Five things to eat, drink, see, hear, and do with your Charm City weekend.

 EAT

Sept. 29: Trucktoberfest

The Rotunda, 711 W. 40th St. 5-10 p.m. Free-$43.19. 410-235-8771

There’s no better way to celebrate the start of October than a food truck edition of Oktoberfest. Don your best lederhosen or dirndl and head on over to Hampden’s one-night Deutschland to enjoy food, beverages, street vendors, and authentic German music. Hosted by The Gathering, Baltimore’s outdoor food truck festival, the event headlines local food trucks competing for the title of the best Oktoberfest-style menu. With fiery competition, food trucks are keeping their German-inspired specials a secret, so you’ll have to go to check out their own renditions of bratwursts, schnitzels, and pretzels. And of course, there will be beer, so grab a glass (or several) of your favorite German brews, too. We know you’ll be yelling prost by the end of the night.

 DRINK

Oct. 1: Southside Stakes

R. House, 301 W. 29th St. 7-10 p.m. $50-60. 443-347-3570

Last summer, Baltimore magazine co-hosted a competition in which the city’s top bartenders duked it out to see who could concoct the best Southside, the signature cocktail of Baltimore County. But this Sunday, Baltimore Bartenders’ Guild is rekindling the competition with up-and-coming barkeeps. Join the judges in sampling drinks shaken and stirred by the promising bunch, made with regional spirits like Baltimore Whiskey Company, Lyon Distilling, New Liberty Distillery, and One Eight Distilling—plus help choose the best maker in town. While you’re there, eat your way around R. House’s food stands, take a break with Union Craft beers, and participate in a bar tools and spirits raffle. The best part? Proceeds will go to support House of Ruth, so you’ll be Sunday Fundaying for a good cause. 

 SEE

Sept. 29: Gilded Lily presents Pour Some Glitter on Me

The Windup Space, 12 W. North Ave. 8-11:30 p.m. $10. 410-244-8855. 

Tease out your hair and travel back in time to the decade of excess with Baltimore’s premier burlesque troupe, Gilded Lily. Starring their very own Maria Bella, Ruby Spruce, Gigi Holliday, and Mourna Handful, plus special guests Ona Monsoon and MC Kittie Glitter, the bodacious troupe will be paying tribute to the sounds of ’80s hair metal with a titillating performance complete with crimped hair, fishnets, and copious amounts of glitter. After all the razzle and dazzle, be sure to in on rock-and-roll karaoke with Black Lodge Karaoke and DJ Penfold.

 HEAR

Sept. 30-Oct. 1: BSO Movie with Orchestra: Jurassic Park

Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. $17.50-69. 410-783-8000.

When Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park came out in the ’90s, many were in awe of the CGI dinosaurs and considered the film a cinematic masterpiece. Even today, the movie’s legacy endures with its reputation as an award-winning sci-fi adventure that redefined the entertainment business with its sequels and souvenirs. This weekend, you can relive its majesty with Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s live performance of John Williams’s iconic score, as conducted by Nicholas Hersh. Watch the film as you listen to one of the most memorable soundtracks in movie history, and don’t miss out on local food truck Jurassic Pork, which will be serving up its old-school barbecue before the Saturday screening. 

 DO

Sept. 29-Oct. 7: Baltimore Innovation Week

Locations & times vary. Free-$75.

Move over, Silicon Valley—it’s Baltimore’s time to shine. With the growth of its technology and innovation sector, Charm City was recently named as one of the fastest-growing cities for tech. Starting this weekend, you can discover the nascent novelties of the city’s technological world. A plethora of programs will be scattered across the city—from groundbreaking gameplay to collaborative workshops—and give you the chance to meet local visionaries and entrepreneurs or learn about startups and inventions. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be inspired to jump on the tech wagon, make a revolutionary device, and become the next Steve Jobs.

Christopher Wink is uncomfortable. Shifting in his chair, the 31-year-old online media entrepreneur is fielding questions about Baltimore Innovation Week (BIW), but he keeps ducking and dodging, unwilling to take credit for the annual celebration of all things tech he cofounded in 2012. Partly, this is for practical reasons. As a cofounder of Technical.ly, a network of online news sites covering tech in the Mid-Atlantic, he says he is wary of blurring the lines between advocacy and journalism. In other words, he doesn’t want to appear too cozy with the community his organization covers. Furthermore, as a resident of Philadelphia, he recognizes that claiming a Baltimore event as his own opens him up to charges of carpetbagging.

