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Art Hop weekend gets the forecast it deserves. Friday is sunny and crisp with a high near 71 and no rain anywhere in the picture, and it slides into the mid 60s by 7 and the upper 50s by 10, so bring a layer for the Pine Street walk after dark. Saturday is the warm one, sunny near 77 with a gusty south breeze, and the only shower chance holds off until after 11 at night. Sunday turns humid with a high in the upper 70s and a 50 percent shot at afternoon showers and storms, but the rain chance stays low through 1, so the noon parade should finish dry before the sky gets busy. Track it all week, with patio, swim, and sunset scores, at Burlington Right Now.

Friday is Art Hop night, and we’re walking it together. The 34th South End Art Hop itself runs 5 to 10 across the South End, and Friday is by far the most spectacular as Pine Street closes to cars from Kilburn to Howard for the night, Local Motion runs a free bike valet at the Barge Canal at 377 Pine, and there is free parking and shuttle pickup at the Innovation Center at 128 Lakeside Ave. And if you want to go, and also wanted a crowd with you, our own South End Art Hop with BTown crew [MEETUP] meets at 6 outside the main entrance of the Soda Plant at 266 Pine Street, hangs there for a minute, then heads out at 6:15 to wander studios, galleries, pop ups and food trucks with no set route, and you can peel off whenever you like. Along Pine Street, Milton Busker & The Grim Work play a free set at the Venetian Soda Lounge at 7 and the Third Annual Rocketship Show fills Conant Metal and Light from 6 to 10 with Rusty and the Big Jump headlining. Up the street, BCA Studios opens its doors from 5 to 8 at 405 Pine for a self guided walk through the painting, print, clay and metals studios, Upstate Elevator's Lot Jam turns its lot at 699 Pine into a free block party from 5 to 10 with Clean Fill at 5:30 and Dobbs' Dead at 7, three bands play the Green Door Studio on Howard Street for free starting at 5, and Dana Mashoian Walrath's installation The Book of Genocides is on view at the Maltex Building from 5 to 9. Downtown, Justin LaPoint plays a free 4 PM set at Hotel Vermont, the Lane Series opens with jazz singer Cyrille Aimée ($5-40) at the UVM Recital Hall at 7:30, comedian Matt Mathews ($46.25-212) plays the Flynn at 7 and again at 10:15, All Your Friends, an indie sleaze dance party, opens its doors at Higher Ground at 8:30 for the 18 plus crowd, and Dennis McSorley's solo show Typhoon of Tenderness runs at Off Center at 7:30 by donation, Friday and Saturday. In South Burlington, Rhythm & Reels takes over Rick Marcotte Central School from 6 to 9:30, free, with The Night Shift playing, Yong Suk's Korean Kitchen serving and the movie Goat outdoors after the music, and up on Northgate Road, AJH Dance Aerobics & Strength opens with a free class at Northgate Community Hall from 5 to 6.

