Our picks for the best things to do in Bangkok this weekend

Made By Legacy has a knack for making nostalgia feel fresh. This round, the vintage market unfurls inside Gaysorn Amarin under the  theme ‘Vintage Revival: The Found & Reels’. Instead of dusty attics or far-flung warehouses, more than 30 furniture dealers are wheeling their finds straight into the city centre. Think well-worn leather sofas, teak chairs that have outlived trends, patterned rugs, posters yellowed at the edges and vinyl that still crackles with history. It isn’t all shopping, though. Between stalls you’ll find snacks, small plates and drinks to keep the energy up while you rummage. The joy lies as much in the wandering as in the buying, a chance to stumble upon a piece with a past that might just slip easily into your future. October 3-12. Free. G/F, Gaysorn Amarin, 10am-9pm

Bangkok’s drink scene gets another moment in the spotlight. The Bangkok Bar Show 2025 lands at the Anantara Siam Bangkok Hotel, turning the ballroom into a playground for anyone who thinks cocktails are an art form. Expect the city’s top brands to rub shoulders with bartenders from across the globe, each shaking, stirring and scheming their way to something unforgettable. Daytime panels and seminars in Montathip Room 1 offer a peek behind the scenes, spilling secrets about trends, techniques and the occasional scandal. It’s less about suits and more about curiosity – the kind that makes you linger over a glass, watch a twist of citrus catch the light, and realise that Bangkok’s bar world is a little chaotic, a little dazzling and entirely worth getting lost in. October 10-12. B360-1,399 via here. Anantara Siam Bangkok Hotel, 1pm onwards

Bangkok’s literary scene is tuning up again, this year under the playful theme ‘Melody of Books’ with the question: ‘Have you read? Have you listened?’ The fair stretches across aisles packed with titles from every imaginable genre, a mix of publishers old and new, while corners hum with workshops, talks and interactive sessions. It’s less a market and more a symphony, where pages turn like notes and voices carry stories beyond the spine. Visitors wander between author meet-and-greets, live readings and unexpected performances, discovering that books aren’t just for reading but for experiencing, hearing and feeling. By the time you leave, your bag is heavier, your mind noisier and your appreciation for narrative a little more… orchestral. October 9-19. Free. Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, 10am-9pm

Since its velvet curtains first swished open in 2015, Sing Sing has played the part of fever dream as much as nightclub. The interiors alone feel like a set piece from a film Baz Luhrmann might have directed after a long night in Bangkok – lacquered cages, glowing lanterns, shadows thick enough to lose your friends in. But it’s the music that has carried its legend. Gilles Peterson baptised the decks in its first year, and since then Dixon, DJ Tennis, Âme and Henrik Schwarz have left their signatures behind, threaded with Bangkok’s own restless talent. ‘A Decade of Decadence’ isn’t just a neat anniversary, it’s a salute to the community who’ve blurred the line between spectacle and sanctuary, keeping the club alive as both playground and temple of sound. October 11. Reservation via 063-225-1331. Sing Sing Theater, 11pm onwards  

Jiajia Qi arrives in Bangkok with her first solo exhibition in Thailand, but this isn’t a simple retrospective or a neat display of greatest hits. Supported by Mondriaan Fonds, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds and the Embassy of the Netherlands in Thailand, the show stretches across her past works and new experiments, each piece circling back to her obsession with place and the slippery ways it shapes us. The framework leans into Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s idea of ‘nomadic thought’ where history isn’t pinned down and geography refuses to play by institutional rules. It’s less about tidy narratives and more about movement, flux and the sensation of being caught in between. Expect to leave with the feeling you’ve wandered somewhere unfamiliar, yet strangely close. September 25-November 8. Free. SAC Gallery, 10am-6pm

Ploenchan ‘Mook’ Vinyaratn has turned Bangkok Kunsthalle into a space where weaving isn’t just craft, it’s conversation. Her most ambitious institutional installation to date reimagines fragments of past textile works, letting textures, colours and forms collide in ways that feel both deliberate and accidental. The building itself – once the Thai Wattana Panich printing house – anchors the work, with 399 circular fabric pieces echoing its original logo, each stamped with words from children’s books once produced on-site. Collaborating with other Thai women, Vinyaratn deconstructs looms and rebuilds them into monumental forms, creating works that pulse with collective memory, resilience and quiet audacity. By the time you leave, the fragments have stitched themselves into a living narrative, a reminder that history, imagination and community can fold seamlessly into one. September 26-November 30. Free. Bangkok Kunsthalle, 2pm-8pm  

Imagine Sukhumvit unfolds across the gleaming maze of the Em District, where more than eighty artists scatter their visions through Emporium, Emquartier and the newly opened Emsphere. The premise is deceptively simple: to tell the story of one of Bangkok’s most restless neighbourhoods through art. Yet what makes it compelling is how differently each artist interprets the same terrain. For some it’s a portrait of urban speed, for others a study of what gets lost when glass towers rise. The line-up is deliberately eclectic, pairing big names with newcomers whose work feels raw, unpredictable and urgent. Taken together, the exhibition is less about a single narrative than about a neighbourhood in flux, a stage where established voices and the next wave share equal space. Until October 15. Free. EM District, 10am-10pm

Tintin Cooper has a way of holding up a mirror that doesn’t flatter but fascinates. Her latest exhibition peers at Thailand and Southeast Asia through the eyes of outsiders, before flipping the lens back onto locals negotiating endless waves of tourism, migration and the cliches both sides quietly cling to. Here, the works are stitched together from the messy fabric of online life: animal memes, TikTok clips of holidaymakers misbehaving, ‘passport bro’ forums and Thai news headlines. Cooper treats this digital chaos as autobiography, shaped by a childhood spent adapting to languages and gestures that were never quite her own. Even the titles read like cultural fragments. One canvas lifts from Matichon’s bleak June headline I’m Ok, Not Ok, while another lovingly immortalises Moo Deng, Thailand’s internet-famous pygmy hippo, as if memes were scripture. Until November 8. Free. SAC Gallery, 11am-6pm

Bangkok’s Birdies is turning up the heat with a three-day collaboration that brings Kuala Lumpur’s Humboldt to town. Named after the powerful current that connects Chile to the Galapagos, Humboldt is the brainchild of Lolita Goh and Joshua Ivanovic – the same duo behind JungleBird, one of KL’s most celebrated bars. Their menu reads like a love letter to Latin America. Expect smoky anticuchos, crisp yuca frita and ceviches so bright they could wake the dead. Cocktails follow suit – think a pisco sour reimagined or a canelazo with a sly tropical twist. It’s not just dinner, it’s a small expedition across a continent where rhythm, flavour and fire always find their way to the table. October 10-12. Reserve via here. Birdies Bangkok, 6pm-11.30pm

Bangkok’s cocktail crowd has plans this October. The St. Regis Bar is shaking things up with two nights of international takeovers during Bangkok Bar Show 2025, and it’s the kind of affair that could make even your usual drink order feel underdressed. Friday October 10, belongs to Singapore’s Cat Bite Club – ranked among Asia’s best and led by Jesse Vida and Gabriel Lowe, the duo who first crossed paths behind a San Francisco bar. Their creations are equal parts story and science, where every sip hints at terroir and obsession. Then, on Sunday October 12, comes The Aperitivo – From Mexico to Sydney. Expect Bar Mauro’s sunny Italian-style day drinking beside Maybe Sammy’s cinematic cocktails, a mix of silver screens, spritzes and everything in between. October 10-12. Reserve via here. The St. Regis Bar, 8pm-11pm