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THIS WEEKEND'S TOP TEN AROUND THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA | SEPTEMBER 24–27

This is the weekend the season turns.

Three companies open their years in four days, six productions close on Sunday, and the Bay Area throws two Oktoberfests, a Korean harvest festival and a Native Ways festival in the same seventy-two hours.

Mike's 10 for the Weekend has a ballet with a live symphony in the pit, eight and a half hours of free music in Mill Valley, and a 144-year-old band playing its last concert of the year.

“The big events are easy to find. We’re looking for the ones that aren’t.”
— Mike MacPherson, SF Bay Weekend

Now, here are Mike's 10 for the Weekend:

1. The Australian Ballet: Oscar

Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley — Friday 7:30 PM, Saturday 1:00 & 7:30 PM, Sunday 3:00 PM — from $60

Christopher Wheeldon's Oscar Wilde ballet, in its North American premiere, opens Cal Performances' season.

Here is the part that makes it: the Berkeley Symphony is in the pit playing Joby Talbot's score live.

Not a recording, not a click track — a full orchestra, which is increasingly rare for touring ballet and is the single best argument for the ticket price.

Two hours ten.

Book in person at the Zellerbach ticket office if you can — the $15 per-order service charge is waived there and charged everywhere else.

If you're going Friday, leave early and think about BART. Cal Performances is warning that Friday's performance runs against a Cal football game and campus parking will be difficult. Downtown Berkeley station is about a ten-minute walk to Zellerbach, and on that particular night it's the easier arrival.

2. San Francisco Symphony Opening Gala with Hilary Hahn

Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco — Tonight, 7:00 PM

Giancarlo Guerrero conducts, Hilary Hahn plays the Mendelssohn, and the Symphony opens its 2026–27 season.

The rest of the programme is still listed as to be announced, which is its own kind of invitation.

Proceeds go to the Symphony's education and community work.

3. Walnut Creek Oktoberfest

Civic Park, Walnut Creek — Friday 5–9 PM, Saturday 12–9 PM — FREE

German brews, brats, live oompah and a kids' carnival on the Civic Park lawn, five minutes' walk from Walnut Creek BART.

Free to get in; you pay for what you eat, drink and ride.

Saturday is the long one — nine hours.

4. Concerts in the Plaza

Mill Valley Downtown Plaza — Saturday, 11 AM–7:30 PM — FREE

Eight and a half hours of live music in the middle of downtown Mill Valley.

No ticket, no gate, no wristband.

The City's own description is “a FREE day of amazing live music, dancing, and amazing community vibes” and that is exactly what it is.

The biggest free day in Marin this weekend, by some distance.

5. Golden Gate Park Band Season Finale + SF German Day

Golden Gate Park Bandshell, San Francisco — Sunday, Band at 1:00 PM, Festival 11 AM–4 PM — BOTH FREE

The Golden Gate Park Band has played since 1882.

Sunday is the grand finale of its 144th season — marches, waltzes and polkas with local dance groups, under the title “Celebrating German Culture.”

And it plays inside SF German Day, which runs on the same stage from 11 to 4.

Two free events, one blanket, no planning required.

6. Marcus Miller: We Want Miles

SFJAZZ Center, San Francisco — Thursday–Saturday 7:30 PM, Sunday 7:00 PM — $60–$145

Miles Davis's own bassist and producer marking the Davis centennial with the electric-era book, four nights running.

Note Sunday starts half an hour earlier than the rest.

7. Bay Area Chuseok Festival

Presidio Main Parade Lawn, San Francisco — Saturday, 11 AM–4 PM — FREE

Songpyeon, hanbok, drumming and traditional games on the Presidio lawn for Korea's harvest holiday, now in its eighth year.

In a weekend stacked with German beer, a Korean harvest festival is the counterprogramming — and it costs nothing.

8. 7th Annual California Native Ways Festival

Ohlone Park, Berkeley — Saturday, 12–5 PM — FREE

This year's festival centres on California Indian traditional foodways, alongside basketweaving, beadwork, jewelry making and other traditional crafts — on Ohlone land in the middle of North Berkeley, between McGee and Grant.