Saturday is the full day of the Hop, and we start it with coffee. BTown Coffee Club [MEETUP] takes the outdoor tables at Zero Gravity at 10, and Zero Gravity sits right in the middle of everything. Art Hop runs 10 to 10, with the Artist Market at the Dealer.com lot at Howard and Pine from 10 to 4 and Kids Hop kicking off at the Burlington Farmers Market, which runs 9 to 2 at 345 Pine with over 70 vendors. The Brain Freezer 5K starts at North Beach at 10 with a pint of ice cream waiting at the halfway point for anyone racing, and registration is $40 until 11:59 tonight, $50 after. STRUT! ($25-35) puts seven Vermont designers on the runway at the SEABA Center, 400 Pine, at 5 and 8:30 with doors a half hour before each show, Amber LeMay as MC, and the Hat Bop hatwalk opening the 5 PM show. Dancing With The Burlington Stars fills the Flynn at 7, local celebrities paired with dance professionals competing for the title, with all proceeds going to the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Out in Essex Junction, Rainbow Kitten Surprise ($58.50-62.50) plays the Midway Lawn at the Champlain Valley Expo with Cigarettes @ Sunset, doors 6:30, show at 8, rain or shine, blankets and chairs welcome, no outside food or drink, and kids 12 and under get in free. Pride weekend starts early. Our Flag Means Pride is a nautical burlesque and drag variety show at the Main Street Landing Black Box, doors 7, show at 8, free with a sign up to reserve a seat. Showing Up Whole, a free aikido workshop for the LGBTQ+ community and allies, runs 1 to 2:15 at Aikido of Champlain Valley on Pine Street with registration encouraged, and Queeraoke with Lizzie Murderz keeps Standing Stone Wines in Winooski singing at 9. The fifth annual Parking Lot Dance Party at College Street Church starts with a free picnic at 4:30, a beginner swing lesson at 5:30 and the Green Mountain Swing big band from 6 to 7:30. Jesse Taylor Band and Yabai! play a free double bill in the Community Room at BCA Studios from 7 to 10, The Volcanos play Sterling Hardwoods at 9 for free, and kids can make sock puppets at King Street Laundry from 11 to 3. Big Pond Improv Festival ($5-25 a show) runs six shows at Vermont Comedy Club from noon to 9:30 with a family hour first and a $75 pass for the whole festival, Partizanfilm screens The Resurrection of Victor Jara at 6 with a filmmaker Q&A, and Dance For Freedom ($33) runs at Spiral House from 7 to 9. South Burlington runs the SB Color Run at Veterans Memorial Park with check in at 1 and the color toss at 1:30, then a free community dinner at the Senior Center on Market Street from 5:30 to 7, catered by The Dominican Spot, with advance registration required. Winooski has the Community Clean-Up Crew meeting outside Specs at 8:30 and Green Mountain Gloves amateur boxing at Combat Fitness MMA, doors at noon, bouts 1 to 4, admission by donation. Shelburne Orchards hosts Hot Pickin' Party bluegrass from 12 to 2, free, and board gamers get Board Game Brunch [MEETUP] at Old Town Cafe & Comics in Williston from 9 to 12.

Sunday belongs to Pride. The Pride Vermont Parade steps off downtown at noon and marches up Church and Pearl to Battery Park, where the free festival runs 1 to 4 with music, food and community booths, and the Flynn's Playing Fields sends giant inflatable sea creatures floating through the parade, free and drop in. If you want to be in it, march with Fletcher Free Library at 11, registration required and they email the meeting spot, or ride with Local Motion, staging in the Hood Plant lot at 182 King Street between 10 and 11. Art Hop closes out from 11 to 4 with artist vendors at the Dealer.com lot and a Designers and Wearables Market at 400 Pine from 11 to 3, and Brio Coffeeworks in the Soda Plant hosts a drag story hour at 10:30. Nashville's Sicard Hollow bring their bluegrass to the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge with The Tenderbellies, doors at 7, all ages. The Sunday Polo Match ($10-20) at Amdez Polo Club in Shelburne goes at 3, tailgate style, and families can catch Anna Adler singing and telling stories at Shelburne Orchards from 10 to 11 for free. Readers have the Food For Talk Cookbook Club at the library from 3 to 5 with Feast as this month's book, register first, and a pair of Front Street neighbors are hosting a plant based potluck in their garden from 4:30 to 7 for 1 Million Tables, bring a dish, RSVP optional.

Scroll down to Events Section for full list of events. Or check my events page.

We’re now seeing 25–35 people at our weekly events! Thanks to everyone helping host events with me. And thanks to those that show up to make it worth it. Be sure to stop by for our weekly Saturday Coffee meetup at Zero Gravity at 10am. It’s a great place to talk about weekend events too, along with news and life updates. So come find things to do this weekend together:

This Coming Week:

Other Upcoming Events:

I put out a redesign of the website that holds all 80+ projects I made for the city, be sure to take an afternoon and check them all out.

And of course, one of my favorites, the ALL DAY FEED.

There are 3,247 of you reading this every week, and 70% of you actually open it, which kind of floors me and isn't something I take for granted. Right now 36 readers chip in to keep this going, which works out to just about 1%, and I'd love to get that closer to 3% so the Btown Brief feels like it can stick around for the long haul. We just hit 1.5 years and I'm hoping for many more.

