Do you have Inexpensive or Free Entertainment

[Deleted]

where you live?

Like what?

We have been to 2 great free Blues concerts this summer.

One was put on by the city next door and was in the park.

The other was by a privately owned business here.

Another one was pretty inexpensive $20 I think.

I don't miss big concerts at all. Though I love live music these are so much better, closer, cheaper.

I have been so happy with the great music around here this summer.

[Deleted]

there are lots of free things down in DC but getting there by metro is minimum $9 per person or you pay for parking unless you're lucky enough to find street parking.  then if it's somewhere indoors, you have to purchase food (most places don't let you take in food/drinks/backpacks).

[Shooby]

High school and local college basketball and football games. Coaching 5th grade bball. Going to the local park. Cooking new things. Playing my guitar.

[dannylion]

There is an annual Sheep and Wool Festival at the local fairgrounds that is lots of fun and used to be free. Then they made the mistake of advertising, and that attracted an unruly, entitled element that spoiled the experience for everyone else. Now there is an entrance fee.

The best part of the Sheep and Wool Festival: The herding dog demonstrations, especially when they bring out a very young dog to see what it will do without any training.  Sometimes they do pretty well, mostly it's just hilarious.  They let you pet the dogs when they're not working.  (I like dogs.) 

[Deleted]

As a teacher, I have all the "free" entertainment that I care to attend.   Sometimes the city lets us in "free," too, because they expect us to play bouncer.  

[MarleyKeezy78]

We have free concerts every Friday in the summers in our little downtown park. We also have a Green Fair, Art Fair, Fall Fest, Chili Cook off, Halloween thing for the kids and a Ice Festival. If you don't buy anything it's free!!! Plus we have a ton of parks where we live, DS loves that  Also the fireworks for the 4th of July. They do other things too, car shows and stuff.  We live in SE Michigan.

[Lizard Queen]

Sept 28, 2014 14:20:46 GMT -5 MarleyKeezy78 said:

We have free concerts every Friday in the summers in our little downtown park. We also have a Green Fair, Art Fair, Fall Fest, Chili Cook off, Halloween thing for the kids and a Ice Festival. If you don't buy anything it's free!!! Plus we have a ton of parks where we live, DS loves that  Also the fireworks for the 4th of July. They do other things too, car shows and stuff.  We live in SE Michigan.

Same here in SW MI.  Friday night parties in the park all summer, a few concerts each summer in the pavilion at the park 1/2 block from my house, a bunch of fairs and art fairs in surrounding cities--all free.  I know there's more free concerts at another nearby park, too, but I've never gone to that one. Oh, and free community concerts at the local theatre. Fireworks.  Free nights at the Irish music festival and the Christian music festival.  I just went to ArtPrize with the family yesterday evening.  It was completely free except for the gas to get there and back, and a cheap dinner at BK.

The regional ballpark is pretty cheap as well, hockey games are cheap, the community college puts on cheap shows, as do the local high schools.

[Artemis Windsong]

Through the summer, there are free concerts at the band shell.  Free frisbee golf in several parks.

Artsy stuff is Art in the Park, Street Fair, Folkfest street fair, powwow, a couple of parades.  Shakespere in the park.  Urban Harvest street fair type thing every Thursday through the summer.

Historical society has sensational Sunday presentations.  They used to be every Sunday from January to April.  Now, a person needs to watch the calendar and read the newspaper.

The college has Conversations between the former president and a published author.  The library and college have book groups.  The library has free movies.  One of the recent free events was hula hooping.

Loads of outdoor parks, playgrounds and walking paths.  Outdoor tennis courts.  Mountain biking and unpaved running paths.

The newspaper publishes a list of 100 things to do during the summer.  I tried a lot of those things one year.

Winter is ice skating rinks all over town.  Cross country skiing, ice fishing (not free because of the equipment needed).  Two malls to walk indoors.

The above has put a pin in the map if someone lurks on this board. 

[Anne_in_VA]

We have lots of free stuff - festivals, parades, free music on the beach, just tons of stuff. Of course, living in a resort city helps too.

[Bonny]

Our town is doing it's big annual town party. Yesterday we spent nearly the whole afternoon listening some wonderful local bands. A couple of the local cafes have "free" concerts every weekend but I wouldn't feel right not buying something.

