Arts & Culture

The Indoor Auto Racing Series, in which the cars compete on the concrete floor, will drive into the area Jan. 3-4 for the ninth running of the Ironton Global Allentown Indoor Races.

The festival, which features which retailers, artisans and food in heated tents on the SteelStacks campus, will open for its 32nd year on the weekend of Nov. 15.

Easton's Frank Pintabone announced Wednesday that a Hispanic Resource Day, catering to the needs of the city's Hispanic population, will be hosted at the Easton Area Community Center in November.

About 48,000 people attended the two-weekend Oktoberfest festival Oct. 4-6 and 11-13, ArtsQuest said.

The book festival will feature workshops, poetry, lectures by authors and discussions on the environment, LGBTQ rights, diversity and the steel industry. It runs through Sunday at various locations in the city.

Tribute shows to the music of Taylor Swift, Whitney Houston and Michael Bublé have been announced for the event center. So is rising comedian Sam Morril.

"Monster Mini Golf" is set to come to the Lehigh Valley, with construction started according to an announcement by the company's Facebook page.

The Buckinghams, best known for its No. 1 hit “Kind of a Drag,” will join with The Lovin’s Spoonful, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group that had the hits “Do You Believe in Magic?” and “Summer in the City” at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28.

The star-studded awards ceremony was held inside Miller Symphony Hall on Saturday, Oct. 12. Young actors and a Grammy-winning hip-hop artist shared the stage.

Chart-topping singer Sabrina Carpenter, a Lehigh Valley native, performed her Short n' Sweet Tour show at Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday, Oct. 8, in what she called a "hometown show."

The 4th Annual International Cultural Festival on Saturday, Sept. 16, will feature handcrafts, performances and food from a diverse range of cultures around the globe.

Starting Friday, Sept. 15 is Halloween Haunt, a nighttime event meant to thrill and terrify in equal measure, running select nights through October 28.

The show, at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2, will be topped by Two-time WWE World Champion A.J. Styles, considered one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, and four-time World Champion Sheamus, the first Irish world champion in WWE history.

Saturday's festival will feature cooking and beauty demos, live music and guest lectures by authors.

The eighth Martin's Guitar Wood Summit was held Thursday at Martin & Co. in Nazareth. The main topic centered on sustainability of forests that provide wood used for guitar construction.

A stage play based on music from the Saturday morning “Schoolhouse Rock” animated series – much of it written by late Lehigh Valley-area resident Bob Dorough – is set to open Friday.

Sample hundreds of new creations from sixty breweries at the buzzworthy block party happening Saturday, Sept. 9.

The Bethlehem Running Festival has added a half-marathon relay to its inaugural event on Oct. 21-22.

Allentown's 19th Street Theatre has been nominated to be on the National Register of Historic Places.

Workers battled oppressive heat while breaking down venues at the recently concluded 171st Allentown Fair on Tuesday, Final attendance figure for the six-day festival is expected to be released by next week.

Total attendance figures won't be released until later in the week, but they likely were helped by a week of splendid weather. The six-day fair started last Wednesday and wrapped up, as usual, with the demolition derby at the grandstand on Labor Day.

Keith Urban at the Allentown Fair grandstand played an astounding 13 gold or platinum hits — or was it 16? — on a night that cooled off a "Long Hot Summer" day.