Here's what goes into it. Every week, I sort through TONS of local sources: Seven Days events, Front Porch Forum calendar, Facebook events, Hello Burlington, Love Burlington, Meetup.com, Eventbrite, Church St Marketplace calendar, Flynn, Higher Ground, Vermont Comedy Club, and then news stations like VTDigger, Seven Days, WCAX, WPTZ, Vermont Public, Community News Service, VT Cynic, The Other Paper, Vermont Business Magazine, Williston Observer, MyChamplainValley, The Charlotte News, to keep you connected. I do all of it around a night-shift job, so your support honestly makes a real difference. It takes a long time to curate and write about all this local content, so if this lengthy newsletter saves you time, or has introduced you to new experiences in Burlington, then definitely consider chipping in!

2026 goal: 5,000 subscribers. We're at 3,247 right now. If you know someone who'd get something out of this, send them to BtownBrief.com.

About Me

Final preparations under way for Burlington Art Hop

The 34th South End Art Hop opens tonight and runs through Sunday across more than 125 locations along roughly a mile and a half of Pine Street and the roads around it, and artists told NBC5 they have spent months getting ready. SEABA is running shuttles and bike parking, Burlington City Arts has music, visual projects and a kids take and make going all weekend, and Pine Street between Kilburn and Howard closes to cars from 5 to 10 tonight. Free to attend, with Friday night being the one to absolutely check out.

Historic dams removed in Smugglers' Notch will reconnect trout habitat

Two derelict dams on the Brewster River in Jeffersonville are coming out, the first this week and the second in about two weeks, in a Smugglers' Notch Resort project with the Vermont Natural Resources Council that reconnects roughly 10 miles of trout habitat. The older one, Morse's Mill Dam, is a 50 foot timber crib structure from the late 1800s, and the Burlington connection is direct, since the mill it powered supplied a lot of the lumber this city was built with.

Is Any Town Willing to Host a 100-Bed Homeless Shelter?

CVOEO pulled its proposal for a 100 bed low barrier shelter at the former mattress store at 1717 Williston Road six days before South Burlington's September 8 council meeting, after city staff objected on strained services, crime and transportation grounds. CVOEO and Champlain Housing Trust say they have toured at least a dozen sites across Burlington, Colchester, South Burlington and Shelburne, the state has set aside $83 million this year for shelters, and Burlington alone spent more than $6 million on homelessness in 2024. At least 4,000 Vermonters were homeless as of May, with about 300 unsheltered in Chittenden County, and every town quoted says it supports the idea somewhere else.

The New SEABA Center Is a Hub for Visual and Performing Arts

Seven Days' Art Hop guide profiles the SEABA Center, the 7,000 square foot space in the former ArtsRiot building at 400 Pine that the South End Arts + Business Association moved into last fall. It now runs a free admission gallery, porch music, artist markets and a rentable performance hall, and it has taken more than 150 rental inquiries since opening, which tells you how much the South End missed having that room. STRUT runs there Saturday and the Designers and Wearables Market runs there Sunday, so you will probably walk through it this weekend anyway.

'An unprecedented day': How Vermonters learned of 9/11 — and who remembers 25 years later

Today is the 25th anniversary, and Kevin O'Connor's first person column for VTDigger tells it from the Vermont side, through Rutland native Michael Rosen watching from a block and a half away, former Port Authority officer Norma Hardy, who later became Vermont's first Black female police chief, and Bishop Kenneth Angell, whose brother David died on the first plane. At least 15 of the nearly 3,000 people killed had Vermont ties, and the quote above is Bernie Sanders, then the state's lone congressman, speaking to the Rutland Herald that morning. Burlington historian Garrett Graff turns up too, in the new Netflix documentary on the generation that grew up after it.

