Things to Do in Cedar Rapids This Week: June 25–29, 2026
- Kenyon Thorp
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
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Cedar Rapids is making you choose this week.
Not between good and bad. Between several very different versions of a good night out.
Pride fills NewBo. Old Crow Medicine Show takes the Paramount. A free chamber music concert slips into Ellis Park. CSPS has a hometown debut with a real pulse. And Thursday gives you a lower-friction reason to start at The Ideal before the weekend gets loud.
The city feels busy in the useful way: civic, musical, a little strange, and visibly still becoming itself.
Pick the thing that makes the week feel less ordinary.
Three Things We’d Actually Leave the House For
Old Crow Medicine Show at the Paramount
Saturday, June 27 · 7:30 PM Paramount Theatre · From about $49 · Tickets
Some bands fit a festival field. Old Crow Medicine Show also fits a restored movie palace. The Paramount gives this one the right frame: big enough for the singalong, ornate enough to make the night feel like more than another Saturday concert. Trey Hensley opens, which is the detail that should get you there on time.
CR PrideFest at NewBo
Saturday, June 27 · 11 AM–6 PM NewBo City Market · Free festival · Details
The daytime festival is the civic heart of the weekend: drag, bands, queer-owned vendors, and the kind of NewBo crowd that makes the district feel fully awake. It is also the cleanest daytime-to-nighttime handoff on the calendar if you are heading to CSPS or the Paramount later.
Five Seasons Chamber Music at Ellis Park
Saturday, June 27 · 7 PM Shakespeare Garden at Ellis Park · Free · Details
This is the small, correct counter-programming pick. Chamber music and Shakespeare outdoors, in one of the prettier settings in Cedar Rapids, with the kind of audience that found it because they were paying attention. Bring a chair or blanket. Let everyone else fight for the obvious Saturday.
THE MAIN EVENT Old Crow Medicine Show Makes the Paramount the Room Saturday, June 27 · 7:30 PM Paramount Theatre · Tickets Every week has a center of gravity. This one has a fiddle, a chorus everybody knows, and enough musicianship underneath the familiar parts to keep the night from turning into nostalgia. Old Crow Medicine Show can still do the rowdy thing, but the Paramount changes the posture. You are not standing in a field waiting for one song. You are sitting in a 1928 theater built for sound, scale, and a little bit of ceremony. Make the night intentional: dinner downtown first, doors without rushing, and enough room in the plan for Trey Hensley’s opening set. The genre says casual. The room says try a little harder.
The Weeknight Move
Comedy Night at The Ideal
Thursday, June 25 · Evening The Ideal Theater & Bar · Details
The smartest weeknight move is the one that does not ask you to make Saturday-level decisions. Comedy at The Ideal keeps Thursday at the right scale: a real room, a drink within reach, and enough structure to feel like a plan without turning the night into a production. It also matters that The Marquee’s own house is on the calendar. Cedar Rapids culture works best when the rooms that talk about the city are also giving people reasons to show up. Go early, keep it easy, and let Thursday do its job.
Plus One Thing You Might Miss...But Shouldn't Overlook
WONTEN’s Debut at CSPS
Thursday, June 25 · Doors 6 PM · Show 7 PM CSPS Hall · $20 advance / $25 door · Tickets
This is the one that will look modest on the calendar and then become the thing people wish they had caught early. WONTEN’s music blends soul, gospel influence, and Afro rhythms, but the better pitch is simpler: a Cedar Rapids-rooted artist making a debut in a room built for close listening. CSPS has always been good at making the world feel local. This is that mission in miniature.
Looking Ahead
July Starts Weird, Loud, and Fully Booked
Wednesday, July 1 through Friday, July 3 “Weird Al” at the PowerHouse, then Kernels Ballpark Bash · Weird Al tickets
Next week does not ease into the holiday. “Weird Al” Yankovic brings the Bigger & Weirder arena production to the Alliant Energy PowerHouse on Wednesday, with Puddles Pity Party opening and VIP inventory likely to move first. By Friday, Veterans Memorial Stadium turns into the first-ever Kernels Ballpark Bash: dueling pianos, live music, inflatables, axe throwing, and fireworks. If you are hosting family, this is the easy answer.
THE LAST CALL This week is not tidy, and that is the point. You can do Pride in the afternoon, Old Crow in a theater, comedy at The Ideal on Thursday, chamber music in a park, or a CSPS debut that feels like a small door opening. That is not calendar clutter. That is a city with range. Pick the room you want to be able to say you were in. See you out there. — The Marquee Edited from inside The Ideal Theater & Bar and The Olympic South Side Theater.
Want the room for your own night?
The Ideal and The Olympic are both available for private rentals, weddings, receptions, celebrations, corporate gatherings, and the kinds of nights that deserve a room with a little presence.
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