Donations invited, nothing required.

One of the most distinctive free afternoons of the year and almost nobody outside Berkeley knows it happens.

9. Last Chance: Six Productions Close on Sunday

If you have been meaning to see any of these, this is it.

Show Where Final Performance
Eureka Day Contra Costa Civic Theatre, El Cerrito Sun 2:00 PM
A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder Palo Alto Players Sun 2:00 PM
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike Masquers, Point Richmond Sun 2:00 PM
Footloose California Theatre, Pittsburg Sun 2:00 PM
The Revolutionists Los Altos Stage Sunday
The Glass Menagerie Center REP, Walnut Creek Sunday

One to watch out for: Footloose plays a 2:00 PM matinee on Saturday with no evening show — unusual, and easy to arrive for at the wrong time.

And Crowded Fire's Manning closes a day earlier, on Saturday, at Potrero Stage.

10. Marin Oktoberfest

Marin Country Mart, Larkspur — Sunday, 11 AM–5 PM — FREE

The weekend's second Oktoberfest, and the one you can reach by boat — the Mart sits across from the Larkspur Ferry Terminal.

Biergarten seating under the big tent, the Zicke Zacke Band all day, stein-holding and best-dressed contests, and pretzel crafts for the kids.

Free to walk in.

HIDDEN GEM
Cinema on the Square: The Conversation

Union Square Plaza, San Francisco — Saturday, pre-show 5:00 PM, film 7:15 PM — FREE

Coppola's 1974 masterpiece about a surveillance expert who hears something he shouldn't — screened outdoors, for free, in the exact square where Gene Hackman's character tails his targets in the opening sequence.

You are sitting inside the shot.

Pre-show starts at 5 with trivia, prizes, performances, popcorn and drinks; the film runs 113 minutes.

Bring a low chair and layers, because Union Square after dark in September is colder than the afternoon suggests.

FAMILY PICK
Bluey's Big Play

Orpheum Theatre, San Francisco — Saturday 10 AM, 1 PM & 4 PM; Sunday 10 AM & 1 PM

Five performances across two days, which means if one sells out there are four more.

The stage show from the Australian series, at the Orpheum.

Prices via the box office.

Free alternative, same Sunday: the inaugural Concord Pedal Fest, John F. Baldwin Park, 10 AM–2 PM — a bike rodeo and skills course, free helmet fitting, free mechanic checks, an upcycle programme for outgrown kids' bikes, live music and food trucks.

Free, and a rare new East Bay family festival that isn't a beer garden.

WORTH KNOWING

Dolly Parton turns up twice. Dolly Day SF takes over Union Square on Friday, 12–3 PM, free — San Francisco's leg of the first national Dolly day.

Then on Sunday, Dollygrass: A Tribute plays The Chapel at 7:00 PM, $24–$28, with bluegrass arrangements of the catalogue.

Same weekend, two completely different rooms.

Filoli opens two things at once on Saturday. Nightfall, its after-dark autumn event, and Autumn Days — the pumpkin meadow, hay maze, scarecrow field and the railway through the redwoods.

Two cautions.

Autumn Days is included with admission, which is not the same as free: admission starts at $39.

And Filoli membership does not cover Nightfall — members get 20% off, and only the top Circle tier gets in free.

Check before you drive to Woodside.

Free hours are narrower than they look. Saturday is a free-admission day at the de Young and the Legion of Honor — but only for residents of the nine Bay Area counties, only the permanent collection, with ID checked at the door and advance reservation expected.

The special exhibitions still cost full price.

The big events are easy to find.

We're looking for the ones that aren't.

229+ events. 105+ venues. 32+ cities. One place to figure out your weekend.

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Find the Magic.

This Week's Sunday Drive

Sunday Drives with Mike: The Place I Missed for 21 Years

Four trips into the Oakland redwoods, a night beneath Chabot’s telescope domes and one question I could not stop asking: How had I missed this for my daughters’ entire childhood?