We live near the beach and are surrounded by greenbelts managed by the County, State or the Federal Government (Golden Gate National Recreation Area) none of which charge for visiting the space. Both the local County park and the City charge to park in a couple of parking lots but it's pretty easy to do street parking to avoid the parking fee.

We also have a skate park and watching all the high school games and plays are free.

We have a lot of things to do right here in town. But if you're willing to hop onto BART it's a short ride to San Francisco where there's even more to do.

[sarcasticgirl]

During the summer there are festivals all over the city of Chicago every single weekend. There are movies in the park and concerts in the park. The city offers quite a few free days to the museums for residents. There are hundreds of city parks with free amenities such as pools, some indoors. The entire lake front is public, beaches, harbors, jogging/running paths. We have a free zoo and free gardens.
I am sure there are dozens of things that I am forgetting... Needless to say you can entertain yourself for free pretty easily, especially during the summer.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using proboards

[Deleted]

I guess I'm a real introvert. The first thing I thought of was podcasts. I LOVE podcasts! Any subject you want, any time, any language... I guess there are some you pay for, but I don't get any of those.

[buystoys]

We went to a Sinatra tribute concert this afternoon.  Pretty good, actually!  It's $35 PP for the season and there are nine or ten more events planned for this season.  We also go to see the Dallas Symphony Orchestra here in town - three concerts - for $35 PP for the season.  Good deals as far as we're concerned!

There are Friday night historical walking tours, but we haven't done that yet.  It's been too hot.  Maybe in a few more weeks.  There are all kinds of free or inexpensive events here, we just haven't found them all yet. 

[Nazgul Girl]

Sept 28, 2014 14:05:36 GMT -5 dannylion said:

There is an annual Sheep and Wool Festival at the local fairgrounds that is lots of fun and used to be free. Then they made the mistake of advertising, and that attracted an unruly, entitled element that spoiled the experience for everyone else. Now there is an entrance fee.

The best part of the Sheep and Wool Festival: The herding dog demonstrations, especially when they bring out a very young dog to see what it will do without any training.  Sometimes they do pretty well, mostly it's just hilarious.  They let you pet the dogs when they're not working.  (I like dogs.) 

   This sounds like a blast !   I promise not to be a rowdy element.

[Nazgul Girl]

   Reading, walking in the parks, feeding the squirrels, going to the occasional garage sale ( unless you buy a lot of crap ), looking around in pawn shops, renting a movie on xfinity for $ 2.99 ( some are much more ), watching free movies on the Kindle Fire, playing games on the computer, messing around with the dog, walking the dog, talking about stuff, going out to lunch with DD or DH at the local coney island restaurants, fall color tours.   We'll be going to the Detroit Art Institute this fall.   Admission is zip in our county, because we passed some kind of bond right before Detroit went bankrupt, and free admission for county residents was part of the deal.

   We are going on a bus tour of Detroit titled Scofflaws and Speakeasies which was $ 35 per person.    You can bring your own booze, or drink at the bars which are on some of the stops.   It's at night.    The tour has a woman who dresses as a flapper and narrates the tour.   We'll see various locations that were important during the Prohibition era, including the ( shudder ) the site where one of the Purple Gang biggies was gunned down.   We have a group of six going, plus whoever else is on the bus.   I'm looking forward to it.

   

[dannylion]

Sept 28, 2014 19:10:13 GMT -5 Nazgul Girl said:

Sept 28, 2014 14:05:36 GMT -5 dannylion said:

There is an annual Sheep and Wool Festival at the local fairgrounds that is lots of fun and used to be free. Then they made the mistake of advertising, and that attracted an unruly, entitled element that spoiled the experience for everyone else. Now there is an entrance fee.

The best part of the Sheep and Wool Festival: The herding dog demonstrations, especially when they bring out a very young dog to see what it will do without any training.  Sometimes they do pretty well, mostly it's just hilarious.  They let you pet the dogs when they're not working.  (I like dogs.) 

   This sounds like a blast !   I promise not to be a rowdy element.

