Singapore's indie bookshops are coming together to throw a party, marking the first-ever Independent Bookshop Day, with 20 shops across the island all hosting their own events. Grab an SGIBD Passport and turn the weekend into a bookish treasure hunt, collecting a customised stamp at each stop while you wander through Chinatown, Bras Basah, Joo Chiat and beyond. Along the way, you can make a zine at City Book Room, flip through Singapore comics at Dakota Dreams, swap books at Epigram Books, or get a live portrait done at Bommoi. Throw in storytelling sessions, live sketching and a few author appearances, and you've got yourselves a day.
When: 2 to 4 October 2026
Where: At various bookshops
More information here
The Japanese Film Festival will commence at Filmhouse on 3 October, with hand-drawn classics like Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust and Cyber City Oedo 808 showing. But beyond that, the roster of films curated for this weekend is absolutely stacked. Contemporary favourites that will no doubt go down as all-timers, like Aftersun and La La Land are seeing some screen time. So are cult classics like No Country For Old Men, The Big Lebowski and Before Sunset. Hell, even Ratatouille is getting some love. Whoever’s in-charge of curating the films deserve a fat bump to their paycheck. Regardless, this is a rare opportunity to finally see some of your favourites on the silver screen, so don’t let it slip!
When: 2 to 4 October
Where: Filmhouse, 6001 Beach Rd, #05-00, Singapore 199589
More information here
Ultraman and Kamen Rider fans, your time is now. Jakarta-based illustrator Ardhira Putra—who's done work for Apple, Vice, MTV and the Las Vegas Sphere—is taking over Heartware Store & Gallery with Atomic Daydream for a technicolour mashup of superheroes, kaiju and mecha that remixes 90s nostalgia through an Asian retro-pop lens. Expect a fresh batch of illustrations and limited-edition prints, five one-of-a-kind originals, and the debut of HeartwaveRobo, Ardhira's first sofubi vinyl toy, made with the Heartware crew.
When: 3 October to 22 November 2026, from 12 to 7pm
Where: Heartware Store & Gallery, 350B Joo Chiat Road, Singapore 427598
21 years in, Music Matters Live is still one of the best free festivals Singapore has going, and it's back for one weekend only. Over four nights, more than 40 emerging artists from 15 countries take over Clarke Quay, with the lineup split into themed showcases so you can pick your vibe: P-Pop one night, J-Pop the next, then Nagaland folk and Australian indie. The mix is pleasantly all over the map, with Singapore's St. Humain, New Zealand's Borderline, Filipino indie-pop act Lola Amour, Mexican artist Bratty, Australian duo Pierce Brothers, Kid Phenomenon from Japan's Exile Tribe and China's Runyu among the names on the bill. It costs nothing to show up, so grab a drink, hang around, and you might just discover your next favourite band.
When: 2 to 4 and 7 October 2026, from 4 to 11:30pm
Where: CQ @ Clarke Quay, Fountain Square, 3 River Valley Road, Singapore 179024
Birkenstock is engulfing New Bahru for the next four weeks. Dubbed 'Walk Naturally', the neighbourhood-wide takeover threads the brand's whole natural-movement, foot-health, good-craftsmanship ethos into installations, workshops, and collabs scattered across the Main and Factory Blocks. Think an immersive setup at The Lawn, plus team-ups with the likes of Soilboy, PPP Coffee, Crafune, Off Duty Pilates, Hideaway, and Woods in the Books, each putting their own twist on the theme.
When: 18 September to 11 October 2026
Where: New Bahru, 46 Kim Yam Road New Bahru, School Block, Singapore 239351
Frankenstein isn't your typical polished gallery show. It's a look at what happens when makers just build with whatever's lying around. Pulling its name from Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, the exhibition treats repurposed and discarded materials the way Victor Frankenstein treated spare parts: stapled, sewn, nailed, bound, screwed, occasionally electrocuted into life. The works here explore the process of repair and assembly rather than craftsmanship in the traditional sense, and like Shelley's creature, each piece ends up stranger and more alive than its maker probably intended.
