This Weekend in Denver · October 8, 2026
Things To Do in Denver This Weekend: October 9-11, 2026
The Great American Beer Festival leaves the convention center for the first time and pours outdoors at Levitt Pavilion both days, DeeDee's Burlesque Book Club turns Sleepy Hollow into a three-night show downtown, and both Misery and SAW The Musical close on Sunday, October 9-11, 2026.
1. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at Clocktower Cabaret
DeeDee's Burlesque Book Club has been working through the canon and this round it is Washington Irving's 1820 ghost story, three nights only, Friday through Sunday at Clocktower Cabaret downtown. The troupe's Alice in Wonderland show in August sold out its 7 PM slot, so a weekend seat here is not a day-of decision. Ticketed, with show times on the Clocktower's shows page. Book Friday or Sunday if Saturday is already gone.
2. Great American Beer Festival
The Brewers Association finally took the country's biggest craft beer competition outside, and the first outdoor edition runs noon to 4 PM Saturday and Sunday at Levitt Pavilion in Ruby Hill, not the Colorado Convention Center. Tickets start at $60 for a four-hour session, so roughly $15 an hour before fees to drink one-ounce pours in open air. Saturday carries the PAIRED beer and chef pairings, Sunday brings the United Nations Taproom, and Ruby Hill has very little shade, so wear a hat.
3. Changing Landscapes: Inside Venice, Mesa Verde and Rapa Nui at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Three World Heritage sites, one argument about climate change, built out of photogrammetry projections and hands-on stations instead of wall text nobody reads. Venice, Mesa Verde and Rapa Nui, 9 AM to 5 PM, included with museum admission in City Park with on-site parking off Colorado Boulevard. It runs through January 3, 2027, which makes it the plan you can shove onto a worse weekend if this one stays warm.
4. TheBigWonderful Wine Fest sponsored by Novel RiNo
Two tasting sessions Saturday at NOVEL RiNo, 1 to 3 PM and 3:30 to 5:30, with 50-plus wines from more than 15 wineries and one-ounce pours that are unlimited inside whichever session you buy. The street festival wrapped around it is free from 1 to 6 PM: makers, food, DJ Prodigy, and Ronnie Raygun and the Big Eighties playing at 2 and 4:30. Gum Pop Presents runs it and Gum Pop Presents runs this site, so apply whatever discount you think our enthusiasm deserves. The free half does mean one person can taste while everybody else still has somewhere to be.
5. Civic Center EATS
Wednesday and Thursday only, 11 AM to 2 PM, so this one sits just outside the weekend instead of in it. More than 50 food trucks park along Bannock Street and the Civic Center meadow while the park is torn up, free to walk in, pay per item. October 15 is the last date of the year, which leaves exactly two lunches after this weekend.
6. Bright Nights at Four Mile Historic Park
Walk-through illuminated lantern displays after dark at Four Mile Historic Park near Cherry Creek, built this year at insect scale, 7 to 11 PM. Friday adds the Time and Space Traveler scavenger hunt with prizes and Saturday adds Sounds of Light, a silent disco in among the lantern menagerie. Adults are $28 in advance and $30 at the gate, youth $21 and $23, members $20, and buying ahead saves you both the walk-up premium and the risk, because weekend timed slots sell first. It runs through November 8. The warm nights do not.
7. Misery at the Arvada Center
Last weekend for the Stephen King adaptation, and the closing performance is Sunday at 1 PM with no intermission, which is the correct way to stage a story about a man who cannot leave the room. Geoffrey Kent plays Paul Sheldon and Jacque Wilke plays Annie Wilkes, with two chances Saturday at 1 and 7 PM before Sunday shuts it down. Tickets through the Arvada Center box office at 6901 Wadsworth Boulevard.
8. pARTy and Rigsby Revisited: The Arvada Center Turns 50
Free, and in the same building as two of the plays on this list, which gives the Arvada Center the best events-per-parking-spot ratio of the weekend. Saturday at 10 AM, curator Collin Parson walks Rigsby Revisited with the Rigsby family, an hour on the first solo exhibition the Center ever mounted, in 1977, at no charge. pARTy fills the Main Gallery with 18 artists for the 50th anniversary, and both shows hang through November 8.
9. SAW The Musical at the Bug Theatre
The unauthorized parody closes Sunday at the Bug Theatre in the Highlands, with two shows Saturday at 5 and 8:30 PM and the final two Sunday at 1 and 5. One operational detail trips people up here: seats are assigned at the box office rather than when you buy, so showing up early is how you end up sitting somewhere you want to sit. Under 16 gets in with a parent or guardian.
10. Corn Maze at Chatfield Farms
Read this before you buy, because maze entry comes only with Pumpkin Festival admission this weekend, not on the usual maze ticket. The 7 acres are cut as Colorado's 150th, with a columbine, a bighorn sheep and a viewing bridge so you can finally see the shape you have been lost inside. Open 9 AM to 5 PM on timed advance tickets at Chatfield Farms in Littleton, through November 2. Timed means buy it before you drive out there, not at the gate.
11. Barefoot in the Park at the Arvada Center
Neil Simon in the Black Box, which is the right size for a comedy about a tiny apartment. Katie Medved plays Corie Bratter, Saturday runs two shows at 1 and 7 PM, and Sunday is a 1 PM matinee. Unlike Misery and SAW, this one is not a last-chance weekend, since it plays through November 1, and the Center's two free gallery shows are open in the same building.
Quick answers
- What is happening in Denver this weekend, October 9-11, 2026?
- Saturday is the heaviest day: the Great American Beer Festival's first outdoor session at Levitt Pavilion from noon to 4, TheBigWonderful Wine Fest at NOVEL RiNo with free street programming from 1 to 6, the Sounds of Light silent disco inside Bright Nights at Four Mile after 7, and matinee-and-evening doubles for both Misery and Barefoot in the Park in Arvada. Sunday closes things out literally, with GABF's second session, the last performances of Misery and SAW The Musical, and the final night of Sleepy Hollow at Clocktower Cabaret. Friday belongs to Bright Nights' Time and Space Traveler scavenger hunt and opening night of the burlesque.
- What free things are there to do in Denver this weekend?
- Free this weekend: the Arvada Center's pARTy and Rigsby Revisited galleries, including Saturday's 10 AM Walk and Talk with curator Collin Parson, and Civic Center EATS on Bannock Street, though EATS is a Wednesday and Thursday lunch from 11 AM to 2 PM rather than a weekend event. The street festival portion of TheBigWonderful Wine Fest at NOVEL RiNo is also free from 1 to 6 PM Saturday, with makers, food and live music, and only the tasting sessions are ticketed. Our free edition for October 9-11 lists the rest, including Hometown Heroes Day in Aurora and La Noche Latina at Stanley Marketplace.
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