Upcoming Events In Western Mass
We strive to post the most current and accurate event information but changes and cancellations do occur so please check the official event website to confirm all details.
When you think back to some of your favorite childhood moments, very few of them probably happened when you were sitting at home watching TV. Instead, your most poignant memories probably revolve around that time you ended up with the home run ball at a baseball game, and the crowd cheered and you felt like a rock star, or at least like Babe Ruth.
Or maybe it was that time your family attended The Big E together and your dad bought you cotton candy and let you get all sticky-faced, and you watched your mom beat the midway games, and you felt like your heart was going to overflow with contentment and happiness.
In Western Massachusetts, events bring us together to celebrate our successes and recollect on our heritage. We’ve put together a list of some of the top yearly events in Massachusetts, things we and our local friends love doing to feel connected to our area and our community.
Top Yearly Western Massachusetts Events
Because of the beautiful area where we live, there are distinct Western Massachusetts-specific events that take place in each and every season. From leaf peeping in the fall to river rafting in the spring to skiing in the winter, you can find a wide range of things to do throughout the year, and some of our local events reflect the joyous beauty of our seasons.
Top Western Massachusetts Events for Spring
Springfield Annual Pancake Breakfast
Does anything scream “neighborly get-together more than a pancake breakfast? If your mouth is already watering over the thought of fluffy, buttery, syrupy goodness, you’re not going to want to miss the Springfield Annual Pancake Breakfast, typically hosted in May in downtown Springfield.
Bring your appetite, because it’s billed as the World’s Largest Pancake Breakfast, and be ready to feast on both good food and friendly conversation.
Paradise City Arts Festival (Northampton)
This Paradise City Arts Festival is ranked among the best in the country, and includes exhibits from more than 250 artists in all mediums. Artists flock to Western Massachusetts from around the country to be part of this visually dazzling display.
Come out to enjoy the weather that’s not quite summer, not quite spring, and stay to buy way too much from the vast selection of contemporary art pieces on display.
Brimfield Outdoor Antique Show
With spring in the air, you’ll want to get out and enjoy the largest outdoor antique and collectible show in the country. The Brimfield Outdoor Antique Show features over 5000 dealers throughout the quaint country town of Brimfield. And once is never enough – they do this in July and September, too!
Top Western Massachusetts Events for Summer
Baseball Season Opening Night
Baseball is the quintessential American pastime, and there’s really nothing that can top the nostalgia of being present on opening night.
The Westfield Starfires and Valley Blue Sox will kick off their seasons right at the start of the summer, and both promise to bring plenty of excitement to the community. Be sure you arrive ahead of gametime to root, root, root for the home team.
Yankee Candle Christmas in July
We love the unforgettable scents of the holiday season. Fir and balsam, spicy gingerbread, warm apple cider – the list could go on and on.
So naturally, Christmas in July is a must. At the flagship Yankee Candle Village, you can enjoy the holiday season, snap selfies with Santa (who might have traded in his traditional red velvet for a more relaxed Hawaiian shirt vibe) and enjoy crafting with Mrs. Claus.
It’s just what you need to get a little dose of holiday spirit and deal with the fact that you probably won’t be decorating your tree for at least a couple more months.
Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement
Meet Basketball’s best in the birthplace of the sport! Each summer, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame enshrines the best in the sport in Springfield. Rub elbows with the greatest to play the game and save time for a tour of the Hoop Hall.
Top Western Massachusetts Events for Fall
The Big E
Would this even be a reliable listing of Western Massachusetts events if The Big E weren’t included? The community gathering, more formally known as the Eastern States Exposition, is the biggest and best county fair you could imagine.
Every fall, The Big E brings together amazing food, parades, musical entertainment, agricultural exhibitions, car shows and more. There’s so much to see, do and taste – you’ll need more than one day to fully enjoy all The Big E has to offer.
Six Flags New England’s Fright Fest
Each autumn, Six Flags New England transforms into a fright-filled funzone for teens and adults. You’ll find scary shows, walk-through attractions and thrill rides that make the most of the season.
Top Western Massachusetts Events for Winter
Springfield Thunderbirds
The Springfield Thunderbirds are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League affiliated with the National Hockey League’s St. Louis Blues. Based in Springfield, Massachusetts, the Thunderbirds play their home games at the MassMutual Center.
Springfield, Parade of the Big Balloons
Can’t quite make it to New York City for the Thanksgiving parade? We’ve got you covered, with the Parade of the Big Balloons in downtown Springfield.
Enjoy bands, community gatherings and balloons that represent the best Western Mass has to offer – our favorite is definitely the 75-foot Cat in the Hat balloon.
