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We’ve got a lot to cover this week so hold on to yer hats!
Last week, UT fired KUT General Manager Debbie Hiott, a 28-year Statesman veteran and sitting NPR board member, over the high-profile dispute about the station's inaugural KUT Festival. As a refresher, UT abruptly kicked the festival off campus days before it was set to happen, citing safety planning failures. Hiott pushed back publicly, producing hundreds of pages of documents to corroborate her story. Six weeks later she was terminated by the University.
Because I was a little confused: It turns out, KUT and its music sister station KUTX are editorially independent and donor-funded, but UT holds their broadcast licenses and employs their staff. So UT holds all the structural power, even though they do not fund the stations. Hiott is now calling on UT to hand those licenses to the community entirely.
Hiott’s departure doesn’t bode well for the state of local journalism in Austin. The Statesman was gutted through the early 2020s, but Hiott managed to build KUT into Austin's de facto primary local journalism institution. Austin has already virtually lost its paper of record, and the replacement is now structurally vulnerable.
Meanwhile, the city held farewell ceremonies for the "Black Artists Matter" mural on East 11th and the Pride crosswalk at 4th and Colorado, which were both ordered removed by TxDOT under Abbott's directive against "political messaging" on roadways. Mayor Watson stood in front of the mural on Juneteenth, in the state's only African-American cultural heritage district.
El Naranjo has announced its closure. The 14-year-old contemporary Mexican restaurant owned by Iliana de la Vega and her husband Ernesto Torrealba ‘s last day will be July 18. When El Naranjo opened its permanent location in 2012, it was likely the first restaurant in Austin to nixtamalize corn in-house, a technique that is now all the rage. The restaurant directly inspired Nixta, Suerte, and Comedor. De la Vega won the 2022 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Texas, and yet El Naranjo has been struggling. The family says they cried a lot. They're choosing not to renew the lease to partially retire, and de la Vega plans to continue culinary tours to Mexico and a writing project.
AEG Presents has announced that it will be taking over Emo's with plans for a corporate upgrade (pour one out), though Emo’s has hinted they will reopne elsewhere. P. Terry's has also announced that it will soon be losing its iconic Michael Hsu-designed flagship to the I-35 expansion. And lastly, The Chronicle's Best of Austin has sparked the annual "same winners every year" backlash.
Time for some good news: Hot Summer Nights has dropped its 130-act, 15-venue, all-free lineup, and it’s proof that the DIY club-crawl energy is still kicking even as corporate and state-level forces keep pressing in from both sides. Austin ISD passed its $887 million budget with a last-minute save for school librarians.
The last week of Pride saturates the agenda from poolside DJ sets to aerial showcases to a lesbian rave in a basement, building toward a 55th-anniversary celebration that spans ballet, jazz, West African dance, and a world-premiere film on Saturday. Pair that with a solstice ritual, occult theater, a radioactive burlesque revue, and a Veracruz All Natural cookbook party! Make sure to click through to the online version to see the full list.
Monday, Jun 22
Summer Solstice Celebration
6:30–8:00pm @ Nature's Treasures, $15
The longest day of the year gets a proper send-off inside Austin's most celebrated crystal shop. Ritual designer Colleen Moore leads a non-denominational ceremony focused on reflection, intention-setting, and celebrating the metaphorical gifts of sunlight. Every attendee takes home a memento from the ritual.
Canje x Riches Art Gallery
4:00–7:00pm @ Canje, FREE! 🔥
An opening reception for "A Passion's Purpose: A Love Letter in Red," a new exhibit installed in Canje's private dining room. The evening features a talk with the curator and the kind of intimate art-meets-food energy that East Sixth does better than anywhere. Show up early, stay for the conversation.
Free Monday Tango @ Cabana Club
7:00pm @ Cabana Club, FREE!
No partner, no experience, no excuses. This all-level tango class gets you moving with real instruction, then transitions into a milonga where you can practice what you just learned over cocktails in Cabana Club's vibrant atmosphere. One of the best free dance nights in town if you're willing to be a beginner.
