NYC events in September 2025

Vincent van Gogh had a knack for making flowers seem to spring to life from his canvases. Now, his lilies, sunflowers, trees and more have truly come to life at New York Botanical Garden's newest exhibit. Titled "Van Gogh's Flowers," the massive exhibition transforms the garden's 250 acres into a kaleidoscopic celebration of the artist's lifelong passion for nature.

This isn’t just a flower show. The exhibition brings Van Gogh’s expressive canvases off the wall and into the wild, pairing his iconic works with contemporary interpretations and living installations. At the heart of the experience is a towering field of real and sculptural sunflowers designed by French artist Cyril Lancelin, an immersive environment where guests can wander through Van Gogh’s signature motif on a monumental scale. Other installations feature reflecting pools, sculptures and playful programming. 

See it in The Bronx through October 26, 2025.

Since its humble beginnings at D.C.’s Union Market, All Things Go Music Festival has become one of the most anticipated events of late New York City summers. With lineups that predominantly feature queer artists, the event stands sturdy in its values. This year, the festival will return to Forest Hills Stadium and will take place from September 26 through September 28. See artists like Lucy Dacus, DJO, DOECHII, Remi Wolf, Clairo and The Marias, among many others.

Tickets start at $89 for general admission.

Carving a jack-o'-lantern may be a time-honored American tradition for many, but nobody—and we mean nobody—does pumpkin carving quite like Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze.

Every fall, pumpkins aplenty decorate this festive, family-friendly attraction. This year promises thousands of intricately carved jack-o'-lanterns in mesmerizing displays, plus dazzling new experiences.

Blaze: Hudson Valley runs at Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton-on-Hudson in Westchester County from September 12 through November 16. Get tickets here.

Step into the magical worlds of Halloween Town and Christmas Town at a frightfully fun immersive experience coming to the New York Botanical Garden this fall. After its debut last year, Disney Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas Light Trail is returning to the Bronx with brand new scenes, festive music and video projections.

This all-ages evening experience was inspired by the timeless classic 1993 movie known for its stop-motion animation and iconic characters such as Jack Skellington. The light trail promises to bring the film to life against the botanical beauty of the garden.

The experience runs on select evenings from Thursday, September 25 through Sunday, November 30, with tickets starting at $33 for children and $45 for adults. Visitors can walk through more than 8,300 square feet of dazzling light installations featuring interactive video projection, intelligent LED lighting, and 3D-printed sculptures of the film's iconic characters.

New York is turning 400 and instead of blowing out candles, the city is cranking up the show tunes. On Sunday, September 7, at 11am, Broadway is storming Times Square for a one-day-only, free concert called “Founded By Broadway.”

More than 20 hit productions are sending cast members to belt it out in the middle of Duffy Square. Expect show-stopping numbers from Aladdin, Wicked, The Book of Mormon, The Lion King, MJ, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Mamma Mia!, & Juliet and many more—23 shows in total. Yes, even Stranger Things: The First Shadow will swap the Upside Down for Midtown.

The logistics: The concert runs 11am to 12:30pm, rain or shine, at Duffy Square (West 46th to West 47th Streets between Broadway and Seventh Avenue). Admission is free and there are no tickets required; you can just show up and sing along if the spirit moves you.

World-renowned artist and activist Ai Weiwei is set to unveil “Camouflage,” a monumental new installation at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park that marks both his return to New York and the launch of a new public art initiative: Art X Freedom.

Opening on September 10 to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, “Camouflage” will transform the park into a contemplative sanctuary draped in netting.

Visitors will be able to contribute hand-written reflections on freedom, tying them to the fabric of the work in a gesture of collective memory and resistance. The installation will be on view on site through December 1, 2025.

Brooklyn, get ready to trade your OMNY swipe for a trip back in time. On Sunday, September 21, the New York Transit Museum’s beloved Bus Festival returns to Brooklyn Bridge Park—and admission is completely free. From 10am to 3:30pm, Emily Warren Roebling Plaza will become an open-air time capsule showcasing more than 90 years of New York City bus history.

Four stars of the museum’s vintage fleet will take center stage, including Betsy, a 1931 double-decker from Fifth Avenue Coach’s “1200 series” that ran until 1947; the 1956 Bus 3100, the first air-conditioned bus in the United States, complete with cushioned seats and fluorescent lighting; the baby-blue 1969 Bus 4727, built to tackle the Bronx’s steep hills; and the 1971 Bus 5227, a “New Look” GM model later overhauled into a “Blitz Bus” and remembered for its hard blue bench seating.

