Vendors and festivalgoers line the streets during the Solano Avenue Stroll in 2016. Credit: Bob Johnston

Never miss local events! Sign up for Berkeleyside’s arts and culture newsletter, The Scene. And check out our roundup of affordable things to do anytime in Berkeley.

🚶 The 50th annual Solano Avenue Stroll — which stretches through Berkeley and Albany — returns with over 400 vendors offering up food, art, entertainment, government and nonprofit resources. Free shuttles will run from North Berkeley BART station, and free bicycle valet parking will be available. (Stop by Berkeleyside’s booth near Modoc Street and say hello!) Sunday, Sept. 13, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. FREE

🎶 Berkeley’s Kai Eckhardt, one of the world’s most highly regarded electric bassists, introduces his new all-star band Swamp Lotus with Berkeley drummer Scott Amendola, guitarist Chris Paul Robinson and keyboardist Oz Ezzeldin (who performed extensively with Eckhardt in the world jam band Garaj Mahal). Thursday. Sept 10. 7:30 p.m. Wyldflowr Arts (Oakland). $20-$30

🇲🇽🎥 🇺🇸 Live Tejano music by Miguel Govea (aka father of La Doña), tamales, and a 50th anniversary screening of Les Blank and Chris Strachwitz’s landmark documentary about music and culture along the U.S.-Mexico border, “Chulas Fronteras” accompanies the opening of a student-curated multimedia exhibition “Chulas Fronteras: Narrating Sound and Space on the Border.” Friday, Sept. 11, 7 p.m. Morrison Hall Room 242. FREE

👠 Berkeley Playhouse’s 2026-27 season begins with a production of “Legally Blonde: The Musical,” where Elle Woods gets into Harvard Law to attempt to win back her ex-boyfriend, but in the process, she bucks against the trope of ditzy blonde girls to become a successful lawyer. (“What, like it’s hard?”) Show runs from Sept. 11 through Oct. 11. $23-$60

🎶 Dandy Boy Records, an Oakland-based music label promoting local music, is celebrating five years of its inception with Dandy Fest ‘26, a three-day festival featuring 10 bands ranging from synth-pop to garage punk. Friday-Sunday, Sept. 11-13. Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m. 1974 Shattuck Ave. $10 suggested donation

🥞 To celebrate the first meal of the day, Nosh is cooking up its inaugural BreakFest, featuring Bay Area food vendors and makers, live demonstrations and a hot sauce competition where attendees can vote for their favorite amongst multiple Bay Area hot sauce makers. Saturday, Sept. 12, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Hammerling Wines. FREE

🌿 Learn how to tincture herbs to extract the beneficial properties of plants into a shelf-stable solution. Saturday, Sept. 12, 10 a.m. Berkeley Herbal Center. $40

🍵 It’s tea time on Fourth Street at Tea Collection. The shop’s grand opening celebration features an all-day scavenger hunt with prizes, a gift with purchases (while supplies last), and a bevy of family activities, including live music and puppets with Mr. Elephant from 3-5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 12, 10:30 a.m.–6 p.m. Tea Collection. FREE

🛹 The city of Berkeley is hosting an all-ages skateboarding jam in celebration of Terrence McCrary Jr. (otherwise known as T-Mack), the late skateboarding mentor for Berkeley kids. The jam includes open skating and a skateboarding contest, as well as a raffle for skate gear, food, live music and a cardboard art contest for works that best commemorate T-Mack. Saturday, Sept. 12, noon-4 p.m. 711 Harrison St. FREE

🖌️ Explore how to reuse natural materials in a workshop where you can participate in a guided walk to gather fallen plant materials, then learn to construct art brushes to use with sumi and India ink on paper. Saturday, Sept. 12, 2 p.m. 2210 Harold Way. $35 (no one turned away for lack of funds)

🐖🐇🐐🐢A fine opportunity to introduce kids to our animal friends, including an alpaca, a potbelly pig, a tortoise, goats, sheep, chickens, ducks and bunnies (all accompanied by trained animal carers), the Little Explorers Petting Zoo is designed for small group encounters via timed entry with five-minute slots for petting. Saturday, Sept. 12, 2:30-4:30 p.m. North Branch Library. FREE (registration required)

🌊 Berkeley Art Center presents its latest exhibition, “I see every wave,” featuring works from three artists that explore mindfulness, close reading, caring gesture and the importance of noticing the play of light and surface across our surroundings in nature. Exhibition is on display from Sept. 12 through Nov. 22. FREE

🎨 MintPress, an underground art studio and gift shop, holds jazz and paint nights every other Saturday. All materials are provided, and you can bring your own snacks and light refreshments (except alcohol). Next workshop is on Saturday, Sept. 12, 9 p.m. 2466 Bancroft Way. $15

💀🎸 A new monthly music series in the Ashby BART-adjacent Chapel of the Flowers, produced by Mr. Hat, kicks off with Shred is Dead, guitarist and vocalist Marcus Rezak’s quartet focusing on instrumental and vocal versions of material from the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Band songbooks. A patio social hour hosted by CBCB Dispensary follows the show at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 13, 3 p.m. Berkeley Chapel of the Flowers. $18-$50

🥁 A thrilling quintet that has forged a singularly propulsive fusion of jazz, funk, bhangra and Bollywood, Sunny Jain’s Wild Wild East is powered by the namesake leader’s deep dhol and trap set grooves with the Carnatic-inflected vocals and violin of Rini Raghavan. Sunday, Sept. 13, 7 p.m. The Freight. $44-$49

🎥 The latest installment in the monthly activist-centric When We Win film series features Bernadine Mellis’s “The Forest For the Trees,” a portrait of the late Earth First! co-founder Judi Bari and her  1990 “Redwood Summer” campaign to stop logging in Northern California’s old-growth redwood forests. Tuesday, Sept. 15, 7:30 p.m. La Peña Cultural Center. $5-$25

🎥 The debut feature documentary from Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, “Sugarcane,” follows an investigation into the history of abuse at an Indian residential school in British Columbia. The first Indigenous North American filmmaker ever nominated for an Academy Award, NoiseCat discusses the film after the screening. Wednesday, Sept. 16, 7 p.m. Brower Center. $20

🗓️ See more things to do in Oakland and Richmond. And check out our big list of affordable things to do anytime in Berkeley. Sign up for our weekly arts and culture newsletter, The Scene.

If there’s an event you’d like us to consider for this roundup, email us at the-scene@berkeleyside.org. The deadline to submit events for Around Berkeley is end-of-day Monday. If there’s an event that you’d like to promote on our calendar, you can use the self-submission form on our events page.

…We rely on your support

We know that most readers don’t get to the end of the article. But you did! To support our in-depth, rock-solid reporting, please consider making a donation to our nonprofit newsroom today. We rely on our readers — particularly the ones who read the whole story!

“*” indicates required fields