6-Pack of Things To Do In Tacoma: August 18-24, 2025
Tacoma, behold your week: a delirious sprawl of cider flights and folk ballads, carnivorous musicals and resurrected newspaper boxes, Latin-flushed dance floors and one very large neighborhood food orgy. It’s the kind of lineup that laughs in the face of tidy calendars, tosses confetti into your inbox, and dares you to keep up. Pineapple gods crash Monday, Erina McLaren hymns Old Town into reverie, the Weekly Volcano turns rust to radiant gospel, Audrey II demands your soul at the Blue Mouse, Sábado Sabor rewrites the meaning of Saturday night, and Proctor Food Fest crowns it all in taco-slicked, sugar-dusted mayhem. Six things? Hardly. It’s a whole city vibrating in Technicolor
Monday Pineapple Cider Flight | Monday, Aug. 18
Mondays are rarely tropical, but Peaks & Pints insists otherwise, slinging five glasses of pure pineapple mischief that taste like tiki gods crashing an orchard party. Greenwood’s Pineapple Punch plays at being a Mai Tai in apple’s clothing, Tieton cannonballs in with Yakima grit and Maui sunshine, Yonder Coulee drifts in like a mezcal dream with pineapple and cardamom, Fierce County’s Patio Heater turns up the fire with habanero heat, and Newtopia’s Venom struts in all Wu-Tang swagger, pineapple and mango spitting verses over a dry champagne finish. Forget the pizza debate: pineapple belongs in your Monday, and preferably in your glass. Pineapple Cider Flight, Peaks & Pints, Proctor District, Tacoma, all day, $12
Erina McLaren at Old Town Park | Wednesday, Aug. 20
Old Town Park will pulse a little louder and sway a little slower when Tacoma’s own Erina McLaren brings her folk-Americana soul to the summer stage. McLaren doesn’t just sing—she exhales late-night confessions and front-porch hymns, weaving country ache and pop shimmer into songs that make the cicadas pause mid-chorus. Fresh off her single, “Oh My Love” (via Young Outlaw Music), she and her band tilt between velvet harmonies and raw, highway grit, the kind of music that feels half prayer, half back-alley lullaby. You’ll sway, you’ll clap, you’ll wonder why your chest feels one size too small. PorchFest veteran, Spanish Ballroom regular, and proof Tacoma still sings louder than it shouts, McLaren makes Old Town feel like a cathedral made of cedar and sky. Pack a blanket, and maybe an extra heart—you might leave missing one. Concert, Old Town Park, N. 30th & N. Carr, Tacoma, 6:30 p.m., free, oldtownpark.org
Peaks & Pints Cooler Prefunk: Pre-game for Erina’s show with TapRoom Brewing’s Modern Love (7%), a West Coast IPA that struts like a neon-lit sermon—Nelson, Nectaron, Simcoe, and Citra tangled in a bright, grape-kissed, citrus-snapping chorus that drinks like disco lights bouncing off cathedral glass.
Weekly Volcano Newspaper Box Challenge Reception | Thursday, Aug. 21
Imagine: once-rusty newspaper boxes, those dented relics of Tacoma sidewalks, now resurrected into neon reliquaries and urban shrines by 30+ local artists, dripping with paint, wit, rebellion, and heartbreak. The Weekly Volcano turned trash into cathedral, gifted these ghosts from The Ranger into the hands of painters, sculptors, dreamers — and the results are astonishing. You’ve seen the photos online, sure, but nothing compares to standing in Court House Square’s lobby as these transformed beasts hum with defiance and possibility, every panel a visual love letter to a city still carving out its own identity. This reception is part fundraiser, part revolution — your vote-by-dollar ensures artists get paid and the Volcano keeps gunning for “newspaper of record” status, ripping it away from faceless out-of-town publishers who wouldn’t know Tacoma if it bit their latte. On Aug. 21, you’ll meet the artists, toast their work, and cheer the award ceremony before the boxes head out to local businesses on a countywide scavenger hunt. Save the date: this is the kind of night that makes a city feel like itself again. Art Reception, Court House Square, 1102 A St., Tacoma, 7 p.m., free to gawk, priceless to belong, details at weekly-volcano.com
Peaks & Pints Cooler Prefunk: Line your brain with Prairie’s Patches Sour (5.4%), a neon-scorched puckery riot of gummy bear delirium — the perfect prelude to a gallery full of boxes reborn into feral, civic art magic.
Little Shop of Horrors | Thursday, Aug. 21
Campy horror, doo-wop apocalypse, and one very hungry houseplant come clawing onto the Blue Mouse screen for a single night, complete with a full-throttle shadow cast from Ethereal Chaos Productions. This isn’t passive cinema—it’s a midnight-movie fever spliced with live theater, where you’ll sing, scream, and maybe reconsider your gardening choices while Audrey II belts its carnivorous heart out. Film with Shadowcast, Blue Mouse Theatre, Proctor District, 8 p.m., $15, PG-13, bluemousetheatre.com
Peaks & Pints Cooler Prefunk: Prime your carnivorous heart with Little Beast Brewing’s BeastTrap IPA (6%), a hazy beast collab with Trap Door Brewing, with plush mango, tangerine, candied apple, and soft pine—perfect fuel before you sing along to a man-eating plant and embrace your inner doo-wop horror fan.
Sábado Sabor | Saturday, Aug. 23
Forget polite dinner parties and the same-old date night—Sábado Sabor promises nothing less than a Wakanda-charged fever of rhythm, flavor, and communal swagger. Jordan Solutions and Tacoma Arts Live have conspired to transform the Tacoma Armory’s Roosevelt Room into a pulsing heart of movement and joy: food that hums with spice and intention, music that gets under your skin in the best way, and dancing that leaves your carefully curated weekend plans in a crumpled heap on the floor. This is not just an event; it’s a portal into a shared dream of community, a place where couples can smolder, friends can conspire, and strangers can collide in glorious rhythm until the walls themselves are vibrating. Bring your appetite, bring your hips, bring your willingness to be swept into something bigger, bolder, and infinitely more alive than anything your couch had in mind. Sábado Sabor, Tacoma Armory Roosevelt Room, 1001 S. Yakima Ave., Tacoma, 7:30 p.m., $40-$65 at tacomaartslive.org
Peaks & Pints Cooler Prefunk: Before you surrender to the Tacoma night, slip into Drekker Brewing’s Beneath the Coconut Palms—a guava-raspberry-passionfruit side dip, crowned with toasted coconut cream, the sort of lush tropical delirium that makes you forget you’re in the shadow of County.
Proctor Food Fest | Sunday, Aug. 24
Every summer deserves one glorious binge of food, noise, and slightly sunburned joy, and in Tacoma that bacchanal wears the sweet name of Proctor Food Fest. Picture the historic streets of North Proctor sealed off like a neighborhood block party gone feral, lined with food trucks belching perfume, storefronts spilling art and music into the air, families wobbling under snow-cones the size of their heads, and some half-feral kid drumming on a bucket while you decide whether to commit to tacos or funnel cake first. It’s community in its most edible form: loud, messy, irresistible, and free to wander until you’ve tasted far too much. Food Festival, Proctor District, Tacoma, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., free admission
Peaks & Pints Cooler Prefunk: Anchorage Brewing’s Be Not Afraid is less a hazy IPA and more a liquid sermon to tropical excess — apricot, pineapple, melon, and grapefruit all slam-dancing in your glass while Nelson Sauvin whispers sweet, wine-soaked blasphemies. It’s juicy, lush, and just dangerous enough to make you believe the universe might actually want you happy.
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