The events calendar is the part of Scottsdale visitors see: the auctions, the horse show, the golf. The part locals actually live on is smaller and repeats. It is the gallery night that has run every Thursday since 1975, the car show that has run every Saturday since 1990, the saloon band that plays six nights a week, and a dozen other things that happen at the same hour on the same day whether or not anyone is in town. None of it needs a ticket. This is the standing week as we keep it, with the usual warning: hours slide with the season and bands take vacations, so check the venue before you build a night around it.
Monday
The quiet night, and the one to drive north. Cosanti pours bronze on weekday mornings, usually early, and Monday is the least crowded chance to stand at the rail while the crew fills the bell molds; call ahead, because pours depend on the day’s orders. The Rusty Spur has live country every day of the week, Monday included, in the 1921 bank building on Main Street, and Monday afternoon is when the room is all regulars. Trivia nights exist in every neighborhood bar and change hosts constantly, so we don’t list them; ask the bartender.
Tuesday
Line-dance lessons. Handlebar J on Becker Lane has run free lessons a couple of nights a week for years, and as of this writing Tuesday is the line-dance night in season, with the lessons pausing over summer. In Cave Creek, the Buffalo Chip has its own free lessons on a weeknight and Sunday evenings, around seven. Either one turns a nothing Tuesday into a night out for the price of a beer.
Wednesday
Bull riding. The Buffalo Chip’s Wednesday bull riding is the strangest standing event in the Valley: real bulls, real riders, in a ring behind a saloon on Cave Creek Road, with gates around six and rides about 7:30 and 9. Admission has been ten dollars cash. Wednesday is also when Handlebar J’s Herndon Brothers Band starts its Wednesday-through-Saturday run, after the free two-step lesson at about 6:30. Our live music note has the rest of the midweek stages.
Thursday
The best night of the week. The ArtWalk opens forty-odd galleries on Main Street and Marshall Way from 7 to 9 p.m., every Thursday, all year, and has since 1975. SMoCA is pay-what-you-wish all day Thursday and stays open until seven, so the skyspace at dusk is free before the walk. For the after-party, The Peacock, the speakeasy behind the Living Room at DC Ranch, puts a sax and piano duo in the room on Thursdays; it is open Thursday to Saturday evenings and is the closest thing the north has to a jazz night. Down in the entertainment district, Whiskey Row runs a live band on Thursday evenings that turns into line dancing when the floor decides to. Several times a year the ArtWalk becomes a Gold Palette edition with music in the street.
Friday
Friday is the second bull-riding night at the Buffalo Chip, with three rides from about eight to nearly eleven and the bigger crowd. In town, the Rusty Spur’s band starts early and the dance floor fills by nine, and Handlebar J is on. The rooftops and patios in our sunset note are the pre-game; the late-night note is the post-game.
Saturday
- Morning: the market. The Old Town Farmers Market fills the Brown Avenue and First Street lot every Saturday morning from October through June. Go before nine for the produce, after ten for the crowd.
- Morning: cars. Fourtillfour, the Porsche-minded cafe on First Avenue, runs a themed meet almost every weekend morning from about seven to ten: Porsches the first Saturday, fast cars the second, vintage European and Japanese the third, old off-roaders the last. Check its posted rotation.
- Afternoon: the car show. The Pavilions Rock ‘n’ Roll Car Show at the Pavilions at Talking Stick has run every Saturday since April 1990, from late afternoon to about eight, and holds a Guinness mention as the longest-running weekly car show anywhere. A few hundred cars on a normal night. Free.
- Evening: Cave Creek. Harold’s Cave Creek Corral, open since 1935, gives a free country dance lesson on Saturday around 7:30 before the band, and the Buffalo Chip down the block has music and two dance floors. Our country bars note makes the whole run.
Sunday
The Greenbelt on Sunday morning is the city’s unofficial group ride, eleven flat miles of path from Tempe to Shea with coffee stops built in; start by seven in summer, by nine in winter. From January through April, Scottsdale Arts puts a free concert on the Civic Center lawn on select Sundays, the Sunday A’Fair, and it is the most civilized zero-dollar afternoon in the Valley. Fourtillfour does motorcycles the first Sunday and air-cooled Volkswagens the second. And the Buffalo Chip’s Sunday dance lesson at seven closes the week the way it opened.
Monthly
- First Saturday. The Scottsdale Motorsports Gathering at Market Street at DC Ranch, 7 to 10 a.m., is Arizona’s original cars-and-coffee, going since 2001; only members’ cars park in the show, but spectators are free and the cars are serious.
- Second Saturday. SMoCA’s other pay-what-you-wish day.
- Third Saturday. Cars and Coffee at the Penske Racing Museum on Chauncey Lane, 8 to 10 a.m. from September to May and 7 to 9 in summer, with the Indy cars inside open and free.
Seasonal
- October through April. The market is on, the Little Red Schoolhouse keeps full hours, and the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy runs free guided hikes in the Preserve most weeks; the schedule lives on its site.
- January through April. A’Fair Sundays, and the best Thursday ArtWalk weather.
- Seasonal tours. Taliesin West runs tours most days, with the days and hours shifting by month; book ahead in winter.
- Summer. Everything above still happens, an hour earlier or after dark. The free trolley ties the Old Town half of this list together in any season, and our budget note is built on it.
A perfect standing week
Monday morning at the Cosanti foundry. Tuesday line dancing on Becker Lane. Wednesday bulls in Cave Creek. Thursday the skyspace at six, the galleries at seven, the sax at DC Ranch at nine. Friday the Rusty Spur. Saturday the market at eight, the Pavilions at five, Harold’s at 7:30. Sunday the Greenbelt, then a blanket on the Civic Center lawn. Nothing on that list costs more than ten dollars, and most of it costs nothing, which is the part of this city the things-to-do list never quite gets across.