When: 12 September to 3 October 2026, from 12 to 7pm
Where: Tokonoma, 16 Shaw Road #3-10, 367954
Book a slot here
Vacation season's creeping up again, which means it's time to review your winter wardrobe and find it inadequate all over again. Enter Winter Time's expo, a good excuse to sort your wardrobe out without blowing the budget. Being a local label, the prices skip the usual import tax, but don't mistake affordable for thin on options: ski wear, luggage, trench coats, heat-tech layers, gloves, the works. The new Muscovy Down parkas are the headliner, prided on their ultra-lightweight, stain-resistant, and breathable qualities. Throw in discounts up to 80% across the board, and you've got yourself a rare window to knock out winter shopping for years to come.
When: 10 to 13 September 2026 (Hall 5A), 24 to 27 September 2026 (Hall 6B), 1 to 4 October 2026 (Hall 6B), 28 October to 1 November 2026 (Hall 6B)
Where: Singapore EXPO, 1 Expo Drive, Singapore 486150
Somewhere between the 4th and 14th centuries, a bunch of monks, merchants, and wandering pilgrims turned the city of Dunhuang into one of the great crossroads of the ancient world. This history was carved into the walls of the Mogao Caves to preserve a record of life in the city. The Asian Civilisations Museum is bringing that history home in a way it never has before: life-size cave reconstructions, centuries-old paintings and sculpture, plus manuscripts and textiles that trace how goods and ideas moved along the Silk Road.
When: 25 September 2026 to 7 March 2027
Where: Asian Civilisations Museum, 1 Empress Place, Singapore 179555
Tucked up on the third floor of a shophouse on Lorong Telok, Lifted Trax is the type of record store that’s worth a proper visit. It's got secondhand records, rare grooves, and fresh pressings from artists across Asia for all your crate-digging needs. But the real draw is the listening stations scattered around the shop, built for actually sitting with a record instead of just flipping past it. Throw in the incense, the zines, the vinyl care kits for the gear-obsessed, and you've got a solid, unhurried way to spend a Saturday afternoon in Boat Quay.
When: Daily, except Mondays and Tuesdays
Where: 25 Lor Telok, #03-01, Singapore 049037
Oh, you haven’t heard of a dinner theatre before? We haven’t either. The people behind The Dim Sum Dollies and Broadway Beng are back at it with Choo's Masquerade Party. The premise: the Choo family's plastics empire has a new CEO, and she's throwing a masquerade to celebrate. Expect Sebastian Tan and Vernetta Lopez to ham it up amid a runway show, with family secrets and chaos to boot, all while you work through a five-star buffet and dessert spread at Capitol Kempinski.
When: From 14 August to 4 October 2026
Where: The Capitol Kempinski Hotel Singapore, 15 Stamford Rd, Singapore 178906
Save a seat here
Lai Foong Moi was a student at Nanyang school, who later taught at her own alma mater, and spent the 1960s quietly painting portraits, still lifes and landscapes that never quite got their due. Crossings is the first time in over 60 years that’ll give the public a real chance to see her work gathered in one place. What makes this a worthy visit is her eye for gender, labour, and a rapidly changing city, which gives you a genuinely sharp read on what Singapore and Malaya felt like in the years around independence.
When: 14 August to 3 October 2026
Where: National Gallery Singapore, 1 St Andrew’s Rd, Singapore 178957
PREVIOUSLY
Bugis Street's getting a facelift, turning the shopping strip into its first permanent youth space. It acts as a hub for indie brands and up-and-coming creatives to do their thing. Think 30-plus fashion and lifestyle booths worth actually digging through, plus a DJ corner spinning tunes so browsing turns into more of a hangout. And if you're the type who lives for a good vintage find, they've brought in 15 thrift and vintage labels for the launch.
