The best free events and festivals in NYC

You have a few more weeks to take a fresh look at one of America’s most complicated artistic chroniclers with Thomas Hart Benton: A Picture of America in Its Entirety. It's the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work in New York in more than 10 years. Spanning five decades of Benton’s career, the free Schoelkopf Gallery exhibition brings together major paintings, rarely seen works and studies for his celebrated murals, offering a sweeping look at his depictions of American life, labor, politics, race, industry and popular culture. The show also goes Hollywood, with two studies made for the 1955 Burt Lancaster film The Kentuckian, an original movie poster and a later Beam’s Choice bottle featuring Benton’s artwork. Coinciding with Schoelkopf Gallery’s 25th anniversary and the United States Semiquincentennial, the exhibition runs through October 16.

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. 

Grand Bazaar is one of NYC's oldest and largest marketplaces where you can buy vintage treasures, antiques, clothing and more goodies from more than 150 local merchants. Photographers, jewelers and furniture designers sell their best on Sundays between 10am and 5pm on the Upper West Side (77th Street at Columbus Avenue), rain or shine. Each week offers a different theme, from featuring women-owned businesses to focusing on handmade items to spotlighting international wares. The market runs both indoors and outdoors each week all year long. As a testament to the beloved Grand Bazaar's staying power, the market is celebrating 40 years in 2025. Grand Bazaar also has a mission to give back with 100% of its profits from booth rentals supporting four local public schools, helping with everything from school supplies through teaching assistants.

Prepare to become an international cinephile with El Museo del Barrio's Noches de Cine: New Latine Cinema, a free five-film series curated by Ecuadorian-American writer and director Sebastián Rea. Running monthly through December, the series brings contemporary films from Latin America, the Caribbean and the Latine diaspora to El Museo’s historic theater at 1230 Fifth Avenue. The lineup opens with Joel Alfonso Vargas’s Mad Bills to Pay (August 20). On September 24, a marathon of short films from across the Americas will be on view. Then comes Jayro Bustamante’s La Llorona (October 29), Simón Mesa Soto’s Un Poeta (A Poet) (November 19) and William D. Caballero’s TheyDream (December 17). All screenings are free and start at 6:30pm, with advance registration encouraged.

Celebrity pets have been a thing long before Paris Hilton put her tiny dog in her purse. A new exhibit at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts puts the animals in the spotlight they always deserved, now through February 23, 2027. Unleashed: Pets of the Performing Arts celebrates the beloved pets who have shaped and inspired some of the greatest performing artists of all time, from Baryshnikov to Billie Holiday. It’s a delightful reminder that even the most inspired genius probably had lengthy, one-sided conversations with a silent pet about when she'd come home.

Sofy Gallery in Chelsea opens a new group exhibit, The Weight of Normal Things, on October 1, joining painters Susan P. Martin and Patrick Earl Barnes with photographer Mara Clemente for a meditation on beauty hiding in plain sight. Curated by Luca Cantore D’Amore, the exhibition considers everyday people, places and gestures through three distinct forms of attention. Martin’s paintings blur self-portraiture and landscape, Barnes shows quietly charged urban scenes and Clemente's photographs bring the intimacy. The show kicks off the gallery’s 2026/'27 season and runs through October 24. Admission is free, with an opening reception from 6 to 9pm on October 1.

Celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival beneath the Brooklyn Bridge at Welcome to Chinatown’s annual event, which moves to Gotham Park for the first time this year. The free, three-day festival brings more than 25 AAPI-owned small businesses and artists together for a pan-Asian celebration of food, art and culture. Expect Vietnamese, Chinese, Filipino, Thai and Malaysian food and drinks alongside handmade goods, live performances and interactive programming. Among the things to look forward to are K-pop dance performances and classes from KPulse, dance performances from KAŌS, cultural performances and origami workshops from the New York Chinese Cultural Center, mahjong and kids’ activities with Potluck America. The free festival runs from 1pm to 7pm, October 2 through 4, at Gotham Park (1 Rose St.) against the Manhattan-side base of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Go batty for yarn at the 18th annual NYC Yarn Crawl, a free, family-friendly celebration of New York’s knitting and fiber-art community. From October 1 through 4, knit and purl your way through 13 independent yarn shops across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens for exclusive yarns, discounts, pop-ups, trunk shows and workshops. You'll plot your own route using the map of participants provided both as a PDF and on Google Maps—knitter's choice! Highlights include Knitty City’s 20th-anniversary custom yarns, a free make-your-own-yarn bar at Whirlwind Yarns, free workshops at Cleo’s Craft Cafe and Brooklyn Craft Company, and plenty of crafty surprises. Crawlers can sign in at each store to be entered into prize drawings, including the Scavenger Hunt Grand Prize Raffle, for which you'll have to search for a specific item in each shop. Winners will be announced in the days following the crawl. This year’s crawl also supports Bat Conservation International, with donations collected at participating shops. Check the event website for participating locations and schedules.

Bryant Park’s free spook-tacular annual Halloween event, Tricks and Treats, makes its grand return to the Bank of America Winter Village at Bryant Park on Friday, October 30. The event kicks off with a 4pm magic show from Chris Capehart and a 5pm science show from Crazy Science at The Deck. Over at Le Carrousel, families can enjoy face painting, pumpkin decorating and arts and crafts, plus $5 rides on the Headless Horseman. Note: all of the eerie fun is first-come, first-served, and weather permitting, so consult the event's website ahead of the event.