Two Arts Calendars to Explore in Delray Beach This Year

The roll-up doors at 313 NE 3rd Street are open again. Arts Warehouse, the 15,000-square-foot former industrial space the Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency converted into artist studios and gallery rooms back in 2017, finished a full renovation and reopened in June 2026. The floors are new. The resident artists are back at their easels in the front, east, and back-room galleries. If you walked Pineapple Grove on a First Friday this fall, this is likely the reopening you noticed.

It is not the only one. A half mile southwest, outside the Pineapple Grove map, a different kind of arts night has been running on its own schedule all year, with its own bands, market, and audience. The two calendars cover different parts of the city's arts scene.

What Actually Came Back This Year

Delray's gallery scene lost and gained ground unevenly in 2026. Arts Warehouse's reopening is the clearest win: the building now has its best floors and gallery conditions in years, and admission remains free. Down the block, Addison Gallery keeps a steady program of solo painting exhibitions on NE 2nd Street, and the Dancing Pineapple mural, the neighborhood's most photographed wall, is still there for anyone detouring off Atlantic.

The Crest Theatre at Old School Square did not come back. It remains closed and awaiting a major renovation, though arts classes are still running inside the building. That leaves Arts Garage and the Delray Beach Playhouse, on Lake Ida a few minutes from downtown, as the city's two consistently active stages for anyone looking for a seat rather than a gallery wall.

The Walk Most People Already Know

First Friday Art Walk is the anchor event for downtown's gallery circuit, held the first Friday of every month, all year, from 6 to 9 p.m. Cornell Art Museum opens as a stop on the route, which means a full slate of exhibitions and live music for no admission charge. The remaining 2026 dates are October 2, November 6, and December 4.

First Friday connects Old School Square, Pineapple Grove, and the Arts Warehouse, all within about a fifteen-minute walk of each other, on a monthly schedule. Sounds of The Set offers a separate arts event series on SW 5th Avenue.

A Second Arts Night on SW 5th Avenue

Sounds of The Set runs on SW 5th Avenue, from Libby Wesley Plaza at 2 SW 5th Avenue to The Hive at 34 SW 5th Avenue. It is free, presented jointly by the Delray Beach Downtown Development Authority, the historic neighborhood group known as The Set, and the West Atlantic Redevelopment Coalition. In 2026 it ran in February, June, and August, each time pairing live music with The Blackmer's Market, a rotating showcase of local vendors, makers, and artists. J.M. and the Sweets, a South Florida band working a mix of soul, funk, blues, jazz, and rock, and the Derek Mack Band have both played the series this year.

The pattern is the first thing that separates it from First Friday. Sounds of The Set does not run monthly. It runs a handful of nights a year, on its own schedule, so check the calendar for dates. The second thing is geography. This stretch of SW 5th Avenue sits within the West Settlers Historic District, one of Delray Beach's five local historic districts, established in 1997 to mark the site of the city's first settlement, dating to 1894. The frame vernacular and Bungalow-style houses along the route predate most of what First Friday visitors walk past downtown, and none of it is on the Pineapple Grove tour.

Sounds of The Set offers another way to hear the Derek Mack Band, shop Blackmer's Market, and walk this half mile at night with music coming out of it.

The Spady House Turns 100 in 2026

A short walk from the Sounds of The Set route sits the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, founded in 2001 as the only museum in Palm Beach County dedicated to the history and heritage of the African diaspora in Florida and the United States. The museum's building, the historic Spady House, turns 100 in 2026, and the museum is running a centennial preservation campaign around the anniversary. Historical markers along NW 5th Avenue mark where the neighborhood's doctor's offices, soda fountain, and pharmacy once stood, the only pharmacy serving the area's Black community during that era.

None of this appears on the Arts Warehouse's reopening announcement or the First Friday flyer. It is a fifteen-minute walk from the beach end of Atlantic Avenue, and it is a separate stop on a separate night from the gallery circuit most people already track.

Two Calendars, One City

Put the year side by side and the shape becomes clear. Arts Warehouse reopened in June after a full renovation. The Crest stayed dark. First Friday kept its monthly rhythm with three dates left on the 2026 calendar. Sounds of The Set ran three times this year on SW 5th Avenue, tied to a neighborhood with its own 1894 founding date and its own centennial museum campaign underway a few blocks away. Both circuits are free. Both are walkable from downtown in under fifteen minutes.

Checking the Downtown Delray Beach events calendar before a Friday night out means checking two different sections. The gallery walk tells you when Cornell Art Museum is staying open late. The Sounds of The Set listing tells you when Blackmer's Market is setting up on SW 5th Avenue, or when the next name gets added to the Sounds of The Set bill.

If your fall plans already include the next First Friday, consider checking the Sounds of The Set listing on the same site as well.

Kirsten Smith has spent more than two decades getting to know Delray Beach block by block, not just the streets that make the tour guides. If you're curious what a specific address near either circuit is actually worth, or want a local read on a neighborhood before you commit to it, reach out to Kirsten Smith.