But mostly, he’s reluctant to take credit because doing so would undermine what’s great about BIW—namely, its inclusivity. The point, he says, is that the event—running this year from September 29 through October 7—relies on participants from across the region to produce a week of lectures and roundtables, networking events, mentoring sessions, and demonstrations of the latest products. It includes game and app developers, educators, web designers, startup entrepreneurs, and academic, medical, and government organizations. 

The approximately 50 events planned for this BIW (hashtag #BIW17, obviously) run the gamut from a session on securing startup financing to a lecture by a veteran game developer titled “Grumpy Cat’s Guide to Game Design: The Beauty of No.” Maybe best of all, the events are sprinkled throughout the city, taking place in neighborhoods as disparate as West Baltimore and Federal Hill, Fells Point and Hampden, and Mt. Vernon and Highlandtown. There’s even one presentation—about a cultural exchange program between the tech communities of Maryland and the Netherlands—that requires driving all the way out to (gasp!) University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in Catonsville.

“There are many parts of the puzzle,” Wink says, as he surveys the industrial- chic interior of Emerging Technologies Centers (ETC), a sleek coworking and tech incubation space in Highlandtown that has signed on to act as BIW’s home base this year. “[Then] if one group fades, it’s not crippling. I don’t want there to be the story that this person or organization goes away and the community goes away.”

That seems in no danger of happening. This year, more than 50 organizations are participating, up from 10 or so in 2012.

“I want us to be working toward Baltimore Innovation Week as the most accessible access point for people to get into this conversation, into the community,” Wink emphasizes.

So, okay, duly noted: Christopher Wink and the Technical.ly gang are not solely responsible for the creation or continuation of Baltimore Innovation Week. It is a big tent. The more the merrier. Et cetera. But every story needs a starting point, and, arbitrary though it may be, Wink’s is as good as any.

In 2012, three years after starting Technical.ly in Philadelphia, Wink was lured to Baltimore by a cadre of local tech figures who felt Baltimore’s scene warranted more consistent and deeper coverage than it was receiving from traditional media outlets. They were sure that Wink and the Technical.ly team could provide it, and that it would yield great results.

Wink soon agreed. “I got obsessed with why don’t Baltimore and Philly see each other as peer cities?” he recalls. “There are so many times when I’m in a conversation, and I’m like, ‘This is the exact same conversation as in Philly or Baltimore,’ depending on which one I’m in.”

He quickly realized that there was a case to be made for viewing the Mid-Atlantic as a contiguous tech region, much the same way Silicon Valley has become the catch-all term for the hive of activity in and around the San Francisco Bay area. To that end, Technical.ly gradually expanded and now has outposts in Brooklyn, NY; Wilmington, Delaware; and Washington, D.C.; as well as Philly and Baltimore. Viewing the markets as one giant cluster allows them to compete on a national—and even international—level in a way they couldn’t on their own. This is why you’ll sometimes see Baltimore and/or Maryland pop up on lists of “hot tech scenes” in publications such as Business Insider and Fast Company.

“We think that people understand the idea that New York, Philly, Baltimore, and D.C.—we are stronger together,” Wink states.

But even as he stumped for greater regional coordination, Wink realized greater local collaboration was necessary, too. In 2011, he’d helped launch a tech week in Philly, and he and his Maryland cohorts believed a similar event would work in Baltimore, as well. From defense and cyber security firms to 21st-century education technology startups, there were so many pockets of thriving tech in Baltimore—all that was necessary was the connective thread.   

“Many of them knew each other but they hadn’t necessarily coordinated events on one calendar,” Wink recalls. “It was, ‘Can we do this together to convey that we are a single community and that we’re connected?’ That was, essentially, the idea.”

That first year, ETC signed on almost immediately, as did other tech stalwarts including TEDCO—which was created by the state legislature in 1998 to midwife academic and government innovations to the marketplace—and the University of Maryland BioPark.

There were so many pockets of thriving tech in Baltimore—all that was necessary was the connective thread. 