Bright Nights at Forest Park
Holiday memories are made at Bright Nights at Forest Park. It’s just not the holiday season until you’ve driven through this holiday lighting extravaganza! Look for Santa’s Magical Forest, Dinosaur World and Seuss Land – it’ll become an annual tradition after the first mile.
Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day Parade
Run, walk or float over to the Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day Parade. This celebration of Irish heritage brings more than 400,000 guests to the community for a parade, music, food and fun.
It also includes traditional performances by the Holyoke Caledonian Pipe Band and the Road Race, Western New England’s largest race (featuring a 10k, a 2 mile walk and a Kids Fun Run).
Community events help us to celebrate what we have in common – a love of the arts, of sport, of nature. The human connection these events create is so important to both mental and physical well-being.
If you’d like to learn more about these community events and dozens of others coming up in Western Mass, or about the top yearly events in Massachusetts, check out our Events listings and customize a schedule just for you. Or, contact us, and let our team of knowledgeable locals help you prepare for a fun and unforgettable Western Mass adventure.
Yiddish Book Center
The world’s first Yiddish museum, the Yiddish Book Center is home to permanent and visiting exhibits; two performance halls with a year-round schedule of public and educational programs; the annual Yidstock: The Festival of New Yiddish Music; an English-language bookstore; and a million Yiddish books. The Yiddish Book Center is a non-profit organization working to tell the whole Jewish story by rescuing, translating, and disseminating Yiddish books and presenting innovative educational programs that broaden understanding of modern Jewish identity.
March 2021
Yiddish Book Center, Talk
Geographies of the Soul: Marjorie Agosín and Ruth Behar in Conversation on Memory, Identity, and Storytelling Two award-winning, Jewish, Latina writers, Marjorie Agosín and Ruth Behar, come together to discuss their creative writing as poets, memoirists, fiction writers, and, most recently, authors of, respectively, the young adult novels The Maps of Memory and Letters from Cuba. Join us for a lively conversation about Agosín's and Behar's spiritual and literary ties to their homelands—Agosín was raised in Chile and Behar was…
Find out more »Yiddish Book Center, Talk
MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATION | “In eynem”: Fashioning Yiddishland in the 21st Century Classroom Join us for an inside look at “In eynem”, the Yiddish Book Center's new Yiddish textbook for beginners, which has been called a "revolution in Yiddish language pedagogy." Asya Vaisman Schulman, director of the Center's Yiddish Language Institute and lead author of “In eynem”, will talk with the Center's academic director, Mindl Cohen, about how the textbook combines multimedia resources, full-color illustrations, and cutting-edge pedagogical techniques to create…
Find out more »Yiddish Book Center, Talk
Yiddish in Latin America, with Rachel Rubinstein and Alan Astro Not many in the US know that Latin America was the destination for tens of thousands of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jewish immigrants in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, nor that there were several lively centers of Yiddish culture, art, and education there. How did Yiddish writers engage with themes of race and racial difference across diverse Latin American contexts? Join Alan Astro and Rachel Rubinstein in a conversation…
Find out more »Yiddish Book Center, a Film
SNEAK PEAK | “Ver Vet Blaybn? (Who Will Remain?)”: A New Documentary Film about Avrom Sutzkever and His Legacy Join the filmmakers for this special private screening and discussion, exclusively for Yiddish Book Center members and friends, of the first feature-length documentary film from the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project. “Ver Vet Blaybn?” follows Israeli actress Hadas Kalderon’s travels to Lithuania, where she attempts to better understand her grandfather, Avrom Sutzkever, using his diary to trace his early…
Find out more »Yiddish Book Center, Lecture
GREAT JEWISH BOOKS LECTURE | Jews, Art, and Inequality: Lee Conell's "The Party Upstairs" with Josh Lambert Published in the summer of 2020, and set on a single day on the Upper West Side of New York, Lee Conell's dazzling first novel, "The Party Upstairs," is a sharply perceptive, hilarious, and finely pitched study of how the astonishing gaps in income and wealth which characterize recent American history play themselves out in the lives of two Jewish millennial women. In…
Find out more »April 2021
Yiddish Book Center, Talk
DIRECTOR TALK | “A Jumpin’ Night in the Garden of Eden,” with Michal Goldman Made in the mid-1980s, A Jumpin’ Night in the Garden of Eden was the first film to document the American klezmer revival. For nearly a millennium, vigorous and soulful klezmer had been part of the celebration of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, and in the early decades of the twentieth century it continued to flourish in America. Assimilated and commercialized, this quintessential expression of Yiddish culture…
Find out more »July 2021
Yiddish Book Center, Yidstock
Yidstock: The Festival of New Yiddish Music brings the best in klezmer and new Yiddish music to the stage at the Yiddish Book Center. The 10th annual Yidstock - A Virtual 90 Minute Pre-recorded Program.
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