Plant Bingo at Hi Sign
7:00pm @ Hi Sign Brewing, $33.85
The rules are beautifully rigged: even if you're terrible at bingo, you still walk out with a plant. Multiple rounds with mini games keep the action moving, and big winners take home a statement-level houseplant that'll make your living room jealous. Grab a beer, grab a dauber, and prepare to adopt some greenery.
Atom and Eve: A Radioactive Burlesque Revue
7:45pm (doors) @ Kick Butt Coffee Music & Booze, $20+
Vintage Vegas glamour collides with Cold War paranoia in this burlesque, drag, and variety spectacular dripping in radiation. A stacked lineup of breakout artists and Austin favorites — Dev Developpé, Lilith Allure, Flesh Sacrifice, and more — crawl out through the fallout with feathers, sequins, and irradiated charisma. Themed drinks, a raffle, and host Anne Fibian aka The Ghoul holding it all together.
More interesting events on Monday @ WhatsGoodATX!
Summer starts here (free gummies!)
The sun is here and we're back outside!
Longer days, lighter hangs, and THC gummies that fit the vibe. Grab a free pack of gummies from Cycling Frog! Just cover $4.99 shipping. Fruity, perfectly dosed, and made for campfires, park days, and whatever summer turns into.
Must be 21+ and only valid on 10ct bags of gummies.
NOT VALID IN OH, CA, CO, AL, LA AND NJ.
Tuesday, Jun 23
Veracruz All Natural Cookbook Release Party
6:00–9:00 PM @ Leona Botanical Café & Bar
The sisters behind Veracruz All Natural (who started from a taco truck in East Austin and now run a Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant) are celebrating their debut cookbook with a free community party. Expect a book signing, live music, and food pop-ups telling two decades of Austin food history in one backyard.
9th Annual Hi Pony Party
10:00 PM @ Swan Dive
Nine years running, this birthday bash for Ari (aka Glitoris) is one of Austin's longest-standing nightlife institutions disguised as a one-off party. Expect a packed dance floor and DJ sets that have built a cult following; a community ritual that just happens to have a cover charge.
Meditative Marbling: Intro to Ink Marbling
6:00–7:30 PM @ Monica's Porch, $60
This is suminagashi, the centuries-old Japanese art of floating ink on water and capturing the pattern on paper, taught here as a guided meditation as much as a craft class. You'll leave with at least four one-of-a-kind pieces after working through a brief meditation before the marbling begins — a genuinely calming, sensory antidote to a Tuesday.
Persian Tea and Art
3:00 PM @ 7951 Shoal Creek Blvd
A relaxed, no-experience-needed open studio for beading, painting, patchwork, and hand art, paired with Persian tea and genuine community hospitality. It's the kind of unassuming neighborhood gathering that rarely makes it onto a list but captures exactly the kind of low-key creative welcome Austin does well.
Primus, Les Claypool's Frog Brigade & The Claypool Lennon Delirium
8:00 PM @ ACL Live at the Moody Theater, $156+
Les Claypool brings three eras of his own weirdness under one roof, with the classic Primus lineup — LaLonde and Alexander included — back together for deep grooves and twisted riffs. If you only catch one genuinely strange rock spectacle this month, make it this one. Expect funk, metal, and Claypool's signature storytelling lyrics in full force.
More interesting events on Tuesday @ WhatsGoodATX!
Wednesday, Jun 24
Cookie Tongue w/ Sweet Oddity
8 - 10pm @ Native Hostel, $13.54 (through Thursday)
Whatever you think this is, it's weirder: a self-described immersive plunge into "the magic of song and visuals squeezed out of a fairy cloud." Equal parts performance art and fever dream, grab tickets here if you're in the mood to have your spirit watered, whatever that means!
Elvira Mistress of the Dark (1988) with Dednamez In Concert
7:30pm concert, 8:30pm screening @ Barrett's Too, FREE!
