Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Here is the thing about the last full weekend before Halloween. Everything decides to happen at once.
Film premiere on Colfax. Nuggets tipping off a new season. Pumpkins glowing after dark. A symphony lighting up Boettcher. And that is before you get to the beer, the Burgundy and a 1927 silent film playing in a historic park at night. So instead of making you piece it together yourself, I built the whole planner. Oct. 22 through 25. Pick your nights and go.
Runs Oct. 22 through Nov. 1, headquartered at the Sie FilmCenter, 2510 East Colfax Avenue.
This is the one that opens the weekend. Opening night is Thursday, Oct. 22, and the presentation is "I Play Rocky" via Denver Film. Most people treat the festival like a one-night thing and then forget it runs almost two full weeks. Do not do that. Opening night is where the energy is, the room is full, and the Sie on Colfax is the right size for it. Not a cavernous multiplex. An actual movie house with people who care about the movie.
And look, Colfax at night in late October has its own thing going on. You are already in the middle of the city. Make an evening of it.
Saturday, Oct. 24, at Ball Arena. The Nuggets host the New Orleans Pelicans.
This is the anchor of the whole weekend if you ask me. New season, home crowd, and the full pregame production they roll out for openers. The Skyline Drumline. The Average Joes dance squad. SuperMascot Rocky coming down from the rafters, which honestly never gets old no matter how many times you have seen it. The Denver Nuggets Dancers. And there is a themed cocktail on the Terminal Bar Patio if you want to get there early and stake out a spot before tip.
Get there early. That is the move. The pregame stuff is half the reason to show up for an opener, and if you walk in at tip you miss all of it.
Saturday, Oct. 24, from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Civic Center Park, 101 14th Avenue. "Remembering our Ancestors through Art," presented by Denver Botanic Gardens.
This runs the same afternoon as the Nuggets game, which is a scheduling gift if you think about it. Civic Center is walking distance from Ball Arena, so you can do the art, the altars and the whole Day of the Dead tribute in the park, then drift over for the game. Or just stay at Civic Center the whole time. The park setting for this one matters. Open air, the city around you, and a free public event in the middle of downtown. That is the kind of thing people in other cities would kill for and Denver just sort of has.
Oct. 23 through 25 at Boettcher Concert Hall in the Denver Performing Arts Complex.
The symphony is doing Stravinsky's "The Firebird" with Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, plus a John Williams horn concerto on the program. Three nights, Friday through Sunday. So if your Saturday is already spoken for with basketball and Día de los Muertos, you have got Friday and Sunday to catch this.
The Firebird with live dance is the pairing to go for here. Stravinsky is big and strange and gorgeous, and watching Cleo Parker Robinson Dance move to it in person is a different animal than hearing it on a speaker. And a John Williams piece in the same evening does not hurt. You know the sound even if you do not know you know it.
Oct. 21 through 24, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York St. Tickets run
Here is the detail that actually sets this one apart. Every single pumpkin is grown locally and carved in-house. That is not a crate of pumpkins trucked in from somewhere. They grow them and they carve them, and then you walk the Gardens after dark with all of it glowing. It closes out Saturday the 24th, so the last few nights are your window.
This is a great one to bring the family to early, then hand the night off to the grown-up stuff later. And the
Oct. 22 through 25 at the National Western Center.
Four days of it. Thursday through Sunday at the National Western Center, which is a serious amount of room to spread out a proper Wiesn. Beer, the whole deal. This is the one you go to when you want the full festival, not a one-hour stop. And honestly, pairing it with the weekend works because the National Western Center is up north, so it is an easy pivot if you are already moving around the metro.
Side note, between this and the Burgundy festival up in Boulder, this is a dangerous weekend for anybody who likes a drink. Which is dangerous for me.
Oct. 24 and 25, up in Boulder. Tickets start at
This is the grown-up splurge of the weekend. It opens with a dinner at the Flagstaff House, which if you have never been is perched up above Boulder with one of the best views on the Front Range, and it closes with a grand tasting of more than 60 Burgundy wines. More than sixty. That is a real tasting, not a token pour.
The
Saturday, Oct. 24, from 7 to 11 p.m. at Four Mile Historic Park, 715 South Forest Street.
This might be my favorite oddball on the list. It is at Four Mile Historic Park, which is the oldest standing structure in Denver, and they are throwing a night with DJs, drag performers and a screening of the 1927 silent film "The Unknown." A silent film from 1927, outdoors, at a historic park, with drag and DJs. That is a combination you do not see coming and that is exactly why it works.
Seven to eleven, so it is a true night event. This is the one to go to if you want something that is not the standard costume-party-at-a-bar routine. The "spirits and spirits" thing is the whole bit. Ghosts and cocktails. I respect it.
Oct. 23 through 25, from 4:30 to 9 p.m. at the Denver Zoo, 2300 Steele St.
And for the families, this is the reliable one. Three nights, late afternoon into evening, at the Denver Zoo on Steele. The zoo after dark in Halloween mode is a whole different place than the zoo at noon. If you have got kids and you want a win that does not involve explaining a silent film or a Burgundy tasting to them, this is it.
So you are not doing all nine. Nobody is. Here is how I would stack it.
Thursday, open with the film festival on Colfax. Friday, catch The Firebird at Boettcher, or get the Glow at the Gardens pumpkins in before they shut it down Saturday. Saturday is the monster day. Day of the Dead at Civic Center in the afternoon, walk over to Ball Arena for the Nuggets opener, and if you still have gas in the tank, Spirits and Spirits at Four Mile runs till eleven. Sunday, wind it down with Boo at the Zoo or the last day of Oktoberfest.
And quick real estate note, because people always ask why these neighborhoods feel like they have everything going on. It is not an accident. Civic Center, the Golden Triangle around the Performing Arts Complex, Cheesman Park next to the Botanic Gardens, these are the central pockets where walkability and events are baked right into daily life. When Hayley and I talk to folks about where to land in Denver, this is the stuff that comes up. You are not just buying a house. You are buying a walk to the symphony and a short drive to tip-off. That matters more than people realize until they live it.
Buckle up. It is a big one. Go see something.