Wink remembers surveying the crowd at a kickoff event for the first BIW and feeling reassured by the mix of people in attendance. Deb Tillett, the president and executive director of ETC, was there, as was Rob Rosenbaum, who was then CEO at TEDCO. Also in the room were several startup entrepreneurs, Jane Shaab, the executive director of the University of Maryland BioPark, and Keimmie Booth, then the captain of the RoboDoves, Western High School’s robotics team. “It was all these people that in our first year of reporting were trying to shape this community, and that was resonant,” Wink says. “We felt like, ‘Yep, these are the kinds of people we’re supposed to bring together.’”

Others noticed the difference straightaway.

“When I first started my career as a programmer in Baltimore, it was relatively difficult to find out what was happening around town,” recalls Mike Subelsky, a computer programmer and entrepreneur at the center of Baltimore’s tech scene who also attended that first BIW kickoff event.  

“Innovation Week and Technical.ly have been instrumental in building community and identity; the main thing they bring is energy,” he adds.

Indeed, since that first year, BIW’s growth has mirrored the growth of Baltimore’s tech community. As the scene has expanded, so too has BIW’s calendar.

“If you look through the timeline, it is like a time capsule of what was active,” notes Wink. For instance, the first Innovation Week didn’t include tech/startup incubators and makerspaces such as City Garage, Impact Hub, Open Works, and Spark, simply because it couldn’t. They didn’t yet exist. Nor could that first BIW have included Innovation Village, the city’s first tech/innovation district, anchored in West Baltimore by Maryland Institute College of Art and Coppin State University. It, too, was years away.

Other now-major companies existed, but were in their infancies, and BIW—directly or indirectly—was able to help foster their growth. Todd Marks, the president and CEO of Mindgrub, a software development and digital marketing firm based in Locust Point, says the buzz Tecnhical.ly was creating in the city through Baltimore Innovation Week and other events influenced his decision to move his fledgling company from Catonsville to Locust Point in 2014. At the time of the relocation, Mindgrub had about 15 employees; it now has 96.  

“The spotlight they gave on city tech made me want to be closer to the epicenter of where it was all happening,” he says.

Best of all, BIW participants seem willing to pay it forward and help the next generation of pioneers blaze their own trails.

“In 2015 they did a ‘Fail Fest.’ I got to be the moderator, which is really fun,” recalls Deb Tillet, a petite powder keg of a woman, who has been running ETC since 2012 and working in various sectors of the tech industry since the 1980s. “There were maybe six entrepreneurs who told their ‘how I crashed and burned’ stories about how important it was to fail but get back up on your feet. [It] was compelling to hear . . . some of these people who are very, very successful now.

“Mike Subelsky, he was talking about how he wanted nothing more in the whole entire world than to be a Navy Seal and the training that he had to go through. And he made it and made it and made it—and then he didn’t make it. It just was really interesting. You’re looking at these successful people now and they’re telling their stories and you’re like, ‘Oh wow!’ And everybody’s got one. And I’ve got one, too.”

Tillett’s anecdote highlights a central irony about BIW—and maybe the tech scene in general: For all the excitement about technological innovation and the latest gadget or “disruptive” idea, it is the human connection that underpins it all. Because despite the “solitary genius” myth, creativity and innovation are often born through collaborations and intellectual conflict, where disparate ideas are allowed to spark and spin off each other, eventually morphing into something novel.

“There’s a difference between what we make and how we make it,” says Wink. “Yes, so many people involved in things like Baltimore Innovation Week and the Baltimore tech community are out to create disruptive technologies that . . . reduce the need for human interaction. But to get that work done, you almost always need trust, be it through teammates, investors, teachers, or mentors. And we build trust the same way we always have, which is through time together.”

Hampdenfest
Sept. 9. W. 36th St. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Free. For one Saturday, celebrate the hons and Hampdenites of one of our city’s most quintessentially Baltimore neighborhoods. This beloved block party features regional food, local beer, and three stages of music for homegrown bands like PLRLS and Wume. Don’t miss the annual toilet bowl races, as porcelain flies past the rowhomes of Chestnut Avenue.

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Baltimore Comedy Festival
Sept. 1-4. Locations & times vary. Free-$15. 410-960-7821. If laughter is the best medicine, the first-ever Baltimore Comedy Festival is the ultimate Rx. For four days, attend standup showcases, podcast recordings, and comedy-themed discussions at different venues across the city.

