Most of what's left of Artoberfest in downtown Norman this month asks you to make something. You can build a papier-mâché mask and march in it down Main Street. You can carve a mold and collect it as a cast aluminum tile, or put on zombie makeup and spend the night hunting brains hidden around downtown. Then line those dates up against the University of Oklahoma football schedule. The procession, the metal pour and the zombie crawl all fall on Friday nights. The one weekend workshop is on a Saturday when the Sooners are playing somewhere else, and the weekday workshops and talk are over before the weekend starts.
Artoberfest started September 19 and closes October 30. It's put on by downtown Norman's independent art spaces and craft brewers. The opening Saturdays are behind us. Ink the Block brought live steamroller printing to Crawford Avenue outside Opolis, and Brewtoberfest gathered Lazy Circles, Legally Brewed and BIG Brewing at The Depot. What's left of the series fits into three weeks. Several of those events also need some lead time from you.
The Remaining Calendar, Both Columns at Once
This list puts the art calendar and the football calendar side by side, from Tuesday, October 6, through Halloween.
- Wed., Oct. 7 and Thu., Oct. 8: last two days of Dennis McNett's mask-making workshop at Resonator, 325 E. Main St., 1 to 8 p.m.
- Wed., Oct. 7: McNett's public artist talk, OU School of Visual Arts, Room 205
- Fri., Oct. 9: Second Friday Art Walk, 6 to 9 p.m., with Al Paldrok's RAW opening at Uncanny Art House and McNett's procession at 7 p.m.
- Sat., Oct. 10: OU plays Texas at 2:30 p.m. CT at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The aluminum scratch-mold workshop runs 2 to 5 p.m. at Lazy Circles Brewing.
- Sun., Oct. 11: Kids Space Last Play at Reaves Park, 1 to 3 p.m.
- Fri., Oct. 16: Metal Shop at Lazy Circles, 6 p.m.
- Sat., Oct. 17: Kentucky at home, 6:30 p.m. CT
- Sat., Oct. 24: OU at Mississippi State
- Fri., Oct. 30: A Night to Dismember and the Blood Harvest Ball, 7 p.m., Jones Avenue
- Sat., Oct. 31: South Carolina at home, kickoff still listed as a window
Resonator's page lists the McNett talk at 4 p.m. VisitNorman lists it at 5 p.m. If you plan to go, confirm the time with Resonator first.
Your Mask Has Until Thursday
The October 9 procession is called Here One Day, Gone the Next. Virginia-based artist Dennis McNett leads it, and Resonator and the OU School of Visual Arts sponsor it. McNett opens with what the organizers call a ceremonial call to live life to its fullest. Then giant handmade parade puppets, masked marchers, a live drummer and a live guitarist head down the 300 block of Main Street. According to VisitNorman's preview, anyone with a mask can join.
That makes the workshop the real way in. It costs $30 and includes all materials. You shape a cardboard frame into the animal of your choice and decorate it with McNett's hand-printed patterns. The workshop runs October 5 through 8, so as of today there are two afternoons and evenings left after this one.
McNett has done this downtown before. Last year's procession, Reclamation of the Wolves, ran on Friday, October 10, 2025. This year's date is October 9, which is Art Walk night. The Norman Arts Council lists Art Walk from 6 to 9 p.m. in the Walker Arts District. Its permit covers Main Street from the 200 block west to the 300 block east, plus the 200 and 300 blocks of East Gray Street. The procession sits right in the middle of that area.
An hour before the puppets set out, Uncanny Art House at 106 E. Main St. opens RAW. It's a show of mixed-media photographs by Estonian artist Al Paldrok, drawn from performances by Non Grata, the international performance art collective he formed more than two decades ago. Both the gallery and the procession are on Main Street during the same Art Walk evening.
The Red River Saturday Has a Workshop Inside It
The football calendar makes October 10 easy to misread. The Oklahoma–Texas game is a home game for neither team. The Red River Rivalry is played at a neutral site, the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, with a 2:30 p.m. Central kickoff. So on Saturday the Sooners are in Texas, while a workshop at Lazy Circles Brewing runs 2 to 5 p.m.
