Verbatim Expo
October 3-4 at the Sugar Maples Center for the Arts in Maplecrest
Described as “a small press/record label fair during which each publishing entity curates a performance” by cofounder Evan Lindorff-Ellery of local avant-garde label Notice Recordings, this DIY event corrals reps from 25 indie publishers and approximately 15 live experimental acts.
Garrison Craft
October 3-4 at Garrison Art Center in Garrison
Garrison Craft marks its 56th year with more than 60 juried artisans gathered beside the Hudson River. Furniture, ceramics, jewelry, glass, photography, fiber art, woodwork, and other handmade goods fill the grounds, accompanied by pottery demonstrations, regional food vendors, and live music. Proceeds support Garrison Art Center’s local nonprofit programming.
Murray Hill and Bridget Everett
October 8 at Stissing Center in Pine Plains
Downtown showbiz veteran Murray Hill celebrates his memoir, Showbiz! My Life as a Middle-Aged Man, in conversation with longtime collaborator Bridget Everett. The “Somebody Somewhere” costars trade backstage stories while Hill—the self-proclaimed hardest-working middle-aged man in show business—deploys his familiar blend of Borscht Belt patter, camp, and comic candor.
Field + Supply
October 9-11 at Hutton Brickyards in Kingston
Launched in 2014, this sprawling modern makers’ market takes place on the west bank of the Hudson at the height of the leaf-peeping season at a covered, semi-open-air historic industrial site. Art, crafts, vintage goods, plants, locally sourced food, live music, and family fun abound. (A Woolen Affair weaves together fiber arts and roots music October 15-16.)
Kingston Design Showhouse
October 9-25 in Saugerties
Curated by the Kingston Design Connection collective, the annual Kingston Design Showhouse project sees handpicked designers each beautifying a room in a vacant house. This year’s specimen is a Saugerties home. Proceeds aid women-owned building material-reuse program Circularly.
Cirque du Creep: “Alice in Horrorland”
October 10 at The Yard in Beacon
Cirque du Creep drags Lewis Carroll through the looking glass and into an alternative night faire. “Alice in Horrorland” combines immersive scares, dark art, oddities, live tattooing, a marketplace of unconventional makers, and performances designed to mesmerize or unsettle. Wonderland was already strange; this version merely removes the remaining guardrails.
New York State Sheep and Wool Festival
October 17-18 at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck
Founded in 1980, this mammoth fest is easily one of the region’s featured fall classics. Boasting 300-plus vendors and over 30,000 visitors annually, it centers on knitters, crocheters, hand spinners, and fiber-producing livestock, with competitions, workshops, and more. A family fave.
Arlo Guthrie: An Unscripted Conversation
October 17 at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington
A stone’s throw from his own back yard, the local folk music legend will join Berkshire Magazine writer Laura Mars for an intimate evening of off-the-cuff conversation. It might be a month early to retell the “Alice’s Restaurant” tale, but the odds are strong that it’ll be discussed.
The Burning of Kingston
October 15-18 at various locations in Kingston
The Burning of Kingston returns October 15–18, bringing Revolutionary history into the streets of the Stockade District. Military reenactments, walking tours, talks, music, period demonstrations, and family programs revisit the 1777 British invasion while expanding the story to include civilians, women, Black Patriots, Indigenous people, and other overlooked local voices.
“Selected Shorts” with Griffin Dunne
October 18 at the Stissing Center for Arts and Culture in Pine Plains
The popular live NPR storytelling program takes a vacation from its regular home at Symphony Space in New York for a rare date in our area, bringing with it acclaimed actors including Griffin Dunne (“This Is Us”), Colby Minifie (“The Boys”), and Bhavesh Patel (“Not Suitable for Work”).
Rosendale International Pickle Festival
October 18 at Ulster County Fairgrounds in New Paltz
At the Rosendale International Pickle Festival, brine becomes a spectator sport. More than 100 vendors fill the Ulster County Fairgrounds with pickles, groceries, hot food, baked goods, crafts, clothing, and jewelry. Home preservers compete for pickling honors, while the Pickle Triathlon tests stomachs and hand-eye coordination through pickle-eating, pickle-juice drinking, and pickle-tossing contests. Founded in 1997, the rain-or-shine gathering draws as many as 7,000 pickle partisans each year.
Spellbound in the Valley
October 23-24 at the MJN Center in Poughkeepsie
Spellbound in the Valley returns for a second year of spooky atmosphere and bookish camaraderie. The two-day gathering brings readers together with authors for signings, discovery, and conversations, offering devoted fans a chance to meet favorite writers and curious browsers an opportunity to leave with a substantially longer reading list.
Field
October 23-25 at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox
The Berkshires gets its own ideas festival with field, an inaugural weekend gathering in Lenox devoted to conversation across literature, art, science, politics, and medicine. Participants include Jamaica Kincaid, Saidiya Hartman, Maira Kalman, Colm Tóibín, Adam Moss, Annette Gordon-Reed, Brent Staples, Ezekiel Emanuel, Carol Gilligan, Niobe Way, and Bessel van der Kolk. Inspired partly by Wales’s Hay Festival, field aims to replace celebrity worship with curiosity, intellectual rigor, and the productive collision of disparate disciplines.
Mentalist Vinny DePonto
November 6 at St. Rita’s Music Room in Beacon; December 12 at Hudson Hall in Hudson
Hudson Valley mentalist Vinny DePonto struck fame with the Off-Broadway show “Mindplay” and performances at Lincoln Center and other prestigious venues. The mind reader and magician materializes this fall for these two sure-to-be-startling nights. Get your mind read—and blown.
Stewart Copeland: “Have I Said Too Much?”
November 13 at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel
The Grammy winner, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member, and founding drummer of new wave icons the Police makes his way to our locale for an arresting night of conversation in a multimedia presentation covering his storied career. A pre-show dinner package is available.
This article appears in October 2026.