Bloody Rose Boutique's Pride Movie & Music Series pairs a live Dednamez set with a screening of the 1988 horror-comedy classic, plus an Austin VHS swap meet running alongside it. Free and about as gloriously camp as a Wednesday gets.
Body Art Run Club
6:30pm happy hour, 7pm run @ HiSign Brewing
Paced groups, a "party pace," and a walk group mean literally anyone can show up — kick off with a pre-run happy hour before hitting the pavement. It's run club as social club first, fitness regimen second; join in here.
Slackers Silent Book Club
6 - 9pm @ 12233 Ranch Rd 620 N
No assigned reading, no discussion pressure — just bring whatever you're currently into and sit quietly with a beer among fellow introverts. It's here, and it might be the lowest-key, most underrated hang on this whole list.
Y'all Means All Book Club: And the Category Is
7pm @ Bookpeople, FREE!
A "variety pack of queer stories" spanning adult fiction to graphic novels, with a no-pressure ethos: queer joy is the point, sadness is allowed but not required. Drop in at Bookpeople; no purchase or prior reading commitment needed, just show up.
More interesting events on Wednesday @ WhatsGoodATX!
Thursday, Jun 25
F*ckup Nights Austin
6:30pm - 9pm @ The Flower Shop Austin, $23
Three or four people stand in front of a room of strangers and tell their worst professional failure story, on purpose, for fun. It's time for emotional vulnerability, and the networking-through-humiliation format has a cult following. Plus, an optional World Cup watch party bolted on afterward.
Swim Session No. 23 ★ Suxxy Puxxy
7–10pm @ The LINE Hotel Austin, $10 suggested donation
Austin's annual poolside ritual returns: a three-hour DJ set by Perreo Club's Suxxy Puxxy, lobby art installations, and just enough chlorine to make it feel like summer finally started. Every dollar from the donation-based door goes back into community initiatives, so the staycation energy comes with a conscience.
Movies on the Lake: Black Panther
8–10pm @ Mozart's Coffee Roasters, FREE!
Wakanda on the water: this weekly series turns the Lake Austin shoreline into an open-air cinema, with the option to watch from a rented paddleboard or donut boat if deck seating feels too conventional. Free to RSVP, but the free tickets go fast; live music and sunset views start before the film does.
Fosse Musical Theater Pop-Up Series: CHICAGO
8:30–9:30pm @ JCC of Austin, $28
An immersive dance workshop built entirely around Bob Fosse's choreography for Chicago: the raised brow, the slow hip circle, the finger-gun stop-the-jury move. No dance background required, just a willingness to commit to the slow burn.
World Cup Watch Party: USA v Türkiye
9pm @ Austin Proper Hotel & Residences, FREE RSVP
Team USA's win-or-go-home group stage finale, watched from a rooftop with craft cocktails and beats by Porvoo after the final whistle. RSVP doesn't guarantee entry, so get there early if you want a view of the screen instead of the bar line.
McKinney Falls Hike + Swim
10:30am @ McKinney Falls State Park
A relaxed group hike through one of Austin's prettiest state parks ends at Upper Falls, where shallow wading pools sit next to deeper swimming holes — and, for the brave, an optional cliff jump. Everyone moves at their own comfort level, making it the rare entry on this list your whole crew can actually agree on.
Custom Cowboy Hat Bar: Craft & Happy Hour @ Lefty's
6–8pm @ Lefty's Day and Night, $71.21
Build your own one-of-a-kind cowboy hat from scratch — pearl snaps, feathers, hand-wrapped bands, branding — while sipping drinks and getting step-by-step guidance from the staff. It's part craft workshop, part happy hour, and you leave wearing the souvenir.
Sailor Moon's Birthday Party w/ Mochi Mochi
7pm @ The Highball, $11.08
Drag royalty throws down for the Moon Princess: Louisianna Purchase and Mars Morningstar host, with a special guest from Dragula Titans 2 named Blackberri sweetening the lineup. If your nostalgia runs deep and your wardrobe runs sailor-collar, this is your night.