A dearly departed piece of New York’s punk past is being resurrected for one night only this fall. CBGB—the iconic East Village music club that helped kickstart the careers of many notable punk rock and new wave bands, including Ramones, Blondie, Television, Talking Heads, Dead Boys and Patti Smith Group, among others—will be popping up once again as CBGB Festival on September 27 at Under the K Bridge Park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. (The original CBGB shuttered for good in 2006 at 315 Bowery.)

The lineup features 21 bands, including Iggy Pop, Jack White, The Sex Pistols, Johnny Marr, Lunachicks, Marky Ramone, The Damned, Melvins, The Linda Lindas, Destroy Boys, Angel Du$t, Scowl, Pinkshift, Teen Mortgage, YHWH Nailgun and Lip Critic. 

Tickets cost between $73-$149. Book here.

Most people associate the sari with its South Asian origin. IN a new exhibit, the New York Historical adds another layer to the garment's story by unearthing how the sari—and those who wear it—made New York City a home. "The New York Sari: A Journey Through Tradition, Fashion, and Identity" opens September 12 and runs through April 2026.

This exhibition traces the path of the sari from the Indian subcontinent to NYC, going from exotic object of trade to a tradition embraced by many communities. The sari holds many different identities; whether it be within consumer empires, dance and performance or explorations of gender and identity, museum officials explained. 

Hitting a Yankees game couldn’t be more quintessentially New York. The Major League Baseball team, which won the World Series in 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009, made it to the World Series again in 2024! To date, the Yankees have won 27 World Series in 42 appearances, the most in the MLB in addition to major North American professional sports leagues. Through 2024, their all-time regular season winning percentage is .569 (a 10,778 – 8,148 record)—the best of any team in MLB history.

Grab your tickets now to see NYC in action!

Forget the 14-hour flight from NYC to Tokyo, you can now discover the tastes of Japan with just a short subway ride to JAPAN Fes. The massive annual food festival just announced its 2025 dates, and the schedule is packed with events.

The organization is hosting nearly 30 outdoor events in NYC this year. What used to be just a summertime festival is now a year-round celebration across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Event organizers say it's the largest Japanese food festival in the world, attracting 300,000 visitors and featuring 1,000 vendors every year.

Here's the lineup for September: September 6 on the Upper East Side; September 13 in Chelsea; September 20 on the Upper West Side.

The only thing better than the Bronx Zoo is the Bronx Zoo at night. The famed zoo's annual family-friendly celebration, Harvest Glow, is back and at its best. 

Every Thursday-Sunday from September 25 until October 31, families are invited to explore this immersive jack-o'-lantern trail with its own spin: the 5,000 pumpkins are animal themed, of course! Senses will be heightened as you explore "creatures of the darkness" through the use of music, special effects and dramatic lighting to make sure that you really feel the spookiness. 

And if that wasn't enough, visitors will have the opportunity live in the Mesozeric Era while walking amongst over 60 animatronic dinosaurs and pterosaurs at the event's Dinosaur Safari. Paired with the darkness, this prehistoric adventure is not to be missed.

Also expect pumpkin carving demos, games, face panting and tons of photo opps.

The national tour of Mamma Mia! has just set up camp (or at least kitsch) at the Winter Garden Theatre, where the show’s original production ran for 14 years. 

Mamma Mia! is constructed around nearly two dozen 1970s Europop bops by the Swedish megagroup ABBA, including “Dancing Queen,” “Super Trouper” and “Take a Chance on Me”: all the ABBA songs you love plus a few others you probably don’t have strong feelings about one way or the other. 

Unlike most of the jukebox musicals that have tried to replicate its formula, Mamma Mia! keeps its balance: It draws you just enough in while maintaining an amused sense of itself. It never loses sight of what it offers at its core: the joy of vicarious karaoke. 

The show is on Saturday, September 27. An annual NYC event since 2012, Global Citizen Festival effectively turns the Great Lawn into a massive open-air concert as a reward for doing good in the community.