By Mike MacPherson
SF Bay Weekend

I have twin 21-year-old daughters.

Over those 21 years, I have tried to give them experiences. We have traveled to Europe, Cape Cod and the Oregon and California coasts. We have gone to amusement parks, movies, ballets and The Nutcracker.

But until I walked into Chabot Space & Science Center, I had never taken them to a space and science museum.

Not once.

Standing there on a Saturday afternoon, surrounded by families, rockets and children moving excitedly from one discovery to the next, I kept asking myself: How did I miss this for all 21 years of their lives?
I did not arrive at that question in a single afternoon. I found my way to it over several weeks in the Oakland hills.

The Road into the Hills

Because SF Bay Weekend lists hundreds of events, I spend a lot of time looking beyond an event name to the place where it happens.

That is how Woodminster Amphitheater caught my attention.
I had read about performances there, but I wanted to understand the setting. So I began exploring Joaquin Miller Park and the Oakland hills around it.

One trip became another. Over several weeks, I went into the redwoods four times.

I hiked around Roberts Regional Recreation Area and near Sequoia Arena. I spent a couple of hours on Dunn Trail, where the landscape opened up and the views reached across the valley. I watched riders take the rollers and jumps at the Oakland Pump Track.

The destinations sat close together, but each felt different: shaded redwood groves, open ridges, horses, bikes and views that made me stop walking and look.

This was not the Oakland I thought I knew.

A Sunday Drive on a Saturday

Football season now sends most of my Sundays to Ed’s. But Sunday Drives with Mike does not need a new name every time the road calls on a different day. This drive happened across several Saturdays and a Friday, and that is fine.

The day may change. The idea does not.

Go somewhere. Pay attention. Leave enough room in the plan to discover something you were not looking for.

Saturday Night Beneath the Domes

One Saturday evening, I followed the road through the redwoods to Chabot for the free public telescope viewing.

I arrived at 7:30, when the viewing began, and stayed until about 9.
Chabot’s three historic telescopes have names: Leah, Rachel and Nellie.

Nellie and Leah were open that night, and I moved between them looking into a sky that suddenly felt much closer.

Beneath their domes, Chabot did not feel like a museum waiting for a school field trip. It felt alive—a working observatory hidden among the Oakland redwoods.

I knew I had to come back during the day.

The Friday I Did Not Go Home

The following week, I attended a convention in downtown Oakland. Friday was the final day. When it ended, I could have gone home.
Instead, I drove into the hills again.

I walked around Joaquin Miller Park near the community center and dog park, then made my way up to Woodminster. The amphitheater was closed that afternoon, but even empty it felt like a discovery—an outdoor stage tucked into a park that the surrounding community must consider its own.

I stopped at Skyline Community Market and picked up fresh produce for the trail. I returned to Dunn Trail, Sequoia Arena and the redwoods around Roberts. Before leaving the hills, I drove up to Chabot and took pictures outside, but I did not go in.

Later, on my drive home, cars lined the road near Joaquin Miller Park. People walked toward the trees carrying chairs. The quiet place I had explored that afternoon had come alive. That was the pattern I kept finding in the Oakland hills. Every stop led to another reason to return.

The Place I Had Missed

The next afternoon, I made my third visit to Chabot and finally entered the Space & Science Center. The NASA experience was impressive. There were rockets, equipment connected to humanity’s exploration of the moon, hands-on exhibits and a planetarium. Families were everywhere.

That was when the thought about my daughters hit me. I had spent their childhood looking for things we could experience together. And this had been sitting in the Oakland hills the whole time.

Oakland surprised me.

Chabot humbled me.

Sometimes discovery is not simply finding a place you did not know existed. Sometimes it is recognizing an experience you wish you had found sooner.

My daughters are 21 now. I cannot take them back to Chabot as children. But I can still take them.

It’s out there. Let’s go find it.

Find the Magic.

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From You

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