Canal Convergence Spills Into Old Town This Year, and the Weeknights Are the Real Find

Canal Convergence opens Friday, Nov. 6. For the first time, Scottsdale Arts is programming the Herberger Stage on weeknights and has signed up Old Town restaurants, shops and galleries to offer festival perks. Both changes favor the Tuesday visitor. This is the free festival's 15th year, running Nov. 6–15 at the Scottsdale Waterfront. If you live close enough to decide on the day, the best of it now lands between the two weekends.

The artworks are set in and above the canal and along the paths and bridges between Scottsdale Road and Goldwater Boulevard. This year's theme is "Western Nature," which covers water, native plants and animals, and the cultures and histories of the Southwest. The theme reaches well past the water this year. That's where the evening starts.

The festival now has a front door on Main Street

Scottsdale Arts calls its Canal Convergence x Old Town collaboration brand-new. Participating businesses hang a Canal Convergence x Old Town poster and offer limited-time discounts or themed items. Bring your receipt to the Canal Convergence Information Booth and you get a free swag item while supplies last.

Here are the offers listed on the Old Town Scottsdale participant page:

• Cobre Kitchen + Cocktails: $10 margaritas, $8 mules and $7 draft beer from 4 to 6 p.m. when you mention Canal Convergence.
• ZuZu: 20% off food and drinks when you mention the festival.
• Malee's on Main: a Canal Splash cocktail and 10% off food.
• Prep & Pastry: 20% off when you mention Canal Convergence.
• Chin Up Donuts: buy one, get one half off on specialty lattes and seasonal drinks.
• Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West: buy-one-get-one admission.
• Mavericks of Scottsdale: 15% off western hats and apparel.
• Gorgeous Things: 15% off, plus a limited-edition Canal Convergence patch with a purchase of $50 or more. Custom jackets are excluded.
• Bella Fine Art: 10% to 40% off original art, plus a free raffle ticket for a daily art giveaway.
• Giving Bracelets: a free gift with a purchase of $100 or more.

The list follows the theme. A western-hat discount, a museum of the West at two-for-one and a 4 p.m. happy hour that ends right as the canal lights come on all point the same way. The festival opens at 6 p.m. every night, so this collaboration gives the hours before dark something to do.

Weeknights get their own stage

In past years the Herberger Stage at Soleri Plaza was mostly a weekend draw. Weekends still have the live music, with Latin pop headliner QVLN and indie rock headliner Nodaway. The Canal Convergence Beer and Wine Garden next to the stage is open every night with food trucks, dessert vendors, wine, beer, canned cocktails and soft drinks.

What's new in 2026 is weekday programming on that stage. The big night is Thursday, Nov. 12. That evening brings "WEARABLE WILDS: Fashion, Technology & Ecologies of the West," a fashion show by Arizona State University FIDM students that pictures the West as a laboratory for the future. It's paired with a show of garments from Jeremy Arviso's "Working West."

"Working West" is also this year's Dress-Up Space. Arviso, a Phoenix-based Indigenous designer and creative director, curated it with Diné hatter Geri James and Diné weaver Gloria Fain. In the Scottsdale Arts announcement, Arviso describes it this way:

"'Working West' is an invitation to customize, create and wear your story."

Walter Productions' fire shows run every night at 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30 p.m., choreographed live. On a weeknight the festival closes at 9, so the last fire show fits with half an hour to spare.

The nights with a named event

Weeknight hours are shorter and the Saturday crowds are absent. The schedule below covers only the nights that have a named event, so Nov. 8, 11 and 13 don't appear.

The fire shows run on all ten nights. Community partners host western-themed programming at the Scottsdale Arts Roundabout at Marshall Way, including CALA Alliance, Monarca Center for Healing and Justice, Art Heals Arizona, RUMBO, Puente, Cahokia, Western Spirit, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale, Arizona Dream Act Coalition and S'edav Va'aki Museum.

Most of it costs nothing. The main event, the performances, the drop-in workshops and the community-partner activities are free. Select workshops and special events are ticketed. The daily art tours are $6, and the SRP canal-history tours are free with an RSVP. Tickets are on sale now through Scottsdale Arts.

What's on the water

These are the eleven artworks for "Western Nature," as listed on the 2026 artworks page:

• PERIGEE, Chalk River Labs
• Another Slice of Reality: An Evolving Nature, Shaoyu Su x LedPulse
• Dream Rider and Sky Wrangler, both by William Nemitoff with Curious Form
• Desert Choir, Ottomata
• grandmother turtle, In Theory Art Studios with Laura Tohe and Nora Naranjo-Morse
• the weight of light, In Theory Art Studio
• KaKtos, Amigo & Amigo
• Prairie Fire, True North Absurdities
• The Way The West Was Sold, Jolly Productions
• Western Fire Garden, Walter Productions

Chalk River Labs' installation is also the stage for a dance performance on Saturday, Nov. 14. Western Fire Garden comes from the same studio that runs the nightly fire shows, which ties the art on the water to the shows on land.

Getting there after the trolley stops

The free Scottsdale Trolley runs every 20 minutes, Monday through Friday from 5:45 a.m. to 7:45 p.m., according to the City of Scottsdale transit page. On a weeknight it can bring you to the canal, but it stops running before the festival closes. It doesn't run on weekends at all. For the trip home, plan on driving, a rideshare or walking.

Parking is easier than you might expect. Old Town Scottsdale's public parking page says the district's garages are free and street parking has a three-hour limit. Its map shows the Waterfront Underground, Southbridge Underground and 3rd Ave Parking Garage among the options. Three hours of street parking covers a 4 p.m. happy hour and the first fire show. A garage is the better choice if you plan to stay until close.

Construction will affect the drive. The city's Brown Avenue parking structure expansion at First Street and Brown Avenue is adding two levels and 185 stalls. Second Street is closed along the south side of the structure from Oct. 16 to Nov. 16, which covers all ten festival nights. In the northeast quadrant of Old Town, the 6th Avenue parking structure begins foundation work in late October. That will affect nearby sidewalks and street parking, though the city doesn't expect major traffic disruptions.

A Thursday that uses all of it

Here's one way to put this year's changes together on Nov. 12, the strongest weeknight on the schedule:

1. Park in a free Old Town garage before 5 p.m., when the curb fills up for dinner.
2. Stop at Cobre Kitchen + Cocktails during its 4 to 6 p.m. Canal Convergence window, or at Malee's on Main for the Canal Splash. Keep the receipt.
3. Walk to the Information Booth when the festival opens at 6 and trade the receipt for swag.
4. Catch the 6:30 fire show, then walk the artworks between Scottsdale Road and Goldwater Boulevard.
5. Head to the Herberger Stage at Soleri Plaza for WEARABLE WILDS and the "Working West" fashion show, with the Beer and Wine Garden next door.
6. Finish with the 8:30 fire show before the 9 p.m. close.

The same plan works on Monday or Tuesday if you swap in the pigment-painting or beading workshop for the fashion show. More of what's changing around Old Town is on our Scottsdale neighborhood page and in our earlier look at the Scottsdale summer calendar.

If you're bringing guests to the canal next month and want an easy plan for dinner and parking before the first fire show, Rami Haddad is glad to share his Old Town short list. Let's Connect.