Red Light Lit Austin Pride
7–9pm @ 29th Street Ballroom, $25
A sensual evening of poetry, storytelling, music, comedy, and burlesque, all performed by LGBTQIA2S+ artists and partially funded by an Austin Arts Elevate Grant. It's the literary-meets-burlesque hybrid you didn't know you needed for Pride week.
Find more fun stuff on Thursday @ WhatsGoodATX!
Friday, Jun 26
dadageek Student Exhibition - Spring 2026
Doors 7:30pm, Show 8:30pm @ dadaLab, $5–$10 suggested donation
Generative video art, interactive light installations, and live electronic performances from an artist-run nonprofit that teaches Austinites to make art with code and circuitry. Beer and wine flow by donation while students unveil what a semester of TouchDesigner wizardry can produce.
Latino Moonlight Serenades – Strawberry Moon
6:15pm @ Texas Rowing Center, $10 entry
Now in its 21st year, this full-moon paddle has locals kayaking and SUPing across Lady Bird Lake while a live Latin band serenades from shore. Kid- and dog-friendly, with downtown Austin's skyline as the backdrop for a uniquely Austin summer ritual.
Critical Mass Austin: June 2026
6pm @ Industry (East Austin), FREE!
A monthly mass bike ride through the city at a pace built for everyone to keep up, no spandex or Strava required. It's part protest, part party, and a genuinely communal way to see Austin from the saddle.
Master Pancake vs MIDSOMMAR
7pm @ Alamo Drafthouse Village, $19 (through Saturday)
Austin's resident riff-comedy troupe takes on the folk-horror cult classic Midsommar; live jokes layered over flower crowns and ritual sacrifice, supplemented, inexplicably, with ABBA. Horror movie night has never been this funny.
Saul Ravencraft's Damned Show
Doors 6:30pm - 9pm @ New Nature's Treasures Event Center, $13
You are summoned. That's about all the warning you get for the next episode of a recurring theatrical experience steeped in occult theater and showmanship. Curiosity-seekers and the already-initiated alike are welcome.
Pole for Pride Aerial Showcase
7pm–10pm @ Swan Dive, $35.45
Pole, silks, and aerial hoop performers take over Swan Dive for a Pride showcase built on raw strength and showmanship. Fierce routines celebrating pride month from performers who make gravity look optional.
ICOSA Bingo Night Fundraiser
7pm–9pm @ ICOSA Gallery, $10 entry donation
An art gallery transforms into an old-fashioned bingo parlor for one night, daubers and all, with prizes donated by the local creative community. Buy more cards, up your odds at B-I-N-G-O, and help fund Austin's artist collective in the process.
Today's The Day: TAROT
6pm @ Knomad Bar, FREE!
An experimental video document shot on location at Houston's "Most Idiosyncratic Work of Living Art," featuring a tarot practitioner, a VFX artist, and a KMFDM-approved soundtrack colliding into one strange evening. This is the kind of thing you can't quite categorize, which is exactly the point.
More amazingness on Friday @ WhatsGoodATX !
Saturday, Jun 27
Embodied: Celebrating 55 Years of ATX Pride
6pm – 9pm @ KMFA 89.5, $44.52
Marking both the 55th anniversary of Austin's first Pride March and the 50th anniversary of Pride Week, this multicultural showcase at KMFA unites artists for a night of visual art, live performance spanning classical, jazz, ballet, tap, Indian Classical, Filipino, and West African traditions, and the world premiere of All This Flesh, a dance short film by Capital Contemporary Ballet. VIP seating and cocktails are available courtesy of Modern Bar ATX.
Devil's Night: Official Evil Dead Burn Takeover
9:00 PM @ Swan Dive, FREE! til 11pm
Warner Bros. takes over Swan Dive with an immersive preview ahead of the film's July premiere: photo ops, themed cocktails, giveaways, and DJ Devilwoman spinning all night. Entry is free!
Poppy Strong Rage Room Event
4:00 PM @ Lonestar Rage & Entertainment, $40
Smash, throw, and hit your way through a controlled environment built specifically for breast cancer patients, survivors, and thrivers. It's catharsis as community event, with details and sign-up here. One of the most original ways to process big feelings in this city.
