Drones Over Mackay, Cheetahs at the Easel: Inside Reno's Artown 2026

Reno’s July arts festival is not playing small in 2026.

In this episode of the Ask-Reno.com Podcast, we dive into the newly released 2026 Our Town Little Book and unpack the themes hiding beneath the massive calendar: a free July 4 kickoff at Mackay Stadium with the Reno Phil, military flyovers, and a 500-drone light show; the new Our Town Passport challenge inspired by pilgrimage; a plastic-free month that bans bottled water sales at marked events; and a festival-wide shift from passive spectatorship into full-body participation.

After Smash Mouth kicks off the 500 event marathon, choose between Ukrainian folk singing and contact improv to Shibari, miniature galleries, garlic basket weaving, live cheetah painting, augmented reality along the Truckee River, and watershed art made from thousands of steel pins, this year’s programming feels less like an event schedule and more like a civic stress test for attention, comfort, habit, and imagination.

See the complete daily guide for Artown 2026 at https://ask-reno.com/artown

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Welcome to the Ask-Reno.com podcast!

Speaker 1 0:04

Oh yeah.

Speaker 0:04

You're trying to steady your brush while like a live cheetah watches your every move from just a few feet away.

Speaker 1 0:11

That is wild.

Speaker 0:12

Right. And then later that same night, you're standing shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people in a stadium.

Speaker 1 0:19

Yeah.

Speaker 0:19

Just tilting your head back to watch uh 500 synchronized drones paint the night sky.

Speaker 1 0:25

It's the ultimate collision, really, the visceral and the high tech. And when you look at the sheer scope of what's about to happen, it I mean it stops feeling like a schedule of events. Totally. It starts looking more like a blueprint for an entirely alternate reality.

Speaker 0:40

Well, welcome to today's deep dives. It is Tuesday, June 23, 2026.

Speaker 1 0:44

Aaron Powell, which means it's almost time.

Speaker 0:46

Exactly. If you've been tracking the local calendar, you know that means we are just seven days away from the kickoff of this unprecedented regionwide cultural undertaking.

Speaker 1 0:56

Seven days.

Speaker 0:57

Yeah. And we've got a massive stack of fresh source material today. Specifically, the newly released 2026 Our Town Little Book.

Speaker 1 1:04

The Bible for the whole thing.

Speaker 1:06

It is the veritable Bible to the month-long July Arts Festival taking over the Reno and Lake Tahoe region. And our mission today is really to rescue you from information overload.

Speaker 1 1:18

Because it's a lot.

Speaker 1:19

It is dense. Hundreds of listings. We are not going to just, you know, read a calendar extract.

Speaker 1 1:25

Right stuff.

Speaker 1:26

Right. Instead, we're extracting the hidden themes, uh, unpacking the bizarrely specific workshops, and looking at some major strategic shifts in the festival. So you can basically curate your perfect July.

Speaker 1 1:37

Because navigating a cultural event of this magnitude requires a strategy. Definitely. If you just wandle in, you are going to miss the deeper connective tissue that the curator spent like an entire year building.

Speaker 1:50

Yeah, and this is the 31st year of the festival, right?

Speaker 1 1:52

Exactly. They are building on that sprawling momentum from their 30th anniversary last year.

Speaker 1:57

Right, right.

Speaker 1 1:58

And crucially, this month overlaps with America's 250th birthday. Oh, wow. So that historical weight is heavily influencing the programming decisions.

Speaker 2:07

Aaron Powell Okay, let's unpack this. Starting right at the beginning with the opening letter from Executive Director Beth McMillan.

Speaker 1 2:15

Yeah, let's look at that.

Speaker 2:16

The sheer ambition they're aiming for this year is wild. The festival kicks off on July 4th at Mackay Stadium.

Speaker 1 2:22

It's a colossal event, and it's totally free for the community. Aaron Powell Free.

Speaker 2:27

The Reno Phil is playing, there are military flyovers, and then, you know, that 500 drone light show we mentioned.

Speaker 1 2:33

Right.

Speaker 2:34

But right alongside this sprawling stadium spectacle, they're introducing something profoundly intimate.

Speaker 1 2:40

Aaron Powell Yeah, the passport.

Speaker 2:41

It's called the R Town Passport. And the little book explicitly notes it was inspired by the Tamino journey.

Speaker 1 2:47

Aaron Powell The famous pilgrimage route in Spain.

Speaker 2:50

Exactly.

