A monthly walk-and-talk for the design community, out on a Saturday afternoon. This one crosses Trinity Bellwoods arguing about whether a design can be built to provoke an emotion on purpose.
Gardiner Museum, 111 Queens Park, Toronto, ON M5S 2C7
Price
$22, plus $5 and up to fire a piece
An hour at the wheel with no course to sign up for. Registration opens online at 10am the morning of each class and it goes quickly. Firing is extra and paid at the front desk.
Bike Pirates, 1564 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M6P 1A4
Price
Pay what you can
A volunteer-run DIY workshop: their stands, their tools, their advice, your hands. No appointment — but fill in the waiver on a first visit. You can build a bike from parts if you have the patience.
Sunday, July 12, 2026 – Saturday, October 24, 2026
Where
Toronto Society of Architects, Downtown Yonge, Yonge St & Dundas St, Toronto, ON M5B 1R8
Price
Free; the thematic tours are $15
Architect-led walks through Downtown Yonge, free, through to October 24. The society’s nine thematic tours elsewhere in the city are $15 and run 90 to 120 minutes.
Thursday, September 10, 2026 – Sunday, September 13, 2026, 10pm
Where
David Pecaut Square, 55 John St, Toronto, ON M5V 3G4
Price
Free
TIFF Cinematheque and Next Wave put a screen up in the square for the four nights of Festival Street, showing at 10pm with open captions, rain or shine. City Lights, The F Word, Madagascar and one more, a night each.
Wednesday, September 9, 2026 – Wednesday, September 30, 2026, 5–7pm; 2–4pm Sat & Sun
Where
The Rex Hotel Jazz & Blues Bar, 194 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1Z1
Price
Pay what you can
The Rex runs several sets a night and the early one is pay what you can, no reservations: 5pm daily, plus a 2pm matinee at weekends. The bill runs from student ensembles out of U of T and Humber to established Toronto quartets and big bands.
Wednesday, September 2, 2026 – Saturday, January 30, 2027
Where
Onsite Gallery, OCAD University, 199 Richmond St W, Toronto, ON M5V 0H4
Price
Free
Forty years of Rebecca Baird and Kenny Alvin Baird, shown alongside work by Inuk artist Michael Massie. Free, and usually empty on a weekday afternoon.
Saturday, September 12, 2026, 8am – 1pm (Local Food Court open until 2pm)
Where
Evergreen Brick Works, 550 Bayview Ave, Toronto
Price
Price not listed
A year-round Saturday market where you can shop from Ontario farmers and food producers based within 205 km of the site, plus a local food court. From May to October the stalls set up outdoors under the pavilions.
Wednesday, September 9, 2026 – Saturday, December 5, 2026
Where
The Image Centre, Toronto Metropolitan University, 33 Gould St, Toronto, ON M5B 1W1
Price
Free
The Main and University galleries reopen after installation, with a fall opening reception on September 9, 6–8pm. Free, two minutes from Dundas station.
Thursday, September 10, 2026 – Sunday, September 13, 2026
Where
King Street West, King St W between Peter St & University Ave, Toronto, ON
Price
Free
King Street closes between Peter and University for four days of the film festival — art installations, live music, food trucks and an art market, with no ticket needed for any of it. The eleventh year, and about half a million people pass through.
Sunday, September 13, 2026 – Sunday, November 1, 2026
Where
Evergreen Brick Works, 550 Bayview Ave, Toronto
Price
Price not listed
Two markets side by side on Sundays: over 40 local artists and makers selling handmade jewelry, skin care, art and candles, plus vintage vendors with curated antiques.
Toronto School of Art, 24 Ryerson Ave, 2nd Floor, Toronto, ON M5T 2P3
Price
$20
Short poses, a live model, no instruction and no critique — just bring paper. First come, first served, and capped at twenty-four. Sunday parking is free; Monday evening is $6.
A Sunday morning group run that starts and finishes at Heval on Spadina. The café puts on a runners’ combo afterwards and takes a quarter off coffee until one.
Ashbridge Estate, 1444 Queen St E, Toronto, ON M4L 1E1
Price
Free
Formerly the Leslieville Flea. Furniture, records and mid-century everything on the lawn of a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse. Last Sunday of the season is October 4.
Comedy Bar Danforth, Studio Theatre, 2800 Danforth Ave, Toronto, ON M4C 1M1
Price
$13
Three improv sets: a longform narrative built from an audience suggestion, a set from a Comedy Bar pro troupe, and the Jim-Jam, a bucket jam anyone can play with no experience. Names in the bucket by 8:30pm.
The Bentway, 250 Fort York Blvd, Toronto, ON M5V 3K9
Price
Price not listed
A conversation with the artist about his body of work and his long-time engagement with democracy, participation and the public realm, marking the Canadian premiere of Public Trust.
Toronto Public Library – Fort York Branch, Fort York Boulevard, Toronto, ON, Canada
Price
Free
A conversation about Ramírez Jonas's participatory works, from Key to the City and The Commons to Public Trust, and how everyday acts of exchange and promise become ways of imagining new social contracts.
The Rex Hotel Jazz & Blues Bar, 194 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1Z1
Price
$10 cover charge, no reservations
An open Tuesday-night jam hosted by Chris Banks with a standing house band, ten dollars at the door and no reservations. The Rex's own blurb lists September 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29, but its calendar carries no jam on the 22nd, so the remaining nights this month are the 15th and the 29th.
Comedy Bar Danforth, Studio Theatre, 2800 Danforth Ave, Toronto, ON M4C 1M1
Price
$13
Emerging stand-ups do short sets in the Studio Theatre with a host running the room. Anyone can put their name in the bucket to get on stage, provided they do it by 8:30pm.
Revue Cinema, 400 Roncesvalles Ave, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Price
$7.50 on Tuesdays; regular and second-run films only
Toronto's oldest continuously operating cinema, volunteer-run and single-screen, drops its $15 admission to $7.50 every Tuesday, for everyone including members. It covers regular and second-run bookings only, not the special-event nights that fill much of the schedule, so check the day's listing first.
Tuesday, September 15, 2026 – Sunday, October 4, 2026
Where
Toronto Public Library Fort York branch; Marina Quay West; Harbourfront Centre; The Bentway, 190 Fort York Blvd; 539 Queens Quay W; 235 Queens Quay W; 250 Fort York Blvd, Toronto
Price
Free
An interactive artwork with a large marquee and two eight-foot tables staffed by local performers: you make a promise aloud, swearing on a sacred text or an object that matters to you, and it is recorded in a drawing.
Toronto Public Library, Fort York branch, 190 Fort York Blvd, Toronto
Price
Free
An interactive artwork with a large-scale marquee and two eight-foot tables staffed by performers: you make a promise out loud, swearing on a sacred text or an object of your choosing, and it's recorded in a drawing you.
Aga Khan Museum, 77 Wynford Dr, North York, ON M3C 1K1
Price
Free; tickets in person only
Free galleries during extended Wednesday hours. Tickets are in person only, at the guest services desk. Worth the trip up for the building and the reflecting pools alone.
Toronto Tool Library and Makerspace, 192 Spadina Ave, Unit 001, Toronto, ON M5T 2C2
Price
Free
One night a week the makerspace opens to anyone, membership or not — 3D printers, laser cutter, CNC router and a wood shop. Down the alleyway; buzz to be let in.
Gardiner Museum, 111 Queens Park, Toronto, ON M5S 2C7
Price
Free
Free every Wednesday afternoon and evening, no booking needed. Three floors of ceramics across from the ROM, done in an hour. Always free for students, under-18s and Indigenous Peoples.
Comedy Bar Bloor, 945 Bloor Street West
Toronto, ON, M6H 1L5
Canada
Price
Price not listed
Performers move through cold reads, callbacks, strange direction and unexpected twists as the audition process spirals — completely improvised and never the same twice.
Saturday, September 19, 2026 – Sunday, September 20, 2026, 11am–11pm, Sunday to 7pm
Where
Roncesvalles Avenue, Roncesvalles Ave & Wright Ave, Toronto, ON
Price
Free
Toronto’s Polish street festival closes Roncesvalles Avenue for its twentieth year, with food, music and the main stage up near Wright Avenue. It runs late on the Saturday and winds up early Sunday evening.
Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre, 145 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5H 4G1
Price
Free; a seat is not guaranteed
The Canadian Opera Company gives free concerts in the glass-walled amphitheatre above the Four Seasons Centre lobby, most at noon on a weekday and a few in the afternoon or evening. There are 120 seats handed out first come, everyone else stands, and there is no late seating once a performance starts.
Kensington Market, Augusta Ave & Baldwin St, Toronto, ON M5T 2L7
Price
Free
Cars out, everyone else in: drum circles, stoop sales, and the market at its loudest. Augusta stays closed to 10pm. Last Sunday of the month, May to October.
Revue Cinema, 400 Roncesvalles Ave, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Price
Free, pay what you can; cash donations at the door
Nyla Innuksuk's film, in which a group of Inuit girls in a remote Arctic community fight off an alien invasion, screens free on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Cash taken at the door and part of that day's concession sales go to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society.
Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, 158 Sterling Rd, Toronto, ON M6R 2B7
Price
$14; free for 18 and under
Bharti Kher and Delcy Morelos, with Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s Light of the Heavens, across two floors of a converted aluminium factory. Free for anyone eighteen and under.
Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas St W, Toronto, ON M5T 1G4
Price
Free, but book the timed ticket ahead
Free admission on the first Wednesday night of the month — not every Wednesday. Tickets are released online at 10am the Monday before, two per person, and they go.
Revue Cinema, 400 Roncesvalles Ave, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Price
Free, pay what you can; cash donations at the door
The 1992 BBC hoax broadcast that sent a live crew into the most haunted house in Britain on Halloween night and panicked a good part of its audience. Part of Apparatus Theory, Saffron Maeve's bimonthly series on films about filmmaking.