Lite + Brite: 54 Passionate Austin Events 8/21

Hello, what’s up, and welcome to the Lite + Brite newsletter.

It’s Austin Pride this weekend! (Every year we link to this KUT article explaining why Austin Pride is in August, but every year we get new subscribers, so we’re sharing it again.) Celebrate with competitive wig-snatching, stoner-friendly genderqueer burlesque, free poolside drag, or of course the giant downtown parade and festival.

Outside of Pride, we’ve got competitive onion-eating, competitive Shakespearean monologuing, a goth dance party set in the vampiric world of Forks, Washington, an all-ages goth dance party in a coffeeshop, 20 one-minute dance performances, cyanotype printing with porcine company, free retro gaming, puppets’ take on Rocky Horror, and a museum of loss. (Btw, if you’re into museums of loss, you will probably also be into Leila’s book The Museum of Lost and Found!)

Anyone who tells you that “Austin isn’t weird anymore” has their damn head in the sand. Anyone who tells you that “Austin is too hot” is, unfortunately, 100% correct.

If you’re not already a subscriber to this newsletter and you want to be, click here. We do one newsletter a week, usually on Fridays, plus a bonus edition around the start of each month. If you enjoy this newsletter, please support us by contributing to our Patreon and by forwarding this email to your friends who enjoy things like listening to music and leaving the house sometimes.

Let’s do fun stuff!

—Leila + Brian
liteandbriteatx.com

EVENTS WE’RE EYEING

Friday 8/21

Saturday 8/22

  • Austin Pride Festival + Parade at Fiesta Gardens
    All-day Pride celebration w/vendors, performances, + a parade
  • The Great Austin Shake Off at Scottish Rite Theatre
    Local Shakespearean actors compete by reciting the Bard’s speeches
  • Reverbia at Vibe Haus
    Live graffiti, art gallery, vendors, DJs, + interactive experiences
  • Wizard Rave at 4211 Todd Ln.
    Wizards convene for live music / Magic tournament / D+D / castle building
  • Wig Snatching Competition at the Liberty
    “What better way to show your pride than to rip wigs off heads?”
  • Back to Goth Night at Elysium
    Back to school-themed party w/DJs, vendors, costume contest, “goth cheerleaders”
  • Realms of Fungi at ArtUs Co.
    Fungal art, speakers, DJ, + costume contest w/“spore-tacular prizes”
  • Dance Carousel FUNdraiser at Pure Yoga + Fitness
    20 one-minute dance performances, lessons, auctions, DJ, + games
  • The Austin Boogie Down Picnic at Republic Square Park
    “Feel Day” games, roller skating, DJ, + hula hooping
  • Body Mechanics at 4211 Todd Ln.
    Fetish-friendly dance party puts on pool attire w/vinyl DJs + microbikinis
  • Soundscapes at Women + Their Work
    Live ambient synth performance w/art exhibition
  • Afterglow at Fallout
    “Experimental music, live visual art, modern clowning, + alternative comedy”
  • Dark Ritual at Capt. Quack’s Soundspace
    DJs spinning goth, post-punk + darkwave w/visuals for all-ages partiers
  • Pirate Night at Tiny Minotaur
    “No blaggards or bilge-rats allowed” at this pirate costume party
  • Story-oke at the Highball
    Sing a song + talk about it. Basically DIY VH1 Storytellers
  • The Museum of All the Things We’ve Loved at TOMO Mags
    Personal artifacts of love + loss displayed w/the art that they inspired
  • Austin Sketch Fest at ColdTowne
    Fest celebrating some of the best local + out-of-town sketch comedy
  • Stargaze Theater Festival at the Dougherty Arts Center
    “Five original short plays by local playwrights”
  • Listen Like Lovers at Crashbox
    “Participatory soundtracking,” “collaborative conduction” + drop-in choir
  • Falling Down the Mountain of Great Storms at the Rosette
    Play w/cajun music, “herons flying around” and human-animal hybrids
  • Speak No More: Lovecraft at the Tavern
    “Immersive, site-specific, improvised event” inspired by eldritch horror
  • (weekly thru 8/30) Escape the Box at the Texas State Capitol
    Solve time-traveling puzzles w/friends while exploring the statehouse

Sunday 8/23

  • No Man’s Land Film Festival at AFS
    Watch premiere of a climbing doc w/panel on rock climbing
  • Art + Oinks at Central Texas Pig Rescue
    Chill with rescued pigs + make your own cyanotype artwork
  • Good Judy at the Austin Motel
    Free pool party w/DJs + drag performers of all genders + sizes
  • Leisure Suit Larry’s Retro Games at the Highball
    Play vintage video games on a wide variety of retro consoles
  • Cookie Tongue w/Sweet Oddity at Butterfly Bar
    “Strange puppetry,” animation, + musical accompaniment
  • Austin Sketch Fest at ColdTowne
    Fest celebrating some of the best local + out-of-town sketch comedy
  • Speak No More: Lovecraft at the Tavern
    “Immersive, site-specific, improvised event” inspired by eldritch horror
  • (weekly thru 9/13) Splash Dance at the Austin Motel
    Poolside aerobics with Austin’s most creative aerobics instructor
  • (weekly thru 8/30) Escape the Box at the Texas State Capitol
    Solve time-traveling puzzles w/friends while exploring the statehouse