The all-white affair that is Le Dîner en Blanc is returning to NYC this fall, landing in an undisclosed location on September 19. Billed as the “World’s Largest Dinner Party,” the roaming event gathers 100,000 people around the globe, all clad in white, to celebrate an evening of gathering, food and revelry under the stars.

This year, lucky New Yorkers attending the French-inspired picnic will be joined by an authority of the cuisine itself: the one and only Daniel Boulud. The acclaimed chef, restaurateur and cookbook author will be curating picnic baskets for the exclusive evening. While reserving the food is not a requirement, the inclusion of the picnic baskets may just help lighten your load.

Make an account on the event's website so you can be notified when tickets go on sale and reserve one of Boulud's baskets for yourself.

Smorgasburg, the food bazaar spectacular, is back with dozens of great local vendors across three locations. Smorgasburg WTC runs on Fridays; Williamsburg is on Saturdays; and Prospect Park is on Sundays. Each location is open weekly through October. 

For its 15th year of outdoor food and fun, Smorgasburg will showcase more than 70 vendors. The food festival will be filled with fragrant Ethiopian stews, Hawaii-style street comforts, explosive pani puri, potato puff poutine and lots more.

Lose yourself in immersive digital art, evocative soundscapes and custom-crafted scents at the new Arte Museum. The museum promises "a multi-sensory journey beyond time and space" with dazzling installations inspired by the beauty of nature. The experience is heightened by soundscapes from acclaimed composer Young-gyu Jang and custom-crafted fragrances by master perfumer Marianne Nawrocki Sabatier. 

After the experience, you can unwind at Arte Cafe, offering fusions of tea as well as media art. From beginning to end, it's packed with Instagrammable moments. 

Expect to spend about an hour-and-a-half at this experience at 61 Chelsea Piers this fall. 

This fall, explore the long and rich history of queer communities in Manhattan's East Village and Lower East Side with Close Friends Collective's Queer History Walking Tours. 

The non-profit Henry Street Settlement and Close Friends Collective takes you on a two-hour storytelling journey through the through six stops. The stops change depending on the tour guide, current events or time of the year, but no matter what, the tour focuses on the importance of New York queer spaces and how they've evolved over the years. 

The organization is fronted by its founders and guides, a mix of historians, educators and a postdoctoral fellow: Salonee Bhaman, Jimmy Fay, Natalie Hill, erin reid, Katie Vogel (Henry Street Settlement public historian) and Daniel Walber. These walking tours are the combination of their love for public history and their desire to not let queer spaces/narratives be forgotten. 

Here are the fall dates:

— East Village, Saturday, September 13, 3-5pm

— Lower East Side, Sunday, October 12, 11am-1pm

— Lower East Side, Saturday, November 8, 11am-1pm

Wrap yourself up in the artistry of quilts at a new exhibit this fall. The American Folk Art Museum is launching a new exhibition, "An Ecology of Quilts: The Natural History of American Textiles" as part of its Lincoln Square reopening. 

The exhibition features approximately 30 quilts spanning the 18th to 20th centuries and weaves together the relationships between the environment and traditional quilting practices. The show, curated by Emelie Gevalt, promises "a groundbreaking exploration of the natural history of American textiles." It will take an ecological perspective into the many facets of global material culture that emerged in the early American republic through the 20th century.

Instead of focusing on the quiltmaker themselves, this exhibit is centered around the origins of textile production and its inspiration into quiltmaking, "exploring the environmental and social impact of cultivating and harvesting raw materials; all of which allowed quiltmaking to flourish as a quintessential American art form," the museum explained.

The exhibit will be on view from September 26 until March 1, 2026.

One of the top things to do in New York this fall includes two weeks of drinking some of the best beer in NYC during Oktoberfest. Take in the beautiful fall foliage while drinking at one of the best beer gardens and German eateries in New York City. Take advantage of this glorious holiday to sample fine Bavarian beer and food. Prost!

Wild Captives, the nation’s first female- and LGBTQ-owned archery studio, is now open. It's a place where everyone can "be their own superhero." The studio in Brooklyn’s Industry City offers empowering and fun hour-long introduction to archery classes every weekend for $45/person. 

Each intro class includes a chance to learn about different parts of the bow and safety requirements. After the lesson, each participant gets a chance to shoot the bow trying to pop a balloon pinned onto the bullseye. Intro-to-archery classes are available each Friday, Saturday and Sunday, bookable online for anyone over age 12.