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Madonnari Arts Festival
Sept. 8-10. Little Italy. Fri. 5-10 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Free. 410-967-5441. Madonnari art is an age-old practice of street painting, still found commonly along the cobblestones of Italy and, for one weekend, alongside the byways of Baltimore’s Little Italy. At the beginning of the month, watch master Madonnari artists from around the world—and right here at home—set up shop in the heart of the Italian neighborhood and create beautiful works of chalk art to the theme of “Freedom.” Listen to live music, dig into carb-loaded eats at local enotecas, and kick things off early during a cabaret dinner on Thursday at Germano’s Piattini.

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Maryland Collects: Jacob Lawrence
Sept. 9-Jan. 7. Reginald F. Lewis Museum, 803 E. Pratt St. Wed.-Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 12-5 p.m. Free-$8. 443-263-1800. In this new exhibit at the Lewis, explore more than 50 artworks by Jacob Lawrence, one of America’s most acclaimed 20th-century artists. Using bright colors, blocky shapes, and mesmerizing patterns, the celebrated painter weaves stories of African-American life in the 1900s. Featuring pieces culled from collectors in and around Maryland, the show might just be the must-see art event of the fall.

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Sturgill Simpson
Sept. 15. Merriweather Post Pavilion, 10475 Little Patuxent Pkwy., Columbia. 7 p.m. $40-59.50. 410-715-5550. As summer slowly comes to a close, we recommend getting outside for one last night of live music. What better way than to giddy up with this Southern outlaw, who blends rock-and-roll, bluegrass, and country into a boundary-breaking, Grammy-nominated sound. With both rebellious rock numbers and heartbreaking ballads (we swoon over “The Promise”), Sturgill is sure to send the season off with a bang.

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Baltimore Seafood Festival
Sept. 16. Canton Waterfront Park, 3001 Boston St. 12-7 p.m. Free-$99. 410-409-7123. Maryland and seafood go together like Old Bay and, well, pretty much anything. At this waterfront festival, join fellow seafood-lovers for blue crabs, local oysters, cooking demos, live music, and activities for the kids. 

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Baltimore Book Festival
Sept. 22-24. Inner Harbor. Free. During the Baltimore Book Festival, the Inner Harbor transforms into a bookworm’s dream, filled with book sales, author signings, poetry readings, and more. For the 22nd year, peruse the goods and gather for panel discussions with renowned writers like TED Talk celeb Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, former Sun sportswriter John Eisenberg, and National Book Award winner Alice McDermott. While you’re there, be sure to enjoy a Dogfish Head happy hour with brewmaster Sam Calagione, a meet-and-greet with a Guerrilla Girl, and a chance to ask rock-star-matriarch-turned-author Virginia Grohl your burning Foo Fighters questions. 

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Baltimore Comic Con
Sept. 22-24. Baltimore Convention Center, 1 W. Pratt St. Fri. 1-7 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Sun. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. $25-1,000. 410-526-7410. At the 18th Baltimore Comic-Con comic book convention, come dressed to impress and let your geek flag fly. Compete in the costume contest, peruse or purchase your favorite cartoons, and meet famous superheroes, like OG Wonder Woman Lynda Carter. You might even get an autograph from Maryland cartoonist Frank Miller, of late-era Batman comics, Daredevil, Sin City, and 300 fame.

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Baltimore Innovation Week
Sept. 29-Oct. 7. Locations & times vary. Free-$75. Move over, Silicon Valley­—Baltimore was recently named one of the fastest-growing cities for tech. During Baltimore Innovation Week, release your inner techie and foster the city’s burgeoning innovation scene with events related to business, development, media, the sciences, and more. 

The Akimbo Dance & Movement Art Festival
Sept. 10. Station North Arts District, 1-6 p.m. To celebrate Baltimore’s growing dance community, The Akimbo Dance & Movement Art Festival returns for its fifth year with a free day of performances throughout the vibrant Station North Arts & Entertainment District. Across 18 sites like the Maryland Institute College of Art, Motor House, and the Ynot Lot, more than 150 regional artists will showcase everything from traditional and experimental dance to music, spoken word, installation, and performance art.

