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Special Events

Downtown DC buzzes with activity no matter what the season. Springtime brings the National Cherry Blossom Festival® with a variety of activities to celebrate the season's arrival. The FRESHFARM Farmer's Market (8th and E Streets) is where locally grown produce finds its way to Downtown dinner tables May through November. Summertime sizzles with adventurous and innovative performances as part of the Capital Fringe Festival . Fall is for Arts on Foot, Downtown's free visual and performing arts festival. Holiday is always an especially bright season with festive lights, banners and store windows to warm your spirit. Our Holiday Market makes one-stop, unique gift shopping a neighborhood gathering place.

National Cherry Blossom Festival ®

The Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) has partnered with the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Inc. since 2001, providing office space and staff support for the city's and the Downtown's premiere springtime event - a fresh, delight-filled, Spring Celebration of the arts, natural beauty, and community as only DC can produce. Recognizing the Festival's importance as a cultural asset , the BID is working to promote the National Cherry Blossom Festival organization as it continuously advances the quality and creativity of the Festival to ensure that it remains the nation's greatest springtime celebration, delivering real economic, social and cultural benefits to all its stakeholders including the city, the region, and the country. 

FRESHFARM Farmers' Markets

The markets, located in two prime Downtown locations, are open Thursday afternoons from 3 pm to 7 pm with farmers and producers from West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia selling the freshest fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, eggs, flowers, plants, breads, pastries and handmade soaps. A full schedule of Chefs at Market features seasonal cooking demonstrations and tastings late in the afternoon. 

Visit the FRESHFARM Markets website>

Capital Fringe Festival

The Downtown BID is a major sponsor of this edgy and award-winning independent performing arts showcase. Since 2006, the festival has featured one-act plays, comedies, dramas, improvisation, musicals, dance, rock and roll, hip-hop, mime and presentations so avant-garde that they can't be classified. Each July, 1000 or more local and visiting artists put on hundreds of seasoned and world-premiere productions in scores of venues, often performing for sold-out audiences. Beginning in 2009 all venues were exclusively in Downtown.

Arts on Foot

Arts on Foot is an annual celebration of the arts featuring free events the whole family can enjoy. Smooth Jazz 105.9, the Pennsylvania Quarter Neighborhood Association and the Downtown DC BID work together to promote local and regional artists as well as neighboring arts attractions. Arts on Foot highlights include: more than 70 artists selling works of fine art and crafts at the Art Market; area chefs demonstrating Cooking as Art; Downtown restaurants offering delicious samples at minimal prices; performing artists providing live entertainment; and area museums, theatres and cultural institutions hosting a variety of tours, activities and demonstrations.

Holiday Market

Located across from the Verizon Center (601 F Street) and Gallery Place-Chinatown metro, this outdoor bazaar has grown to include more than 150 local artisans and exhibitors.

Exhibitors, including several food and beverage vendors, rotate, so that visitors never have the same experience twice. The excitement also includes live entertainment, ranging from jazz and blues to klezmer, hip-hop and a cappella.