Clearwater Events & Community
Every evening at Pier 60, about two hours before the sun hits the water, artists set up easels. Musicians tune guitars. Vendors unpack handmade jewelry onto folding tables. By the time the sky turns orange, the 1,080-foot pier is full of people who came with no plan other than watching.
It has been this way since 1995. Every single day. Most cities would kill for one signature event. Clearwater runs one nightly.
Signature Events
Sunsets at Pier 60. Daily, year-round. Three decades of nightly sunset celebrations with artisans, street performers, and musicians. No tickets, no schedule. Show up and watch. The consistency is the point. You never have to wonder if it's happening tonight. It is.
Philadelphia Phillies Spring Training. February through March. The Phillies mark their 80th year in Clearwater in 2026. That's not a typo. BayCare Ballpark fills with fans whose families have been making this trip for generations. Game days spill into surrounding restaurants and bars. Cleveland Street runs noticeably hotter during spring training than any other stretch of the year.
Clearwater Jazz Holiday. October. National and international acts on the waterfront, multiple stages, food vendors who take it seriously. The lineup draws fans from well beyond Tampa Bay. This isn't background music at a wine bar. It's a proper festival.
Sanding Ovations. Fall. Professional sand sculptors spend days creating massive works on Clearwater Beach. The sculptures stay up for weeks, turning the sand into a temporary outdoor gallery. Sounds niche until you see a 15-foot dragon holding together with nothing but compressed sand and gravity.
Recurring Events
Sunsets at Pier 60 run daily. The one constant on the calendar.
The Market Marie takes over downtown on the second Saturday of every month. A woman selling homemade hot sauce out of a cooler next to a guy lettering custom signs by hand next to a food truck doing Cuban sandwiches. You show up for one thing and leave carrying three.
Farmers Markets run weekly. Local produce, baked goods, prepared food from vendors who grow what they sell.
Imagine Clearwater Concerts. The 4,000-seat amphitheater books acts that would normally skip a city this size. Sit on the lawn, face the harbor, and the water behind the stage turns pink as the set goes on.
Capitol Theatre Performances fill the calendar year-round. Live music, comedy, theater. A 1921 venue that has outlasted every trend in entertainment and keeps filling seats.
Where Things Happen
Pier 60 and the beach own sunsets and festivals. Cleveland Street gets the markets and downtown gatherings. BayCare Ballpark fills for spring training. The Imagine Clearwater amphitheater draws waterfront concert crowds. Capitol Theatre picks up everything else.
Short drive or trolley ride between all of them.