It's lots of fun, NG! There are many sheep-and-wool-related craftsbeings.  There are sheep, of course, including baby sheep, and goats as well. And a little donkey who is buddies with the goats he lives with and can't be left at home alone because he pines, so the years his people come and bring the goats, they bring him along.  Sometimes there are Anatolian Shepherds and other big dogs that stay with a herd of sheep to guard it.  One year there was a litter of Anatolian Shepherd puppies.  And rabbits.  There are lots of rabbits (because of the wool).  If you're ever in Howard County, MD, during the first week of May, stop by the fairgrounds and check it out. 

[gooddecisions]

My middle name is free. There is at least 1 free festival every weekend the entire year in my city- no exaggeration. Most weekends have several festivals. Today I went to a free street festival, last weekend I went to two. The parks and recs center has several free events we go to. We go to free family story time every weekend at the library. You can see pretty much every movie for free at the theater if you know where to look for tickets to the pre-screening. Friday night, my neighborhood had a free movie at the outdoor amphitheater with free popcorn and free drinks. We'll go to at least 3 harvest festivals and the kids will get free candy and pumpkins to take home. There are several happy hours with free food if you get a $2 beer. I learned all the tricks when I was making no money in my 20's and have yet to learn how to spend money on entertainment.

[Bonny]

Sept 28, 2014 19:16:24 GMT -5 Nazgul Girl said:

   

   We are going on a bus tour of Detroit titled Scofflaws and Speakeasies which was $ 35 per person.    You can bring your own booze, or drink at the bars which are on some of the stops.   It's at night.    The tour has a woman who dresses as a flapper and narrates the tour.   We'll see various locations that were important during the Prohibition era, including the ( shudder ) the site where one of the Purple Gang biggies was gunned down.   We have a group of six going, plus whoever else is on the bus.   I'm looking forward to it.

   

That sounds like fun. We could do something similar here as the San Mateo County Coast was pretty remote during prohibition. Rum runners would drop off boxes of Canadian booze in remote coves and they would be hauled up to road houses along Hwy 1. Folks would come down from San Francisco and have a good ol' time. I understand there was a pretty brisk upstairs business too.

[phil5185]

Winter is ice skating rinks all over town.

I'm envious, in AZ the ice rinks are all indoor rinks. Two or 3 years ago we took a trip to Keystone, CO, they have a 5-acre lake that is maintained by 2 Zambonis - neat!

[resolution]

We are in the heart of civil war battlegrounds, so we have quite a few reenactments every year, which are free. We also go to the apple harvest festival in PA and a hot air balloon and wine tasting in Winchester VA.

[marvholly]

I live just outside Chicago.
My town has NUMEROUS free activities, some year around.

Park district does summer festivals, concerts & outdoor movies. They also have some movies indoors 2-3x/month year round. They have reduced price for seniors plays 4x/yr.

Library sponsors weekly summer activities. They have FREE, fairly recent movies at least weekly year round. Also, concerts several times/month Sept thru May. In addition FREE or CHEAP (under $5) classes are given most of the year.

A local liquior store usually has a FREE tasting of wine, beer, or alcohol about 1x/month.

[alinal]

Sept 28, 2014 12:14:20 GMT -5 @xmascookie said:

where you live?

Like what?

We have free concerts in the park all summer long, and at another venue in the spring/fall. Free parking, too.

Movies in the park. A couple theaters offer free kids movies in the summer.

They are trying to ramp up activity in our downtown area, so there are at least monthly free events there (mini golf, arts festivals, light shows).

Our library system offers lots of free events for adults, not just book clubs and story time - movies, concerts, craft programs, though some crafts have small fees.

There are more I probably don't know about since I don't have kids.

Of course, these events aren't free for me - I always donate money since I can afford to pay for my entertainment.

We have a yearly big festival that used to be free, but now they charge a nominal fee ($5-$10) instead of asking for donations.

[HoneyBBQ]

We are members of the zoo - so not exactly free but free-ish after the family plan. They have members only concerts and functions, plus, of course, all visits are free so we can just go for an hour and check out the elephants and leave.

Library. Free.

Hobbies of biking and jogging, going on walks, hiking. Not exactly free since you need some equipment, but mostly.

Going to the park, playing on the playground (w 2 yr old).