When: 25 July 2026 onwards, from 1 to 7pm
Where: Bugis Street, Level 2, 3 New Bugis St, Singapore 188867
Gardens by the Bay is playing host to 76 years of Formula 1 history, spread across seven themed rooms that include Sebastian Vettel's championship-winning 2011 Red Bull RB7 and the 2003 BAR Honda that Jenson Button used to drive. Throw in some racing simulators and footage you won't find anywhere else, and it's a solid way to burn an afternoon whether you're a die-hard fan or just F1-curious.
When: Now till 18 October 2026, from 11am to 9pm
Where: Gardens by the Bay, 18 Marina Gardens Dr, Singapore 018953
Get your tickets here
There’s a new library in town, and this one’s loaning out physical media that spins instead of flips. Swee Lee has recently launched Southeast Asia’s first vinyl lending library, allowing members to bring home up to three records at a time with no fixed loan duration. There’ll be listening stations where you can drown out the world by your lonesome, or in pairs.
Spend the day browsing their massive collection of vinyl, take pictures in photobooths, and linger over a cup of coffee from their café corner as you enjoy music the way it was intended.
When: Daily, from 10:30am to 10pm on weekends, and 12 to 9pm on weekdays
Where: Swee Lee Clarke Quay and Swee Lee The Star Vista
More information here
If you've ever wanted to feel like you're raiding a royal treasury, the Asian Civilisations Museum has you covered. The Louvre is bringing over a hundred pieces from its Islamic art collection to Singapore for the first time. Crosscurrents: Masterpieces of Mughal, Safavid, and Ottoman Art traces the rise and fall of three empires that ran the show across West and Central Asia from the 1500s to the 1700s, through jewels, artifacts, and objects pulled straight from their royal collections.
When: From 19 Jun 2026 to 24 Jan 2027
Where: Asian Civilisations Museum, 1 Empress Pl, Singapore 179555
If you've ever wanted to know what it feels like to drop several thousand metres below the surface, Into the Ocean: Journey Beneath is your weekend sorted. Built around never-before-seen footage from OceanX, the exhibition pulls you through the ocean's shifting depths using footage captured by submersibles that go where cameras rarely follow. It's less of a museum visit, rather than a full sensory immersion, with interactive elements that tie back to actual marine conservation work.
When: 6 June to 1 November 2026
Where: ArtScience Museum, 6 Bayfront Avenue, Singapore 018974
Save a spot here
Singapore Art Museum is hosting Form is Emptiness, the first major solo show in Southeast Asia from legendary Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto. Spanning 60-plus works across five decades, the show moves through photography, sculpture, and large-scale installation, loosely framed around the Buddhist concept of the Five Elements. Think meditative seascapes, architectural interventions, and objects that somehow feel both ancient and weightless. It's a rare chance to slow down and spend time genuinely thinking about time, perception, and reality.
When: 29 May to 4 October 2026
Where: Gallery 1 & The Engine Room, Level 1, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore 089065
Save a spot here
Perhaps it’s time to pick up a new hobby that distracts you from the incessant humming of productivity. This beginner-friendly crochet session at KADA is low-stakes, softly paced, and designed for absolute first-timers. Guided by a coach with an interior design background, the session will feel less like a class and more like a laid-back session with patient guidance and a small handmade piece to take home. There’s even a complimentary drink to ease you in.
When: Various dates
Where: The Possible Space, 5 Kadayanallur St, #01-01, Singapore 069183
Save a spot here
After years of living in the digital space, Avant is finally settling down in a brick-and-mortar. Across periodical phases, the space will grow to house over 1000 curated mix of records, compact discs and rarities. But it’s not all just vinyl—there’ll be vintage print items, objects, and books centred around pop culture. The space is designed to feel lived in and curated, making it an ideal spot to listen, vibe, and linger a little longer than you probably should.
When: See @avantcultureclub for opening hours
Where: 195 Pearl's Hill Terrace, #01-60, Singapore 168976