Expecting Trouble: Vermonters Are Losing Local Birth Centers

Seven Days' long feature on maternity care traces how Springfield closed its labor and delivery unit in 2019, Copley closed in 2025, and nearly one in three Vermonters giving birth now lives outside the recommended 30 minute drive to hospital obstetric care. UVM Health's three Vermont hospitals with labor and delivery lost a combined $4 million on it last year, with UVM Medical Center itself roughly breaking even. Families interviewed describe hour long drives in labor and one couple questioning whether to stay in Vermont at all. The piece went to press with Brattleboro Memorial planning to close its birth center in December, and the next story is what happened a day later.

In reversal, Brattleboro Memorial Hospital will keep its birth center open

Brattleboro Memorial announced Thursday evening it will keep its birth center open after all, reversing a July decision to close it on December 31. The hospital credits funding approved September 8 through the state's federally funded Rural Health Transformation Program, $325,000 in pledged community donations, and an efficiency plan worked out with its obstetrics staff, and it says the final grant amount is still being settled.

Vermont regulators finalize 5.5% rate increase for Green Mountain Power customers

The Public Utility Commission approved a 5.5% increase for Green Mountain Power's more than 275,000 Vermont customers, down from the 7.5% the utility asked for, and it takes effect October 1. Regulators approved about $113 million of the $341 million in four year resilience spending GMP requested, and the utility says storms are the reason it needs the money. The quote above came from a written public comment to the commission, and the backdrop is a state estimate from last fall that electric bills would climb 25% by 2030.

Vermont Creemee Supply Disrupted by Immigration Enforcement

Kingdom Creamery of Vermont, the largest supplier of Vermont made creemee mix, cut production to a limited basis after Border Patrol detained three of its migrant workers in late July, all three were deported, and more employees left out of fear. Stands from Bristol to Montpelier have been scrambling for substitute mix from Miller Farm in Vernon or HP Hood in Massachusetts, and Holy Halvah in Bristol drove more than 60 miles for 80 gallons priced 75 percent higher without raising its own prices.

Vermont awards first batch of $195 million in federal rural health funds

Vermont announced the first $11.7 million of its $195 million in federal Rural Health Transformation money, with $9 million going to the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation for tuition benefits for healthcare students who commit to five years working in state and $2.7 million to three nursing homes and four teaching institutions for licensed nursing assistant training. The state has to allocate the full $195 million by the end of the year, and around 600 students are already getting VSAC tuition help under the program. The quote above is Rep. Alyssa Black of Essex, who chairs the House health committee and argues the one time money is a distraction from federal cuts still to come. This is the same program Brattleboro Memorial says let it keep its birth center open.

Federal judge blocks Vermont AG's probe of 'Planet Hank' AI video

Senior U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III issued a preliminary injunction barring Attorney General Charity Clark's office from enforcing a civil investigative demand against Hank Poitras over an AI generated satirical video of Rep. Becca Balint and candidate Mark Coester, the first real court test of Act 75, Vermont's new law on deceptive AI election media. The judge found the video ridiculous on its face and said the state's interest in protecting elections is lower when the threat is an obviously unrealistic satire. The injunction is narrow, covering only the June 7 video and the demand that followed it, and Act 75 itself stands.

Ray's Is Closing Its Essex Junction Market. It's Also the Hub of a Fish Trade Almost No Other State Allows

We ran the closing news last month, and the last day is now here. Ray's Seafood Market & Restaurant closes its Pine Crest Drive location in Essex Junction for good on Saturday at 7 PM after 74 years, so this weekend is the last chance for a lap. Compass Vermont's piece from August explains the part most customers never knew, which is that Ray's second site on North Street in Burlington is the hub of Vermont's unusual legal trade in angler caught panfish, a market the state narrowed on January 1 by banning crappie sales. The closing letter covers only Essex Junction and says nothing about the Burlington fish counter, which is still an open question.

Album Review: Lily Seabird, 'Lightspheres on Their Way'

Seven Days reviews Burlington songwriter Lily Seabird's new album Lightspheres on Their Way, out last week on Lame-O Records, and hears a turn toward louder, Crazy Horse style distortion after 2021's Beside Myself and last year's Trash Mountain. The record is only partly on streaming, so the reviewer's advice is to buy a copy at a local record store, and she plays Foam Brewers on November 15.

