Best Bets: Houston Korean Festival, Bayou City Art Festival, and We Will CHOIR! You!

It’s International Beer and Pizza Day, just in case you’re looking for meal ideas before or after checking out one of our best bet picks. This week, we’ve got a trio of festivals, a Greek tragedy, and more. So, keep reading for the best things to do this coming week.

Quilting goes a long way back, with possibly the earliest hint of quilting found in the British Museum, which holds an ivory carving excavated from the Temple of Osiris in 1903 that shows a royal figure in a quilted cloak. To get a sense of how far quilting has come, stop by the International Quilt Festival, which returns to George R. Brown Convention Center on Thursday, October 9, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Visitors will find more than 1,100 quilts will be displayed across 33 exhibits, as well as over 575 opportunities to shop and over 275 classes, lectures, and other events. The festival continues through October 12. Daily admission tickets range in cost from free for children 10 and under to $18 for adults, with full show passes available for $58.

Phoenix-based painter Jonah Ballard will bring his signature pink palette to town as the featured artist of the Bayou City Art Festival when the Art Colony Association, Inc. (ACA) brings the outdoor art gallery back to Memorial Park on Friday, October 10, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. More than 270 artists from 19 art disciplines will display their works, while guests can also enjoy live entertainment, a food truck park, a beer garden and wine bar, putt-putt mini golf, and more. The festival will continue on Saturday, October 11, and Sunday, October 12, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days. Tickets, $5 for children ages 6 to 12 and $20 for adults, must be purchased in advance online here.  Children under five get in free, and VIP options are available for $75 to $150. 

Grief and vengeance take the stage over at Classical Theatre Company on Friday, October 10, at 7:30 p.m., when they officially open Sophocles’ Electra at The DeLuxe Theater. Murder begets murder in the one-act play, which finds the titular character out to avenge the murder of her father, Agamemnon, by her mother and her mother’s lover. CTC’s Artistic Director, John Johnston, recently told the Houston Press the play “is an exploration of the dark side of human nature,” adding that once the show “starts rolling it just kicks off and it really hurdles towards the climax. It comes to an end in a very somber and resigned way.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays, and October 13; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; and 2:30 p.m. Sunday through October 18. Tickets can be purchased here for $10 to $30.

On Friday, October 10, at 7:30 p.m., Houston Symphony will present its latest program, Jean-Yves Thibaudet + The Three-Cornered Hat, at Jones Hall. The concert will feature three works by Manuel de Falla, two from his two-act opera La vida breve and The Three-Cornered Hat, and welcome Thibaudet, a Grammy-nominated French pianist, for Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Egyptian” Concerto, which has been described as a work that is “melodious and straightforward and exudes the sophisticated charm and brilliance of a craftsman of the highest order.” The concert will be performed again at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 11, and 2 p.m. Sunday, October 12. Tickets for the in-hall performances are available here for $29 to $140. Saturday night’s show will also be livestreamed, and you can purchase access here for $20.

Celebrate the food, music, and cultural traditions of Korea when the Houston Korean Festival returns to Discovery Green on Saturday, October 11 from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Hosted by the Korean American Society of Houston (KASH), the festival promises 40 food and merchandise vendors, arts and crafts, a kimchi eating contest, K-Pop performances, a modern Hanbok fashion show, and, for the first time, a Korean Food Fair and Expo, where visitors can try free samples from top Korean food brands. The festival will continue on Sunday, October 12, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Festival admission is free, and you can register here, but one- and two-day VIP passes with additional benefits (including access to a private VIP tent and cooling stations, seating, and a rice cake making workshop on Sunday) are also available for $50 to $75.

Choir! Choir! Choir!, an interactive show that invites its audience members to sing along to every note, is bringing We Will CHOIR! You!: An EPIC QUEEN Sing-Along! to the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, October 11, at 7:30 p.m. Nobu Adilman and Daveed Goldman, the Canadians behind the choir, said in 2023 that their shows are “a party where singing is the excuse to hang out in a room full of strangers and connect. You’re going to laugh, you’re going to dance, you’re going to find yourself sharing intimate details of your life, you’re going to meet people you would never have before, and yes, you’re also going to sing harmonies to some of the greatest songs of all time.” Tickets can be purchased here for $51.20 to $71.

The 2025/2026 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series will welcome Adam Johnson to the Wortham Theater Center, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Orphan Master’s Son, on Wednesday, October 15, at 7:30 p.m. to read from his upcoming historical epic, The Wayfinder. Johnson previously told People that telling the story, about a little girl tasked with saving her people, he “needed poetry, myth, dance and breathtaking portraits of the natural world. I needed to capture the vastness of the ocean and the unbroken nature of human lineage. Most of all, I needed characters whose bonds were as precious and pressing as our own as we navigate our own age of uncertainty.” After the reading, Johnson will participate in an on-stage conversation followed by a book sale and signing. Tickets for the reading are available here for $6.50.

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