Barks & Laughs: A Dog-Friendly Comedy Show
8:00 PM – 10:00 PM @ Lobo Austin, $25.09
BYOB and bring your pup to a comedy night that welcomes dogs as enthusiastically as it welcomes heckling. Local stand-up fills the relaxed, dog-friendly room for $25.09 a ticket. Equal parts belly laughs and tail wags.
Fat Bottom Cabaret: Love. Joy. Defiance.
7:00 PM doors / 8:00 PM show @ State Theatre, $20+
Austin's beloved Fat Bottom Cabaret closes out Pride Month with a stacked, glitter-soaked lineup spanning local favorites and San Antonio guests, hosted by femcee Nikki DaVaughn. Expect love, laughter, and zero apologies.
Kpop Matcha Market [+ Drag Show]
12:00 PM – 4:00 PM @ Taquero Mucho, FREE!
A dozen-plus vendors and matcha drinks from Minimo Matcha set up outside Taquero Mucho for an afternoon that's dangerously cute by design, capped off with a K-pop themed drag show. Free and open to all ages; bring your photocard binder and stan responsibly.
Pride Picnic at Pease Park
10:00 AM – 2:00 PM @ Pease Park, FREE!
Now in its fifth year, this free, family-friendly celebration takes over Austin's first public park with sunshine and community, no agenda required. Pack a blanket and a water bottle — they say 10am is the new 10pm. A genuinely sweet way to close out Pride Month.
Other cool stuff happening on Saturday @ WhatsGoodATX !
Sunday, Jun 28
Poddy Rules The World: Gilbert Shelton's Underground Comix & Art
1pm – 5pm @ 506 Congress Avenue, $25.09
A tribute to Austin-bred cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, creator of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, tracing the city's underground comix scene from its roots. Rare art, rebellion, and plenty of laughs: tickets here.
Adult Workshop: Lost Craft of the Broom Maker
2pm – 3:30pm @ Bullock Texas State History Museum, $12
Texas artist Nam Joti teaches the centuries-old technique of weaving a broomcorn cake tester — the tool bakers once used to check if their goods were done. A hands-on slice of pre-industrial kitchen history you take home with you.
Austin Witches Market @ Buzz Mill!
4pm – 9pm @ Buzz Mill, FREE!
Local witches, tarot readers, and metaphysical makers set up shop on the patio for an evening of crystals, ritual goods, and browsing without obligation. Free and family-friendly.
Mushroom Block Rescue: Sign-Up to Volunteer
8am @ North Austin (address sent after registration), FREE!
The Central Texas Mycological Society needs hands to rescue spent mushroom blocks from local farms and turn them into healthy soil for community gardens. A free, hyperlocal way to spend a Sunday morning doing something genuinely useful, sign up here.
A'Dulting With Dragons
8pm @ ColdTowne Theater, $10
Three comedians improvise their way through a fantastical TTRPG where witches brew kombucha, trolls staff the DMV, and dragons violate OSHA code fixing a broken bannister. Game Master Maree Chmelik calls the dice live, so it's a one-night-only mashup of D&D and stand-up; reserve a seat.
R&B and RIBS: Austin
5pm – 10pm @ Coconut Club, $26.13
DJs Ortiz, Cortez, Kay Cali, and Eye Q keep this roaming day party moving while Olmos BBQ mans the ribs. It's entry-only (food and drinks sold separately, no bottle or table service) so grab tickets and come hungry.
ELECTRIC D*KE CARNIVAL: A Lesbian Rave
8pm (doors) @ Highland Lounge, $10
Austin's Lesbian Avengers take over the Highland basement for a color-coded, consent-first night built for lesbian, dyke, and sapphic community. Expect masc go-go dancers, a phones-down dance floor, and a strict no-cis-male-plus-ones policy. This is a rare basement-only event the rumor mill rarely gets to see firsthand.
More interesting events on Sunday @ WhatsGoodATX!
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