A year of festivals in Grand Rapids

On the last weekend of September, there is both an art competition running all over downtown and a beer tent going at Riverside Park. ArtPrize and OktoberfestGR overlap this year, and that collision is a fair picture of the calendar here — there is almost always something on, and more of it than you would expect happens when it's cold.

Grand Rapids runs more than a dozen annual festivals and events. ArtPrize is the one people outside Michigan have heard of, and this year it runs September 18 through October 3, with preview week the week before. But no single one of them tells the whole story. Those festivals are not an accident — it's what a city looks like when it's growing and decides to put that same energy back into the people who live here.

Fall

ArtPrize takes over downtown for sixteen days. Paintings, sculptures, and installations go up in bars, hotel lobbies, museums, or church basements. If you can dream it, somewhere in Downtown Grand Rapids has it up.

With venues all over the city, you don't visit ArtPrize so much as you find yourself inside it. You end up covering the ~640 acres of downtown on foot in a way you never would've otherwise.

If you only manage one of those weekends, take the middle one. September 25 and 26 is Oktoberfest, so one trip will get you both. You'll leave tired, but with a huge smile on your face.

From there the season turns into a run of food and drink. Beer City Brewers Fest lands on October 3 — the same day ArtPrize closes. Restaurant Week runs across the first half of November, and the Grand Rapids International Wine, Beer and Food Festival fills DeVos Place on November 20 and 21.

Winter

That'll bring us to winter, when everyone has a routine. If yours doesn't involve getting outside that's a habit worth breaking. I know most big cities in Michigan go quiet from November to March — the events stop and everybody stays in. Grand Rapids scheduled straight into those months instead.

You like Christmas? Well you can experience international Christmas without using a plane or driving to Disney. Frederik Meijer Gardens holiday displays run from late November through the end of the year. See Christmas trees and read about Christmas traditions from all around the world. Christkindl Markt at the Downtown Market gives you the feel of a real German Christmas market in December. Hot chocolate, nut crackers, and an aesthetic that makes you wonder you're in Bavaria.

In January World of Winter runs light and art installations for you to enjoy all over downtown; you'll spend time enjoying the night with friends and forget all about the cold you're standing in. You look up and you see something or someone lit up and bright enough to give you the fuel to push through February. Find the fire dancer, feel the crisp air on your cheeks, dance with friends at the silent disco and reframe the rest of winter.

I'm not going to pretend the winters are short. They aren't. But there's a difference between a city that endures winter and a city that programs during it. Give yourself a winter in Grand Rapids and you'll understand what I mean.

Spring

March does the heavy lifting. Irish off Ionia takes the Saturday nearest St. Patrick's Day. LaughFest brings comedy to venues around town the same month. It's run by Gilda's Club, which provides cancer and grief support, as well as a youth program here in Grand Rapids. A comedy festival and a support organization being the same outfit is not a pairing you run into often.

Feel free to skip April and come celebrate my birthday with me - it's an open invite - and check out the annual Amway River Bank Run. It's always the second Saturday in May. A 25K through the city with 10K, 5K and walking distances alongside it, and it takes over a good part of downtown for the morning.

Summer

Festival of the Arts closes downtown streets in early June for a long weekend of culture and culinary adventure. The GR Pride Festival follows the same month, put on by the Grand Rapids Pride Center, it's another one with a year-round organization behind it rather than a weekend committee.

Then late August belongs to the river. Return to the River is all about music, food, and art on the riverfront the city of Grand Rapids is actually redeveloping (crews are pulling four low-head dams out of the Grand right now, after eighteen years of planning). It's the last real outdoor weekend before fall arrives and the trees start to change their color.

Return to the River is an excuse to make life simple: it's two days, it's free, you'll see amazing installations and it asks nothing of you at all. Not every festival should make you feel drained.

Putting it in your calendar

Every one of these is annual and most hold roughly the same slot year to year, so they're worth putting straight into your own calendar now. As for what's on between them: concerts, comedy and shows at the big venues, updated hourly — I keep a running calendar of it here.

The other two posts in this series — a football Saturday and a Sunday — are the ordinary-weekend version of the same year.

The point

Every city has summer festivals. That part is easy, and everywhere does it. Cities with ~200,000-250,000 people typically don't emphasize them the same way Grand Rapids does. This city does it all year round, even in February.

And if you are thinking about moving to a new place — more space, a different neighborhood, finally out of the rental — send me a message. We can grab a coffee, hit one of these festivals, and talk real estate or I'll tell you what your place is worth.

Looking forward to it!