'Full-Scale Emergency Exercise' planned Saturday for Leahy BTV airport — Leahy Burlington International Airport runs a full scale emergency simulation with police and first responders Saturday from 9 AM to noon, a drill the FAA requires every three years. Flights are not affected, but expect a heavy first responder presence around the airport Saturday morning.

Mule Bar in Winooski to Expand Into Former Our House Spot — Mule Bar has taken over the former Our House Bistro space next door at 36 Main Street in Winooski, roughly doubling its size, with the bar side keeping its pub menu and the new room becoming a table service dining room with steak, pasta and fish on a Thursday through Saturday dinner menu, plus weekend brunch this winter.

New Clinic at UVM Health Offers Specialized Suicide Care — The Asha Clinic, an outpatient suicide prevention clinic with six consultation rooms and seven clinicians, has opened at 1 South Prospect Street, financed by the Four Pines Fund that physicians Bill Gottesman and Debra Lopez Gottesman started after their 25 year old son Alan died by suicide in 2015.

Intervale executive director marks 20 years helping Vermont farms adapt and grow — Travis Marcotte is marking 20 years at Burlington's Intervale Center, 15 of them as executive director, at an organization that says it has worked with nearly 1,000 Vermont farms over 35 years, including FUNJ Shrooming Company, now growing 350 to 400 pounds of mushrooms a week, and Diggers' Mirth Collective Farm, in the Intervale since 1992.

How good of a reader are you? Think you’re keeping up with Burlington news? It's time to prove it. Every Monday and Friday, we're dropping a quick 5-question quiz covering the local news you just finished reading. You've got just 60 seconds to answer them all. No looking back allowed. Use the same unique name each time you play so everyone can track your stats in our Hall of Fame, where you'll compete for titles like Sharpshooter (highest accuracy), Speed Demon (fastest average time), and Streak Leader (most consistent player). Make your name (or cool nickname) known to Btown!

Ready to play? Click the link below, enter your name, and show us what you've got. Btown Brief Quiz

Nationally ranked Vermont played Boston University to a 0-0 draw at Nickerson Field on Tuesday night, which keeps the Catamounts unbeaten through six matches for only the sixth time in program history and the second season in a row. Niklas Herceg made five saves for his third straight clean sheet and fourth of the season, his 20th career shutout at Vermont, and the best look of the night was David Ismail's bicycle kick in the 27th minute that sailed just over the bar. The Cats now sit at 4-0-2 and stay on the road, visiting ranked Hofstra in Hempstead on Tuesday at 7 in a rematch of last year's NCAA Tournament second round, with the match on MSG.

Field hockey hosts LIU this afternoon at 3 at Moulton Winder Field in the first meeting ever between the programs, with Vermont at 3-1 and leading all of America East in team points, and LIU still looking for its first win. It is the Salute to Service game, so the Burlington Fire Department will have its truck on site and the Vermont National Guard will be there too, and it streams on ESPN+.

Upcoming Home Games

This is the curated cut. The full calendar, 25 sources refreshed twice a day, lives at Burlington events.

General Events

Performances

Live Music/DJ

General Events

Performances

Live Music/DJ

General Events

Performances

Live Music/DJ

The full list of things to do around town, always waiting for you when you need a plan: Things To Do in Burlington

Every restaurant and bar in town, with their real hours, so you can see what's actually open right now: Open Right Now

Every happy hour, daily special and cheap-night I've gathered so far: Food & Drink Deals

And if you'd rather just have one link for all of it: the guide, the arcade, the whole lot hub.btownbrief.com

How closely did you read this week? The News Quiz keeps score and a monthly leaderboard, and this edition's questions come straight from the stories above.

That is the weekend, and it is a big one. Walk the Hop tonight, come find us at the Soda Plant, and get downtown for the parade on Sunday before the afternoon showers roll in. If the Btown Brief makes your week a little easier, you can support it at ko-fi or on Venmo (@btownbrief), and it genuinely helps keep this thing running. Got a tip, a favorite haunt, or an event we should have on our radar? Send it our way, we are always listening.

See you later, Burlington.

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