The aluminum scratch-mold workshop is taught by East Central University professor Chris Overstake and OU sculpture technician Andy Denton. It covers the basics of designing and carving a simple mold during happy hour. The fee is $30. The mold doesn't go home with you that day. It's cast at Metal Shop six days later, and the custom aluminum tile that comes out is yours to keep. That links the road-game Saturday to the following Friday. If you sign up, you're committed to both dates.
A Pour on the Friday Before Kentucky
Metal Shop starts at 6 p.m. Friday, October 16, outside Lazy Circles at 422 E. Main St. Sculpture clubs from OU and ECU do a live aluminum pour, led by Overstake and Denton. Inside afterward, local bands Bugnog and Mushroom Goblin play, and local artists Chris Johnson and Barry Zimmerman make 2-D work during the show.
Kentucky comes to Norman the next evening, with a 6:30 p.m. Central kickoff on October 17. Metal Shop is the last Artoberfest event in a run that started Wednesday with the McNett talk. With the Sooners at Mississippi State on October 24, the series has no events between October 17 and its finale.
OU's game-day guidance matters on home Saturdays. When the athletic department released its 2026 driving maps, it told fans to use those maps rather than GPS, because standard mapping apps don't account for game-day closures. The Friday-night events downtown come before any of those closures.
Downtown's Halloween Comes a Night Early
Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, and OU hosts South Carolina that day. The official schedule still shows the kickoff as "2:30-3:30 or 5-7 p.m. CT," so it isn't set yet. The Artoberfest organizers bill their finale as "Halloween for the grown-ups," and it takes place Friday, October 30.
A Night to Dismember starts at 7 p.m. on Jones Avenue in front of The Depot, 200 S. Jones Ave. Artists at The Depot help with zombie makeup. From there, the night becomes a pub crawl across downtown to find hidden brains. Everyone ends up back on Jones Avenue for the Blood Harvest Ball, an outdoor concert with Sisteria, King Witch Mother and other acts playing, in the organizers' words, "until the undead drop."
The event is free. A $20 wristband is a donation to Norman Music Festival, and it covers makeup, extra perks and entry into the door prize drawings tied to the scavenger hunt. Like the procession and the metal pour, it asks you to take part rather than just watch.
The Sunday Build Starts With a Teardown
The one non-Artoberfest date on the list follows the same idea of residents making things together. On Sunday, October 11, the City of Norman hosts Kids Space Last Play at Reaves Park, 2501 S. Jenkins Ave., from 1 to 3 p.m. There will be face painting, a scavenger hunt, sno-cones, yard games and commemorative giveaways, plus a community banner for people to sign.
Kids Space was built by residents in the first place. Hundreds of volunteers put up the all-wood structure, which was finished March 28, 1999, and paid for it with more than $130,000 in private fundraising. The replacement is backed by a $598,000 Built Environment Grant from the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust. The money is paid out over two years, and construction happens in two phases. Plans call for an accessible safety surface, inclusive play features, materials made to look like the original wood, and a public art piece honoring the 1999 volunteers.
"We're excited to create a new, more accessible space that reflects the needs of today's families while preserving the spirit of the original Kids Space. And just like before, this project will be built with the help of our community." Jason Olsen, Director of Parks and Recreation, City of Norman
The City says it will run another community-build process. Separately, students in OU's American School of Design-Build program will design and build a new pavilion next to the playground, with completion expected in spring 2027.
One task on Sunday is time-sensitive. Park staff will take down the engraved donor boards from the 1999 build and make them available for pickup at the event. Boards that aren't collected will be held for up to 30 days. To schedule a pickup, families can contact Parks & Recreation at [email protected] or 405-366-5472.
At Wyatt Poindexter, we follow Norman's calendar closely enough to know which Fridays and which Saturdays have something on. If you're weighing a home near downtown or Reaves Park and want to know how it fits into a week like this one, request a private, white-glove consultation.
