Events
Event reports and advance coverage from the Raccoon Media Network.
XPoNential Music Festival Returns to Camden With a Weekend Built for Discovery
WXPN’s 33rd annual festival returns to Wiggins Park Sept. 18-20 with Dawes, Portugal. The Man, Little Feat and a lineup designed to reward the people who show up before the headliner.
Event Wiggins Park · Camden, New Jersey
Sea.Hear.Now Returns to Asbury Park for a Weekend Built Around the Shore
Mumford & Sons and The Strokes headline Sept. 19–20, but music is only part of a festival that treats the beach, surf culture, art and the Asbury Park boardwalk as part of the bill.
Event North Beach, Bradley Park and Atlantic Park · Asbury Park, New Jersey
At Brook Arts Center, the Fall Calendar Starts Before Opening Night
Youth theater, filmmaking and a free writers workshop give Brook’s fall season a second purpose: not simply presenting finished work, but giving New Jersey creators a place to learn how the work gets made.
Event Brook Arts Center · Bound Brook, New Jersey
Smodcastle Checks Into the Overlook for The Shining: Live on Stage
Raconteur Radio returns to Atlantic Highlands on Oct. 9 with a live theatrical parody built from scripts, sound, lighting, music and a cast that includes Kevin Smith in the least age-appropriate Danny Torrance casting imaginable.
Event SModcastle Cinemas · Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey
Before America 250, New Jersey Looks Back at America's 200th
The New Jersey State Museum's Spirit of '76 exhibition uses the Bicentennial to examine how a divided country tried to celebrate itself 50 years ago - and why that exercise feels newly relevant during the Semiquincentennial.
Event New Jersey State Museum · Trenton, New Jersey
From Khan to Kirk: New Jersey Marks 60 Years of Star Trek
The statewide anniversary calendar now stretches from restored films and fan dinners to library celebrations, a symphonic concert, musical parody and William Shatner himself. For one franchise, New Jersey has found a remarkable number of ways to say happy birthday.
Event New Jersey
At Morey's Piers, the Water Park Is Going to the Dogs
PigDog Puppa Palooza returns Sept. 13 with one last improbable use for a Wildwood water park: handing the pools over to the dogs while the Airshow moves overhead.
Event Raging Waters Water Park · Mariner's Pier, Wildwood, New Jersey
Bound Brook Goes to Warp for a Three-Part Star Trek Celebration
Brook Arts Center is marking Star Trek’s 60th anniversary with a film, a symphonic voyage and a New Jersey-premiere musical. Then William Shatner brings The Wrath of Khan to State Theatre New Jersey in January.
Event Brook Arts Center · Bound Brook, New Jersey
When the Audience Joins the Investigation
True crime used to turn criminal cases into stories. Podcasts, forums, searchable archives and social platforms turned the audience into participants. The result can revive a cold case, identify a person who lost their name, or create a second injustice before police ever reach the first.
Event Somerset County, New Jersey
Nerd Fest Brings the Small-Con Advantage Back to South Jersey
The Jersey Shore Comic Book Show returns to Swedesboro Sept. 20 with comic artists, indie creators, collectibles, Star Wars cosplay and the kind of convention floor where there is still time to stop and talk.
Event Holiday Inn Swedesboro · Swedesboro, New Jersey
The Jersey Shore Card Show Returns to Toms River, Where the Hunt Is the Point
Three months after its first card-focused show, the Jersey Shore Comic Book Show is bringing collectors back to the Toms River Elks Lodge for six hours of sports cards, trading games, pop-culture cards and the particular pleasure of finding the thing you did not know you were looking for.
Event Toms River Elks Lodge · Toms River, New Jersey
Lunar Faire’s Final Five Nights Move Across Five Very Different New Jersey Grounds
The traveling witchy night market closes its 2026 season with Elements, Zodiac, Vasquerade, Dark Carnival and Halloweekend, and the setting changes almost as much as the theme.
Event Middlesex County Fairgrounds · East Brunswick, New Jersey
The New Jersey Film Festival Opens a Month-Long Window for Independent Film
The 45th bi-annual fall festival begins tonight at Rutgers and runs through Oct. 4, mixing in-person screenings, 24-hour streaming windows, filmmaker conversations, free workshops and an audio-visual concert.
Event Voorhees Hall · Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
Eighteen Days Until the Lucas Museum Opens the Door on Narrative Art
The long-awaited Los Angeles museum opens Sept. 22 with more than 1,300 works, continuous film screenings, comic art, illustration, cinema, mythology, a 13-acre park and one unusually broad argument about what belongs in an art museum.
Event Lucas Museum of Narrative Art · Exposition Park, Los Angeles
William Shatner Is Bringing The Wrath of Khan to New Brunswick - Then Taking the Stage
State Theatre New Jersey will screen Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on Jan. 29, 2027, followed by a live appearance and audience Q&A with William Shatner. Tickets go on sale Sept. 18 at 10 a.m.
Event State Theatre New Jersey · New Brunswick, New Jersey
Rocky Horror Is Ready to Do the Time Warp Again in New Brunswick
Barry Bostwick joins a 4K screening, live shadow cast and full audience-participation night at State Theatre New Jersey on Oct. 3.
Event State Theatre New Jersey · New Brunswick, New Jersey
DollyFest Will Bring Dolly Parton's Celebration Home to Tennessee in 2027
The official two-continent festival is headed to Nashville and London. Our coverage plans are centered on Tennessee, with a separate return to Dollywood already taking shape.
Event Nashville, Tennessee
For One Weekend, Wildwood Becomes New Jersey's Firehouse
The New Jersey State Firemen's Association convention brings the business of the fire service, the spectacle of apparatus and the quieter ritual of a statewide family reunion back to the Shore.
Event Wildwoods Convention Center · Wildwood, New Jersey
He's Not Really Going Into Fires, Is He?
At a Firefighter I, Firefighter II and EMT graduation, the ceremony is familiar to the Academy. For the families in the seats, and the people being sent back into their communities, nothing about it is routine.
Event Somerset County Emergency Services Training Academy · Hillsborough, New Jersey
The Final Stretch Has a Look
Somerset's final home week of 2026 brings Damian Priest, a WWE giveaway jersey that actually understands the assignment, and one last turn as the Jersey Diners.
Event TD Bank Ballpark · Bridgewater, New Jersey
Open All Night: Kevin Smith Brings Clerks Back Home
On September 25, SModcastle Cinemas will run the entire Clerks trilogy through the night, with Kevin Smith in the room. The marathon is part nostalgia, part endurance test, and part reminder that very few filmmakers remain this accessible to the people who grew up with their work.
Event SModcastle Cinemas · Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey
Six Degrees of Kevin Smith
Before the doors opened in Hillsborough, the show was already revealing what made it work: access, ease, and a crowd connected by more than one kind of fandom.
Event Iron Peak Sports & Events · Hillsborough, New Jersey
A Vow, a Wave, and the Runner on Second
A regular Saturday at TD Bank Ballpark moved from renewed promises to Yankees rehab assignments, four Somerset home runs and the unforgiving arithmetic of extra innings
Event TD Bank Ballpark · Bridgewater, New Jersey
The Ballpark Remembers
Sopranos Night, a twenty-minute rain delay, and the long afterlife of the free shirt
Event TD Bank Ballpark · Bridgewater, New Jersey