Monday 8/24

Tuesday 8/25

  • Adult Spelling Bee at Saturn
    Watch contestants attempt to spell big words under the influence
  • Tricky Tuesdays at Hole in the Wall
    Drag, live music, comedy, + magic from “Peter the Adequete”

Wednesday 8/26

  • Best of ATX at Distribution Hall
    Best of ATX awards live w/red carpet, nominated DJs, art, + food
  • Merlin Tuttle Day at Lady Bird Lake
    Celebrate bat activist’s bday w/boat cruise, raffles, storytelling
  • Social Hour at Almost Real Things
    Make a photobook + and mingle with ART fans
  • Vinyl Night Swim at the Carpenter Hotel
    Swim for free while KOOP DJs spin int’l tunes poolside

Thursday 8/27

  • Bat City Film Night at Whole Earth Provision Co.
    Raise money for bat refuges w/screenprinting, tattoos, raffles, + short films
  • Full Moon Swim at Austin Motel
    Swim for free in the full moonlight w/DJ spinning summery 80s tunes
  • PowerPints at Radio South
    “Drink + learn things” at comedic talks on a variety of esoteric topics
  • The Front Festival at various venues
    Films, music, + experiences by Texas women + LGBTQ+ folks
  • Falling Down the Mountain of Great Storms at the Rosette
    Play w/cajun music, “herons flying around” and human-animal hybrids
  • Movies on the Lake at Mozart’s
    Watch a big summer movie floating on a boat on the lake

Friday 8/28

NHA291
Hack the Planet

As the old saying, specifically about hackers, goes: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. We hacked the planet set to a lot of gifs, as well as a bunch of techno + nefarious sounding downtempo + indie tunes.

Stream Hack the Planet

Tracklist
Chalk – I.D.C.
Geinoh Yamashirogumi – Requieum (Tallac Remix)
Romain FX – Loop 4 (Dreamix) ft. Eden Burns
Gang of Four – F.M.U.S.A. (Ben Grosse Remix)
Tension 808 – You Never Go Down (EOE Edit)
Lauren Lakis – Keep Your Woman Down (Drew Scott Remix)
Tones on Tail – There’s Only One
Blokka – Dig Deep (Atomic Mix JAI Edit)
Hemi Hemingway – No Future No Future No Future
Adult DVD – Sadman Mancave
Radondo & Neu-Romancer – Moving on
Earthlink – Blink (Cap’ Bomba Edit)

No Humans Allowed is Brian Blackout’s award-winning, weekly robots-themed radio show on internet station KPISS.fm. Machine vibes 4 machines. Songs for robots, androids, mandroids, cyborgs, AIs, cylons, skinjobs, roombas, wifi routers, smart devices, anything colored Bondi blue, and virtual assistants. Humans not required. Broadcasts live every Wednesday at 6pm CT on kpiss.fm, with over 200 episodes now streamable in the archives on topics like and Beach Simulations, Roomba dance parties, undersea adventures + Cyber Texas.

PATREON THANKS

A huge thank-you to our Patreon subscribers Liz, Melissa Dunn, Kat, James Gray, Emily Heddleson, Andrew Creswell, Robert B., Roman Gonzalez, Nick Ivons, Molly Fonseca, Lilly Ettinger, Michael Sales, Zach, Gino Scaramuzza, Erica Speegle, Thomas Refferson, Bones Malones, Katie Green, Christina Jue, Colleen MB, Alexander Freed, and Kristen Backor. We’re deeply grateful for your support, which allows us to do things like “pay our Beehiiv fee” and “spend hours researching Austin events when technically we should be working.”

If you’d like to support us on Patreon and get access to exclusive member-only benefits, you may do so here.

SOCIALS

Recent weeks found us attending a classic video game fest, admiring a flock of Purple Martins, and checking out some of the unique activities we could find in the UK. Follow Lite + Brite on Instagram to keep up with our adventures. We’re now on Bluesky too. Yay federation! And come chat with us and the rest of the L+B community on our Discord server (where we sometimes post stuff early too).

ABOUT US

How do we choose which events to feature?

Honestly, it’s pretty random. We might include anything in Austin that we, personally, would conceivably want to go to, generally excluding normal concerts, comedy shows, and movie showtimes because there are many other good resources for finding those. (We especially recommend Showlist and Side by Sideshows for live music, The Darker Side of Austin for goth and metal stuff, Concept Animals’ ATX Art for You for gallery openings + artist talks, ATX Theatre for plays, and Superfantastica for weird Austin places + things. This list is by no means exhaustive; it’s just stuff that caught our eye this week. If you have an event that you want us to consider including, send it over.

Who are we?

We are Leila + Brian. We make this newsletter. We do our own events, most often No Lights No Lycra, + also BYOT, a party where we share very good YouTubes (here’s a playlist from the last one). We go very hard seeing bands at SxSW (here are playlists of our favorites from 2026). We once got called “local Austin couple” by KXAN. We do some other stuff here and there. We love going out to creative events in Austin, and we want you to join us. Visit us at liteandbriteatx.com, and support us on Patreon if you like what we do.

SEE YOU NEXT WEEK, CHAMPIONS

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