(Photo courtesy of The Town and The City Festival) 2026 The Town and The City Festival Schedule
Makayla Mahoney
Connector Staff
The Town and The City Festival is making its way back to Lowell for its seventh annual weekend celebrating local musicians and artists. The festival will take place from Thursday, April 30, to Saturday, May 2, set in several businesses and restaurants across downtown Lowell, including Taffeta Music Hall, Warp & Weft, Lala Books, The Worthen Café and Brew’d Awakening.
Day passes are $51 and the weekend pass is $81, while tickets for single shows are available for lower prices. Tickets can be purchased on their website or at specific times at the Revolutionary Valley Regional Tourism Office, Merrimack Repertoire Theater or Taffeta Music Hall.
Each day will be filled with several performances in various locations in the evenings. Headliners for The Town and The City Festival include local bands and artists such as Copilot, Cristina Vane, David Lowery, Future Teens and GA-20.
All music lovers are encouraged to attend, with all genres of music being performed that weekend. Indie, rock, blues, pop, country, R&B, soul, hip hop and jazz are some of the many genres to be expected, as well as comedy performances and book readings.
Lowell galleries and exhibitions will be open as well, displaying local artists’ work and celebrating Lowell’s history and creativity. People are welcome to visit Brush Gallery Studios, Arts League of Lowell, Loading Dock Gallery and The Whistler House Museum of Art.
The Town and The City Festival began back in the fall of 2018 to celebrate the famous Lowell author, Jack Kerouac. Their website states:
“The Town and The City Festival is inspired by the creativity and exploration for which the author was so famously known and will present a diverse mix of musical genres and artistic disciplines to inspire discovery and to celebrate a love of life.”
The festival is named after Jack Kerouac’s first novel, published in 1950, which takes place in a Massachusetts town named Galloway, representing the town of Lowell of which Kerouac was born and raised. Jack Kerouac is a prominent figure in Lowell’s history, celebrated for his world-famous novels and pioneering of the beat generation: a non-conformist cultural and art movement of the 1950s.
Karl Sargent, a freshman nuclear engineering student at UMass Lowell, shared his take on the opportunity to have such events in Lowell: “Having art and culture in the city is important because it connects the people to the city more and makes it a more enjoyable city for all of us.”
The Town and The City Festival is a great way to enjoy the art, music and creativity that Lowell has to offer as one of Massachusetts’ most historical cities.
For more information on the event or to get involved, visit their website: https://www.thetownandthecityfestival.com/
To get a taste of what the festival has in store, listen to their spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/71nL9c8xniIyuembfn2BlE?si=MxKN2EMTTxqsHcTH06AjNg