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Star-Spangled Banner Weekend
Sept. 9-11. Fort McHenry, 2400 E. Fort Ave. Fri. 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat. 9 a.m.-9 p.m., Sun. 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Free-$10. 410-962-4290. One-hundred years ago last month, the National Park Service was born, and nine years after its creation, the NPS named Baltimore’s Fort McHenry one of its first national parks. The site protected the city from British invasion during the War of 1812, now known as Defender’s Day, and thus inspired the national anthem. On Sept. 9-11, commemorate these historic events with reenactments, cannon firings, colonial music, and family activities, including festive fireworks and a patriotic concert by the United States Army Field Band on Saturday, and a special 9/11 memorial ceremony on Sunday.

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Hampdenfest
Sept. 17. The Avenue, West 36th Street. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Free. 410-662-4444. Grab your friends and toilet bowls—an only-in-Baltimore sentiment if we ever heard one—and head to The Avenue for Hampdenfest. At this free street festival, enjoy local beer, regional food, and live music on one of three stages. Get to know the neighborhood, but don’t miss the crowd favorite toilet bowl race down Chestnut Avenue, or the pie-eating contest with sweets by Dangerously Delicious Pies.

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Baltimore Seafood Festival
Sept. 17. Canton Waterfront Park, 3001 Boston St. 12-7 p.m. $15-99. It’s no secret that Maryland is the seafood capital of the mid-Atlantic, where crab is king and the key to a perfect summer day. It’s only fitting, then, to spend one of the last afternoons of the season at Baltimore’s third annual seafood festival. On the edge of the Canton waterfront, sip on some cold beer as you dig into an endless supply of oysters, crabs, and other under-the-sea essentials, with live music from local bands, cocktails and crafts. With face painting, activities, and games for the kids, you can bring the whole family to toast our Chesapeake Bay heritage and say sayonara to 90-degree days.

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John Waters’s Kiddie Flamingos
Sept. 21-Jan. 22. The Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Dr. Wed.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Free. 443-573-1700. We’re all familiar with Baltimore’s most notorious (and beloved) auteur, John Waters. The renowned director is a legend thanks to his iconic camp films and, increasingly, his fine art, which has been twice featured at The Baltimore Museum of Art. This month, catch his latest project: a 74-minute, G-rated rendition of Pink Flamingos, with lines read by children in wigs and mock versions of the original costumes. We can’t wait to see the pint-size Divine.

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BSO Pulse: Houndmouth
Sept. 22. Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. 8:30 p.m. $35. 410-783-8000. After a successful inaugural season, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and WTMD “Pulse” concert series returns this month with Indiana-based indie rockers Houndmouth. Sharing the stage with the BSO, the up-and-coming trio brings its Americana medleys like “Sedona” to this one-of-a-kind collaboration. Be sure to get to the Meyerhoff early for a pre-concert party in the lobby, featuring live local music, happy-hour drinks, local brews, and food specials from area restaurants.

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Baltimore Innovation Week
Sept. 23-Oct. 1. Locations, times, & prices vary. 215-821-8745. While Baltimore’s heyday as a manufacturing mecca might be a memory, it’s safe to say the city is slowly becoming a new industry town of innovation and technology. During the fifth annual Baltimore Innovation Week, get to know the new techies with big-name headliners, curated events, networking opportunities, and a dedicated App Arcade.

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Dirty Talk With Mike Rowe
Sept. 24. Modell Performing Arts Center at The Lyric, 140 W. Mount Royal Ave. 8 p.m. $25-65. 410-900-1150. Ever wonder what really goes on behind the scenes of reality TV shows? Baltimore’s own Mike Rowe isn’t afraid to tell all, and this month, he returns home for one night to reveal the dirty truth behind his popular Discovery Channel show, Dirty Jobs.

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Baltimore Book Festival
Sept. 23-25. Baltimore Inner Harbor. Fri.-Sun. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Free. 410-752-8632. The Baltimore Book Festival makes us pretty confident that we are still “the city that reads.” After 21 years, this three-day fete continues to be a book-lover’s paradise, with hundreds of speakers, exhibitors, and booksellers of every genre. Hear live stories by Stoop Storytelling, listen to Baltimore native D. Watkins discuss his new book, and indulge in local food, craft beer, and live music by area bands.