Speaker 1 2:50

What's fascinating here is the psychological framing of that passport.

Speaker 2:54

How so?

Speaker 1 2:55

Well, by invoking the Camino de Santiago, the festival directors are telling you up front that this isn't passive entertainment.

Speaker 3:02

Oh, right.

Speaker 1 3:03

Pilgrimage requires physical presence and endurance. They're selling these limited edition physical booklets, and you have to physically go and collect stamps.

Speaker 3:11

Like at select events every single day.

Speaker 1 3:14

Every single day of the month. You make it through all 31 days, you earn a commemorative t-shirt.

Speaker 3:19

I look at that and my first thought is this is a marathon for the soul.

Speaker 1 3:22

It really is.

Speaker 3:23

And frankly, it sounds exhausting.

Speaker 1 3:25

Yeah.

Speaker 3:26

I mean, how does anyone sustain that? 31 continuous days of art absorption is a staggering commitment.

Speaker 1 3:32

It's huge.

Speaker 3:33

You aren't just popping into a gallery on a Saturday afternoon, you know. You're making art consumption a part-time job for a month.

Speaker 1 3:40

Yeah.

Speaker 3:41

I'd argue most people just don't have the mental or physical bandwidth for that.

Speaker 1 3:44

Aaron Powell But think about the visual branding supporting that challenge. Okay. They want to stretch your bandwidth. Look at the cover art of the little book. It's not just a generic paint palette.

Speaker 3:54

Right. It's really detailed.

Speaker 1 3:55

You have a child holding a paper airplane looking out over the Reno skyline, but the sky above that child is filled with this entire timeline of aerospace progress.

Speaker 4:04

Oh, like the hot air balloons and stuff.

Speaker 1 4:06

Yeah, hot air balloons, a soaring eagle, drones, gliders, even a space shuttle blasting off into a deep purple starry night. The stated theme is generational hope and boundless horizons.

Speaker 4:18

Connecting 250 years of American progress directly to the high desert spirit of northern Nevada.

Speaker 1 4:23

Exactly.

Speaker 4:24

It's a very optimistic image, I'll give them that.

Speaker 1 4:26

And that optimism is the fuel for the marathon. The passport isn't designed to be easy, gamifying the experience forces like a daily routine disruption.

Speaker 4:35

Well, if you're asking thousands of people to sprint through a month-long cultural marathon, you suddenly have to deal with the physical reality of those people. Yes. Thousands of people running around in the July heat. Which is brutal. Exactly. The bodily endurance required for the passport slams right into the environmental endurance of the city.

Speaker 1 4:53

That's a great point.

Speaker 4:54

Which brings us to a major operational shock to the system this year. July is officially plastic free month for our town.

Speaker 1 5:02

It's a bold logistical move for an event this size.

Speaker 5:06

They drew a hard line. Bottled water will no longer be sold at any marked event. Period.

Speaker 1 5:12

That is massive.

Speaker 5:13

If you want water at a hot outdoor concert, you have two options. Yeah. You bring your own container from home or you buy their official reusable silicone cup.

Speaker 1 5:24

The silapant.

Speaker 5:24

Right, the sillipant for $15. It's this vibrant tie-dye looking cup. Once you have a vessel, you get free water access all month at their refill stations.

Speaker 1 5:34

I love looking at the mechanics of a choice like this. It's not just an administrative background detail. It is conceptually tied directly to the heavy environmental focus dominating the visual arts programming this year. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker 5:46

Oh, especially at the Nevada Museum of Art.

Speaker 1 5:48

Exactly. The festival infrastructure is mirroring its artistic curation.

Speaker 5:54

Let's talk about that museum lineup because it is intense.

Speaker 1 5:56

It really is.

Speaker 5:57

They're running an exhibit titled Altered Lands and the Anthropocene, looking at how industry has physically scarred the earth. Another called Circularity, which is exploring alternatives to waste culture. Yeah. And the sixth extinction, focusing on human-driven biodiversity loss.

Speaker 1 6:13

So heavy themed.

Speaker 6:14

Very. And the centerpiece is Myelin's Pin River, uh, Tahoe Watershed. Have you seen how she actually constructs this?

Speaker 1 6:21

It's remarkable. I mean, she doesn't just paint a map.

Speaker 6:23

No, not at all. She uses tens of thousands of straight steel pins.

Speaker 1 6:29

Like sewing pins.

