|
The Quad Cities Weekender
Fifty Bands on One Museum Lawn 🎵
October 1 – 7, 2026
|
|
|
Saturday is basically the whole week. Fifty-plus folk acts on four stages at Sharlot Hall, a car show filling Watson Lake Park, and a horse parade coming down out of the Granite Dells into Whiskey Row.
The Plaza has the fall craft show both days, artists open their private studios across the Quad Cities, Mayer throws its 64th Gold Rush Festival, and Brit Floyd closes things out at the arena on Wednesday. You are going to have to choose.
|
|
|
⭐ This Week's Headliner
42nd Folk Music Festival
Sat Oct 3 · gates 9:00 am, music from 10:00 am • Sharlot Hall Museum
Forty-two years of this one. More than 50 groups play across four stages on the museum grounds, starting at ten in the morning and running until the whole thing winds down at five.
Food, activities, and room to wander between stages. Gates open at nine, so you can drop in for an hour or stay for the day and decide which halfway through.
|
|
|
🎉 The Big Ones
|
Prescott Fall Arts & Crafts Show
Sat & Sun, Oct 3 & 4
9:00 am
Yavapai County Courthouse Plaza
|
|
Mayer Daze Gold Rush Festival
Sat, Oct 3
parade 10:00 am, then all day
Historic Downtown Mayer
|
|
Cruise to the Pines Car Show
Sat, Oct 3
8:00 am roll-in
Watson Lake Park
|
|
Fall Fest
Sat, Oct 3
11:00 am to 4:00 pm
Prescott Valley Civic Center
|
|
Yavapai Health & Wellness Expo
Sat, Oct 3
9:00 am to 4:00 pm, free
Pine Ridge Marketplace
|
|
Pumpkin Fest & Corn Maze
Every day this week
7:00 am to 7:00 pm
Mortimer Farms, Dewey
|
|
|
☕ Mornings Out
|
Prescott Farmers Market
Sat, Oct 3
7:30 am to noon
Miller Valley lot, Dignity Health YRMC
|
|
All Horse Parade & Roughriders Ride
Sat, Oct 3
9:30 am
Granite Dells down to Whiskey Row
|
|
Coffee & Cars at Outlaw Donuts
Sun, Oct 4
6:30 am to 8:30 am
Outlaw Donuts, W Goodwin St
|
|
Audubon Monthly Bird Walk
Sat, Oct 3
8:00 am to 10:00 am
Watson Woods Riparian Preserve
|
|
|
🎸 Music & Stage
|
Ottmar Liebert with Luna Negra
Sat, Oct 3
7:00 pm
Elks Theatre & Performing Arts Center
|
|
Arizona Philharmonic: Beethoven & Mozart
Sun, Oct 4
3:00 pm
Ruth Street Theater
|
|
It Don't Come Easy: After the Beatles
Fri, Oct 2
7:00 pm
Elks Theatre & Performing Arts Center
|
|
Brit Floyd
Wed, Oct 7
doors 6:00 pm, show 7:00 pm
Findlay Toyota Center
|
|
|
🎨 Arts, History & Outdoors
|
Prescott Area Artist Studio Tour
Fri to Sun, Oct 2 to 4
10:00 am to 4:00 pm daily, free
Private studios across the Quad Cities
|
|
Living History Adventure at Fort Whipple
Sat, Oct 3
10:00 am to 3:00 pm, free
Fort Whipple Museum
|
|
Night Hike: Thumb Butte Trail
Thu, Oct 1
5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
Thumb Butte Recreation Area
|
|
Dogtoberfest
Sun, Oct 4
10:00 am to 3:00 pm
Watson Lake Park
|
|
|
💡 Spotlight
|
|
This week's spotlight on
The 4K planetarium on Willow Creek Road
|
|
|
|
The 4K planetarium on Willow Creek Road
Embry-Riddle has a full planetarium on its Prescott campus, and a lot of people who have lived here for years have never been inside it. It seats 116 and projects in 360 degrees at 4K.
It is not a campus-only thing. Public shows run most weekends, and this Saturday at 2:00 pm it is Superpower Dogs, ten dollars a seat. Building 76, the STEM building, at 3700 Willow Creek Road. Lots A and B are held for guests during shows, seats are booked online, and sold-out shows run a standby line.
|
|
|
🚗 Worth the Drive
|
Williams, and the 9:30 out of the depot
About an hour and a half north, up 89 to Ash Fork then east on I-40
Williams is the stretch of Route 66 that still looks like Route 66. Something over six blocks of historic buildings and shops, walkable end to end in an afternoon.
The Grand Canyon Railway leaves the 1908 depot at 233 N. Grand Canyon Blvd every morning at 9:30 and is back in Williams at 5:45. That is your whole day, and you never once go looking for parking at the South Rim.
If the train is more day than you want, Bearizona sits at 1500 E. Route 66 and is open seven days a week, 9:00 to 4:00. Most of it you see from the car.
|
|
|
📖 Worth the Read
|
|
The mayor on the horse
A two-minute read
There is a man on a horse in the middle of the Courthouse Plaza, and most people who walk past him every week could not tell you his name.
He is Buckey O'Neill, and he was the young mayor of Prescott when the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898. He led Arizona soldiers to Cuba and he fell on the battlefield there.
Nine years later the town put up the bronze. The sculptor was Solon H. Borglum, whose brother Gutzon would go on to carve Mount Rushmore. The Sharlot Hall Days Past account of the 1907 dedication records that Prescott business stopped for the day so that every citizen could attend, with Rough Rider veterans, Civil War veterans, military bands and civic leaders all turning out for it.
You can go stand at it this week without planning anything at all. That statue is the meeting point for the Prescott History Tour every morning at ten and the Ghost Tour every evening at seven, so there is nearly always somebody there.
Source: Sharlot Hall Museum Days Past, “Group to Repeat 1907 Dedication of Rough Rider Monument” by Warren Miller
|
|
|
The Local Question
Why is it called “Chino” Valley?
One guess. Once you choose, you are locked in. Answer next Thursday.
Choose once. The answer runs in next Thursday's Weekender.
|
|
|
Not on the list?
Like what you see? Sign up here.
Get the Weekender in your own inbox every Thursday morning. Free, local, and no sales pitch.
|
|
|
One more thing
If a week like this one has you thinking about what your next chapter here could look like, start with a question rather than a decision. You do not need pressure. You need a clear plan.
|
|
|
Have a great week out there. If your next chapter includes a move, we are always happy to talk. No pressure, just a clear plan.
|
Ben & Erin
|
Home Team Prescott • Realty One Group Mountain Desert
We didn't realize we were making memories; we just knew we were having fun.
|
All logos and images are the property of their respective owners. No affiliation implied. Event details are subject to change. Confirm times with the venue before you go.
Home Team Prescott • 2485 N Great Western Dr Ste B • Prescott Valley, AZ 86314-2526
Unsubscribe • Update preferences
|