Are people who FaceTime while walking down the street literally insane?

This year more than ever, New York’s climate conversation is gonna get very loud. Climate Week NYC returns September 20 through 27 with more than 1,000 events across the city and over 100,000 expected attendees. Organized by Climate Group alongside the United Nations General Assembly, the week brings together global leaders, business executives, policymakers, activists and communities to talk about the climate crisis and, ideally, plan to do something about it.

Celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival at China Institute on September 26 with an afternoon of performances, workshops and family-friendly cultural activities. From 2 to 5pm, visitors can enjoy traditional Chinese music and dance, make snow-skin mooncakes and rice dough sculptures, and explore Chinese art through the Discover China Through Art Workshop. There will also be interactive activities including sugar painting, lacquer fan art and facial-mask painting. Music and dance performances are slated to take place from 2:05 to 2:30pm, with the workshops and interactive stations continuing afterward until the event's close.

General admission is $15, kids 12 and under are $6 and China Institute students and members get in free. The celebration takes place at 100 Washington Street in Lower Manhattan.

New York’s art world is once again descending on the Javits Center for The Armory Show, the annual art fair where you can spend an afternoon contemplating cutting-edge masterpieces before realizing just how expensive your taste is. From Thursday, September 24, to Sunday, September 27, galleries from around the world gather for a sprawling showcase of modern and contemporary work, and emerging artists share the spotlight with established names. It’s a reliable reminder that in New York, even looking at art can feel like a competitive sport.

Single-day admission to the show will run you $60. But visitiors can also sign up for a guided tour ($35), the Friday night after-hours party ($55), multi-day passes ($182) or a nighttime slot ($50). Students and seniors receive a discounted rate of $35. If you're really into the experience, you can buy an Armory Insider ticket for $500. That ultimate package gives you access to exclusive events around NYC, knowledge from from art professionals and more.

Jim Henson would have been 90 years old this year, and the Museum of the Moving Image is throwing him a four-day birthday bash from September 24 through 27. The celebration includes screenings of The Muppet Show, puppet workshops, fan-art displays, a Swa(m)p Meet of collectibles, panels, live music, a costume contest and plenty more puppet-themed fun. Highlights include a Puppet Tea Party, Frog Choir, a Tough Pigs podcast live event and Jim Henson’s Harmonious Hoopla. Permanent exhibit The Jim Henson Exhibition—featuring nearly 300 objects and 47 puppets, including Kermit, Miss Piggy and Rowlf—will also be on view.

Turn Friday nights into a sunset-to-trivia doubleheader with Fornino (Courtside at Pier 6). Weekly Trivia Fridays is a new, waterside game that debuts September 25, presented by NYC Trivia League. The free game kicks off at 7pm, with teams answering questions from their phones and competing for prizes. While you can go once and then never again, the publicly available weekly standings will probably have you going back for more—rather, for vengeance against whatever team beat you by a hair. Consider it an easy TGIF excuse to eat, drink and prove to strangers that you know entirely too many random facts.

Drag, dance music and queer chaos return to Brooklyn for Bushwig, the annual celebration of drag and LGBTQ+ nightlife. This year’s festival runs from 4pm to 4am, Saturday, September 26, at 9 Bob Note/3 Dollar Bill (270 Meserole Street) in Williamsburg, where performers, DJs and partygoers will take over the venue’s indoor and outdoor spaces. Expect plenty of wigs, glitter, dancing and the kind of gloriously unhinged performances that make Bushwig a Brooklyn institution. Among those scheduled to perform are Lydia B Kollins, Suzie Toot, Mariyea, Sweaty Eddit, Luxx Noir London and many, many more. Tickets are $60.

Get a sneak peek at opera’s next generation of stars as Musica Viva NY brings together young artists from two of the world’s most prestigious opera houses. Singers from the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and Madrid’s Teatro Real's Crescendo Program join forces at All Souls NYC for an evening showcasing the voices poised for international careers. Artistic director Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez curates the 5pm, September 27 program and accompanies the singers on select pieces, making this a particularly intimate chance to hear exceptional talent before they inevitably start commanding much larger stages. It’s opera’s future, up close and personal.

Tickets for the event have sliding scale pricing. General seating costs $50, but students and art workers can get in for $30. If those prices are too steep, there's a $10 as well.

Rare works by French master Pierre Soulages are coming to the Upper East Side in a new exhibition at the Lévy Gorvy Dayan gallery (19 E. 64th St.). Organized with the artist’s widow, the show features more than 20 paintings on paper, including works drawn directly from Soulages’s estate that have never been exhibited publicly. Spanning decades of work, the exhibition explores a medium he prized for its immediacy and unforgiving nature, using walnut stain, gouache, ink and improvised tools to experiment with light, texture and transparency. 

Forget space—the ocean is the final frontier. And see why as you dive hundreds of feet beneath the ocean’s surface without leaving Chelsea at Twilight Zone: Hidden Wonders of the Ocean, opening September 19 at ARTECHOUSE NYC (439 W. 15th St.). Created in collaboration with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the immersive exhibition uses real deep-ocean footage, biological research, sound, interactivity and ocean technology to explore the mysterious “twilight zone,” a rarely seen region where creatures produce their own light and billions of animals migrate each night. The experience highlights the deep sea’s role in ocean health and carbon movement while bringing its otherworldly ecosystems to life on a massive scale. 

Oktoberfestivities have kicked off at bars and beer halls all across New York City. Grab your beer stein, rev up your appetite and head on over to one of the many celebrations that are already underway.

Find your weekday, weekend or even weeklong plans on our list of the best Oktoberfest events happening this year.