This year, two highly anticipated cultural festivals will unfold in Newark during the same weekend.

The fifteenth annual Open Doors Citywide Arts Festival will kick off on October 19th with a $25-per-ticket reception at Newark Museum. The reception will feature a keynote address by cultural entrepreneur Monica Montgomery, Founding Director of the Museum of Impact, which is the world’s first mobile social justice museum.

Open Doors will continue Thursday, October 20th with an open-air vendor’s fair and launch party at Championship Plaza (Market and Mulberry Streets), then proceed through the weekend with the art crawls and gallery tours that mark Open Doors every year, both at official arts and cultural institutions and in other spaces retrofitted for exhibits for the weekend.

While most of the events are free, the weekend will feature a “Murals and Martinis” event that will include a shuttle tour of the city’s murals, a performance by renowned dancer Storyboard P, and an afterparty at Redd’s Biergarten with a round of drinks and small bites included in the ticket price of $35.

A list of featured artists, exhibits and other special events will be released closer to the festival date.

Open Doors will coincide with the biennial Dodge Poetry Festival, the largest poetry festival in North America. Dodge returns to Newark for a fourth time with events anchored at NJPAC and emanating out to nine nearby venues, including Military Park, Newark Museum, Aljira, New Jersey Historical Society and First Peddie Baptist Memorial Church.

The four-day festival — it runs from October 20th through the 23rd — features poetry readings and discussions with more than 50 poets. To encourage regional poetry lovers to come to Newark and enjoy the festival, New Jersey Transit is offering daily $10.50 round trip transit passes from anywhere in state and New York Penn Station to downtown Newark through October 13th (note: some transit stops will cost less than or equal that amount at regular prices). The Dodge Poetry Festival offers single day, weekend, and four-day passes, plus senior, teacher, student and Newark resident pricing.

Stay tuned to BrickCityLive.com for more information about both festivals.

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