These are the best things to do in Miami this weekend

Love food festivals but wish they left you feeling a little less, uh, bloated? Well, health nuts will certainly appreciate Seed Food and Wine Week, a plant-based food and wine festival that won’t have you in a sodium coma for months to come. There are events spread throughout the week, everything from a grand tasting village to smaller workshops and panels featuring a whole bunch of vegan all-stars. Grab a ticket to one event—like Thursday’s plant-based burger battle—or snag an all-access pass to all of the above. Various locations

Carol City's own Rick Ross shuts down LIV this Friday night, returning to his Miami Beach stomping grounds to play through all the hits, including “Money In The Grave,” “Aston Martin Music,” “Hustlin’,” and more. While you're there, try out LIV's luxurious new cookie service, Last Crumb, now available for purchase along with the usual bottles on bottles.

The million-dollar horse race ($3 million, to be exact) returns to Gulfstream Park this January. Not into horses? Come for the celebrity sightings and atmosphere, which borders on South Beach nightclub thanks to a day party and live musical performances. This year's acts include Kygo and OneRepublic.

This free, outdoor movie screening at New World Center's Soundscape Park is part of Miami Light Project's ScreenDance Miami Festival 2023. The evening's selection of avant-garde feature films includes the surrealist cinematic opera “Black Lodge” by David T. Little and the theatrical documentary “Véronique Doisneau” by Jérôme Bel and Pierre Dupouey.

This Wynwood drag brunch destination recently celebrated the first anniversary of its popular Friday night RuPaul's Drag Race watch party. The weekly kiki at R House combines dinner, drinks and fierce performances produced by local drag goddess Athena Dion, in between screenings of the iconic show's fifteenth season. Scream for your faves, including Miami's own Malaysia Babydoll Foxx, all season long, while sipping on rainbow-hued, glitter-bombed cocktails like the Drag Me To R House ($16) and Unicorn Martini ($15).

The legendary (and recently cigarette free—yay!) Downtown after-hours spot Space hosts Astra Club, the moniker DJ Tennis and Carlita created to bridge the gap between their DJ sets and live shows. The duo are unpredictable, master selectors who challenge dancefloors to listen with curiosity and vibe out to a wide range of genres. Mano Le Tough opens up the night this Saturday on the Terrace.

Atlanta's finest, Gucci Mane, graces the stage at Story this Saturday. Grab some friends to throw down for a table and get lit to some of the rapper's most iconic trap songs, including “Wake Up in the Sky,” “Us vs. Them” and “Lemonade.”

Lace-up for Miami’s most popular racing event. Now in its 21st year, the run winds through the city's most scenic neighborhoods, from Bayfront Park to Coconut Grove and Key Biscayne. New event highlights include the Life Time Diaper Derby for 25 babies aged six to 12 and an awards category in support of non-binary runners and gender inclusion. Is your post-holiday cardio endurance not quite up to marathon levels? You can still partake! Supporters are encouraged to cheer along the way. 

Miami Children's Museum gets nostalgic with its latest exhibit, a wonder-filled homage to the characters and world of Curious George, first introduced to the world in 1939. The sensory installation plays off of children’s natural curiosity, encouraging them to explore science, math and engineering through hands-on, interactive play. Admission is included with entrance to Miami Children's Museum.

Kick off the weekend with an over-the-top night out at Miami Beach megaclub, Story. EDM DJs 4B, Breez, Phineas and Aspen will take over the decks until liate, sprinkling in hits like “Louder,” “Did You,” “Lucid” and more.

At this free, self-love-themed event hosted by the Lincoln Road BID, families and kiddos will decorate heart-shaped wood cutouts as Valentine's gifts for their loved ones. An additional group art activity invites children to write something they love about themselves on a large canvas, and a DJ will play kids' hits throughout the afternoon. Crafting materials will be available for the first 100 kids. Euclid Oval, 700 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach

In celebration of 2023's Pantone Color of the Year, Viva Magenta, Artechouse Miami Beach has teamed up with the global color authority to present a multisensory exploration of the shade. Expect to encounter a dizzying array of textures, sounds and tactile expressions of magenta layered across the art center's immersive rooms, including an LED tunnel of the magenta cosmos and a massive Magentaverse planet fluctuating to changes in gravity. The entire experience lasts around one hour and is open to all ages.

Runners from the Miami Marathon and Half Marathon, toast to crossing that finish line with some boozy fun at The Wharf's waterfront afterparty. Show off your medal or bib upon arrival to receive a complimentary specialty cocktail this Sunday. Spectators and non-running normies can also partake in the party's Specialty Sangria Bar, featuring $4 white, red, rosé and watermelon sangria by the glass, plus $75 bottles of Perrier-Jouët Champagne from noon to 4pm. 

The Moxy South Beach's first Samba Sunday of 2023 kicks off at the hotel's breezy rooftop bar, The Upside. The Brazilian-themed fete combines so many of our favorite Sunday pastimes: tropical cocktails, live music and sweeping SoBe views. The party turns up from 5 to 11pm, when samba band Tata do Povo and DJ Lucca Savi plays back-to-back sets as Brazilian dancers kick and twirl around the rooftop deck. 

Miami playwright Nilo Cruz’s poetic and sensual play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2003, and returns to the Magic City for this 20th-anniversary production. It’s set in 1929, during the waning days of the hand-rolled Cuban cigar industry in Ybor City, where a lector’s decision to read Anna Karenina to the employees during their work inspires disquieting real-life parallels to the great Russian novel.

Brought to you by the team behind hit films Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL—including star Channing Tatum, director Steven Soderbergh and others—the 360-degree, immersive experience weaves together hot dance performances, acrobatics, live music and cocktails, which you’ll want on deck as things heat up throughout the 90-minute production. Miami's six-month run of the touring production takes place at Miami Marine Stadium, where they've built a souped-up venue complete with a lounge serving food and drink options pre- and post-show.

This world-premiere drama from South Florida playwright Michael McKeever spans more than 60 years. Beginning in 1969 and projecting ahead to 2032, American Rhapsody charts the American zeitgeist through the prism of one family, the Cabots, who live through the Civil Rights Movement, the rise of feminism, 9/11 and its aftermath, the legalization of same-sex marriage, the COVID-19 pandemic and whatever tumult McKeever imagines for us next.

Shoma Bazaar's pop-up marketplace adds a dose of wellness to your Sunday Funday. First, start the day with a free yoga class (10–11am; bring your own mat), and then move on to brunch, which is available with bottomless drinks from 11am to 2pm. Shop goods from a slew of local brands and vendors till 4pm. Jan 29 10am–4pm

Located at the iconic Fontainebleau Miami Beach resort, Hakkasan has been serving up elevated Chinese food in Miami Beach for over a decade. To celebrate this Lunar New Year, they're bringing back the ever-popular Dim Sum Brunch, featuring an array of steamed, fried and pan-seared dumplings, including vegetarian options. Hakkasan's Chinese New Year celebrations run from January 19 through February 5 and also include a special set menu ($158 per person) with classic dishes like the Happiness Dim Sum Trio and the cherrywood smoked roasted duck.

In the site-specific Take This Waltz, artist Christina Pettersson reimagines the native landscape of a lost Miami Beach: Mangroves, saw palmettos and a menagerie of creatures who once roamed the city march through her installation at the Faena Art Project Room in a gothic carnivalesque, masquerade. The apocalyptic procession envelops the space, an homage to Miami's unseen underworld and its unique historical environment. Faena Art Project Room, 3420 Collins Ave, Miami Beach

Urbanspace, producers of NYC’s largest holiday markets, expands nationally with its brand new Lincoln Road Holiday Market. Celebrate the opening at the ribbon-cutting ceremony this Saturday, December 10, featuring a live band, holiday-themed characters and holiday pet portraits later in the afternoon.

The Miami market will mirror a similar layout to New York’s Urbanspace, with dozens of outdoor pop-up shops and holiday-themed food vendors and decor along Lincoln Road at the intersection of Washington Avenue.

Pérez Art Museum Miami presents an immersive exhibition featuring iconic artworks by Leandro Erlich in the Argentine artist’s first monographic survey show in North America. The 16 works in Leandro Erlich: Liminal have been selected and arranged by New York-based guest curator Dan Cameron to offer an underlying narrative on the act of perception and its possibilities, and to create a conversation between the audience and the art itself.

Visitors will be able to interact with some of Erlich’s most widely known artworks and installations, including Swimming Pool. Constructed to be viewed from either above or inside, the work allows viewers to look down and see people “underwater” (through a layer of water contained in transparent glass), while those below exist in an apparently suspended reality. Other works in the show at PAMM include The Cloud, Erlich’s celebrated glass sculptures of ephemeral beauty, and the labyrinthine Changing Rooms. 

MOCA North Miami presents “Didier William: Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè,” the largest solo exhibition of the Haitian-born, North Miami-raised artist’s career to date. Translated as “We’ve Left That All Behind,” the show is imbued with and literally surrounded by memories of the neighborhood where Williams once grew up. The more than 40 works on display will span paintings (including brand-new painted works), printmaking, drawings and artist books. Curated by Erica Moiah James, Ph.D, the exhibition will also premiere William’s first monumental sculpture: a 12-foot-tall wooden body emblematic of a religious column present in Haitian worship rituals. In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum has partnered with ten-time Emmy award-winning producer and director Marlon Johnson to produce a documentary on William, along with a series of scholarly public programs around the artist and his works.

Showcasing posters, record and sheet music covers, film clips and audio, Turn the Beat Around at FIU's Wolfsonian museum explores the artistic exchange between Cuban and American music and dance from the 1930s through the 1960s. From rumba, conga and Afro-Cuban jazz to mambo, cha-cha-cha and salsa, these infectious rhythms flowed out of tourist-packed Havana cabarets, New York City dance halls and Hollywood films alike. The exhibition brings to life the musical fusion found between two cultures, illustrating how musicians of both nations produced new musical forms by riffing off their neighbors. 

Travel back in time to prehistoric South America, Africa and Madagascar, where a special breed of dinosaurs once roamed. These rarely seen specimens are brought to life at Frost Science using cutting-edge technology, offering a hands-on, interactive experience for fans of these bigger-than-life creatures. "Ultimate Dinosaurs" also features 13 dinosaur casts as well as fossils and various specimens folks can see and touch.