurant quality meals almost every night. Why am I talking about food right now? Because (segue alert) the Globe’s Let’s Talk About Food festival serves up a day-long smorgasbord of fine food, cooking demonstrations and discussions Saturday in Copley Square. Let’s talk about food, baby! / Let’s talk about umami / Let’s talk about all the gouda, the bad…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. 10.1. 9a. FREE

* If you like barbecue, or you’re at least barbecurious, this one’s for you: East Cambridge’s Smoke This Rib Fest pits (get it, barbecue pits) some of the city’s cue-masters for the title of best ribs in town. There’s also live music from Ali McGuirk, Roy Sludge Trio, Vapors of Morphine and more. Lately when something starts going well for me, I’ll say “Oh yeah, now we’re cooking with gas.” I highly recommend it, except at the barbecue festival where cooking on a gas grill is a total amateur move. 10.2. 12p. $25 tasting ticket or pay as you go

* The idea of combining music with visuals in a planetarium has been around for decades, probably ever since the first time someone got high and realized it would be even cooler if they were playing Pink Floyd in there instead of an astronomy lecture. Sunday’s special ArtWeek presentation of SubSpace: Prince at the Museum of Science fuses the sounds of one of music’s greatest icons with stunning and inventive visuals on the dome of the Charles Hayden Planetarium. 10.2. 6p. $12

More events that don’t suck: