Festival
Featured
What ArtPrize Actually Does to Downtown, and How to Vote
An open competition with no entry jury, installed in bars, churches and hotel lobbies, decided partly by anyone over thirteen who turns up.
September 18 – October 3
News
What's New in Grand Rapids
Openings, closures, festival dates and beach notices for Grand Rapids. Every item is dated, says where the facts came from, and points back at the pages that explain the practical side.
Front page
What we would read first
Development
FeaturedThe City Is Rebuilding the Rapids It Was Named For
Four low-head dams come out and the rapids come back. In the meantime, the downtown riverfront is a two-year building site.
Festival
FeaturedThe City's Answer to January Is a Hundred Artworks and a Free Ice Rink
Two months of free outdoor art, performance and skating, programmed for the weeks when West Michigan is at its coldest and greyest.
January 9 – March 1
Seasonal
December at Meijer Gardens Is the Busiest Ticket in West Michigan
More than forty cultural displays and decorated trees under conservatory glass, plus a light show around a twenty-four-foot bronze horse.
Archive
More stories
Closure
Check Before You Walk Over: The Beer Map Has Changed
Four familiar names have gone dark since 2024. The city's beer scene is still deep, but published brewery lists are increasingly fiction.
Reopening
The Ford Museum Reopened in June, and Old Reviews No Longer Apply
Nine months closed, thirteen million dollars spent, and a new learning centre. Anyone working from a 2024 review is describing a building that no longer exists.
Seasonal
John Ball Zoo Runs a Season, and Visitors Keep Missing It
The most common planning mistake visitors make in this city: booking a February family weekend around a zoo that is shut until spring.
Seasonal
Seven Thousand Butterflies Fill the Conservatory Every Spring
The largest temporary tropical butterfly exhibition in the country, in a humid glasshouse, with a queue that starts before the doors open at weekends.