Twin Cities weekend events: Lunar New Year, winter kite festival, cutest puppy contest
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"Hot Box Disco Inferno II" at the 2025 Art Shanty Projects and 2023's Art Sled Rally. Photos: Audrey Kennedy/Axios
From Lunar New Year celebrations to a kite festival on ice, this weekend's events calendar might be the most jam-packed of the season.
- Not sure where to start? Audrey planned your Saturday itinerary to check out as many major happenings as possible.
🔥 10am: Head to Lake Harriet for the Art Shanty Projects, the village of interactive art projects that includes a dance party in a flaming dumpster and a disco lip-sync stage this year.
🪁 12pm: Don't go anywhere! The annual Winter Kite Festival kicks off on the lake near the shanties at noon. If you don't have one, kites are available for purchase.
😳 2pm: Make your way east to Powderhorn Park for the Art Sled Rally, a celebration of "creativity and carnage" where dozens of brave souls attempt to make it down a hill in homemade cardboard sleds.
🌱 4pm: Getting cold? Bask in summer temperatures at the Winter Carnival Orchid Show at Como Zoo and Conservatory. It's free and open until 5pm.
🥂 5pm: If you make it through all of that in one piece, you deserve a fancy drink. The Great Northern Ice Bar is now at Union Depot serving cocktails and nonalcoholic beverages until 9pm.
If you somehow need more options...
🏒 The U.S. Pond Hockey Championships are back! Hundreds of teams battle for the Golden Shovel daily through Sunday at the amateur tournament on Lake Nokomis. It's too late to register, but spectators are welcome. Free.
🧧 Celebrate the Year of the Snake at a Lunar New Year party this weekend.
- Midtown Global Market and Arbeiter Brewing Co. in Minneapolis have Saturday afternoon events, or stop by Asia Mall in Eden Prairie for a full itinerary of cultural performances, lion dances, Chinese opera and more on Saturday and Sunday. Free.
🖼️ No reservation, no problem. For the first time since its debut in 2022, Shoreview museum Cafesjian Art Trust is open for drop-in visits on Saturdays from 10am-4:30pm now through Sept. 6.
- Its latest exhibit, which debuts Friday, spotlights paintings collected by Gerard Cafesjian that "capture the rhythms of everyday life." Free.
🥰 Prove you have the most adorable dog ever at Back Channel Brewing's Cutest Puppy Contest on Saturday afternoon. Stick around until 4pm to watch a group of seven-week-old puppies compete in the Puppy Bowl. $25 entry fee, free to spectators.