Speaker 6:30

Yeah. And she pushes them directly into the gallery wall to trace the entire ecological footprint of the local water system. Wow. The pins catch the light and cast these microscopic shadows, so the invisible flow of our water becomes this shimmering physical texture you can almost touch.

Speaker 1 6:47

It turns abstract data into a tactile landscape.

Speaker 6:51

Exactly.

Speaker 1 6:51

And that tactile nature is the key. Think about the physical experience of the attendee. You're standing in that museum looking at the thousands of pins representing your fragile watershed. Right. And you are literally holding a reusable silicone cup because the festival forced you to abandon single-use plastics.

Speaker 7:08

You really are.

Speaker 1 7:08

You're physically embodying the values on the wall. You cannot passively consume art about environmental devastation while casually sipping from a plastic bottle that's going to sit in a landfill for four centuries.

Speaker 7:20

So what does this all mean, really? I have to push back gently here because I look at this and wonder if it actually works.

Speaker 1 7:25

Fair question.

Speaker 7:26

The forcing someone to buy a $15 silipant and looking at a pin map of a river actually change long-term consumer behavior.

Speaker 1 7:35

Right. Does it stick?

Speaker 7:37

Or is the festival just creating a temporary 31-day bubble where people feel morally superior only to go right back to buying cases of plastic water at the grocery store on August 1st?

Speaker 1 7:49

Aaron Ross Powell Well, that tension is the eternal hurdle of any disruptive art, isn't it?

Speaker 7:53

Yeah.

Speaker 1 7:53

But if we look at behavioral psychology, breaking an automatic habit like grabbing a disposable water bottle requires friction.

Speaker 8:00

Okay. Friction.

Speaker 1 8:01

I view the ban on plastic sales as a toll booth for your habits. You're cruising on autopilot and suddenly the festival throws down a barrier. You can't just buy your way out of being thirsty with two dollars. No, you can't. You have to pack your bottle. You have to locate a refill station. The art provides the intellectual justification, the why, but the logistical friction provides the physical how.

Speaker 8:24

A toll booth for your habits. That's good. And honestly, that concept of throwing up a barrier to force you out of your comfort zone perfectly explains the next major shift in the source material.

Speaker 1 8:36

Aaron Powell Yeah, the active participation.

Speaker 8:38

Because this push away from passivity isn't just happening with water bottles. It brings us to the most surprising and frankly intimidating trend in this year's programming.

Speaker 1 8:47

That's a lot to take in.

Speaker 8:48

The sheer physical and emotional intensity of the workshops.

Speaker 1 8:52

We are seeing a complete pivot from passive viewing to active physical immersion.

Speaker 8:58

Our town has always featured master classes, but the depth this year is staggering. On July 9th, you have the world-renowned Kronos Quartet teaching a deep dive into classical performance. On July 15th, a group called Ugodi is running a workshop on Ukrainian folk singing.

Speaker 1 9:15

And that's not just singing.

Speaker 9:17

No. They aren't just teaching you lyrics, they're teaching you the mechanics of white voice. Right. That very specific, open-throated, chest resonating vocal technique from Eastern Europe that just vibrates right through your ribs. And then on July 19th, Damn Tall Buildings is hosting an event at Brasserie St. James that mixes their bluegrass tunes with a whiskey tasting, engaging your ears and your palate simultaneously.

Speaker 1 9:43

If we connect this to the bigger picture, it tells us something vital about our baseline psychology in 2026. Which is well, in a world saturated by screens, algorithms, and mediated interactions, people are starved for tactile reality.

Speaker 9:57

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 9:58

They don't just want to watch someone else create, they want their own nervous systems engaged.

Speaker 10:02

And some of these events are engaging the nervous system in extreme ways. Yeah. Look at the House of R.A. on Wells Avenue.

Speaker 1 10:08

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 10:09

They're hosting a weekly ecstatic dance event every Sunday, telling people to completely shed their inhibitions.

Speaker 1 10:15

Which is hard for a lot of people.

Speaker 10:16

Very. They have weekly contact dance improv. Now, I will freely admit, the idea of doing contact improv with complete strangers.

Speaker 1 10:24

It's timidating.

Speaker 10:25

Where you're constantly sharing weight and moving without a choreographed plan. That sounds absolutely terrifying to me.

Speaker 1 10:30

Yeah, it's a lot.

Speaker 10:31

It's way outside my comfort zone. And then leaning into the adult programming, they're hosting a 21 and over Shibari workshop.

Speaker 1 10:40

The Japanese art of rope tying.

Speaker 10:41

Yes.

Speaker 1 10:42

Which is often misunderstood as purely aesthetic, but the mechanics of Shibari are heavily tied to nervous system regulation. Oh, really? Yeah. The physical pressure of the ropes actually slows down the breathing and triggers a parasympathetic response.

Speaker 10:56

Wow. I had no idea.

Speaker 1 10:58

It requires an immense amount of trust, vulnerability, and absolute physical presence from both the person tying and the person being tied. Right. You cannot be mentally drafting an email while engaging in contact improv or shibari. It demands you are entirely in the room.

Speaker 11:14

Here's where it gets really interesting. I look at this shift toward visceral programming, like the difference between reading a recipe and actually getting your hands dirty in the kitchen.

Speaker 1 11:23

That's a great analogy.

Speaker 11:24

For years, arts festivals have essentially been reading us recipes. You sit in a velvet chair, watch the professionals play the cello, clap politely, and go home.

Speaker 1 11:33

Yeah, very safe.

Speaker 11:34

But this year, our town is throwing flour on the counter and telling you to knead the dough yourself.

Speaker 1 11:39

Yes.

Speaker 11:40

You have to find that chest resonance in the Ukrainian folk song. You have to surrender your weight in the contact improv.

Speaker 1 11:47

It democratizes the art form. It completely removed that invisible barrier between the elevated performer on the stage and the passive audience in the dark.

Speaker 11:56

You become the material.

Speaker 1 11:57

Exactly. This is also reflected in the visual arts. KRI Architecture is hosting an exhibit called Inner Vision, inspired entirely by altered states of consciousness.

Speaker 12:07

Oh, right.

Speaker 1 12:08

It's all about exploring the edges of human perception.

Speaker 12:11

And what I find so charming is that this avant-garde altered states exploration isn't happening in a vacuum. It is deeply anchored by everyday local stables.

Speaker 1 12:21

Yeah, and the local businesses.

Speaker 12:22

In the little book, right alongside these boundary pushing events, there's a full-page spread for Portive Subs.

Speaker 1 12:28

It's so classical.

Speaker 12:29

A local sandwich shop that has been feeding this specific community since 1972. They have specific R Town promo codes.

Speaker 1 12:36

I love that.

Speaker 12:37

You could literally leave a mind-bending exhibit on altered consciousness and go get a classic turkey sub with a local promo code.

Speaker 1 12:45

It really grounds you.

Speaker 12:46

It's this wonderfully pragmatic grounding mechanism that reminds you, yes, we are exploring the limits of the human mind, but we are doing it right here in our own neighborhood.

Speaker 1 12:58

That grounding is crucial because physical exhaustion and emotional vulnerability aren't the only ways to push boundaries. Okay. If getting tied up in ropes or belting out folk songs feels a bit too exposed, there's an entirely different way to channel that intense focus.

Speaker 13:13

Yes. If you don't want to go macro, you go micro. The micro events are my absolute favorite part of the schedule.

Speaker 1 13:19

They're so unique.

Speaker 13:20

We've talked about the 500 drones and the exhausting 31-day marathon, but the micro events give the festival its unique texture.

Speaker 1 13:28

Let's look at how they manage that scale.

Speaker 13:29

So at TMCC Truckee Meadows Community College, they are hosting the 12.1 galleries. It's a show dedicated entirely to miniature art.

Speaker 1 13:37

Miniature art.

Speaker 13:38

The book describes it as tiny galleries, expansive worlds. And think about what miniature art physically forces you to do.

Speaker 1 13:45

You have to get close.

Speaker 13:46

You can't stand back with your arms crossed to take it in. You have to step close. You have to physically alter your posture, lean in, and squint. Yeah. It demands a totally different physiological engagement than, say, a massive mural.

Speaker 1 14:02

It's focusing a magnifying glass until the paper catches fire. You're taking all that scattered attention and distilling it into a space no bigger than a matchbox.

Speaker 14:11

Exactly. Or take the Great Basin basket makers. On July 16th, they're hosting a workshop where you learn to weave a garlic basket.

Speaker 1 14:19

A garlic basket.

Speaker 14:21

Yes. Not just a generic basket for a holding mail, a basket specifically engineered for garlic.

Speaker 1 14:27

The mechanics of which are highly specific.

Speaker 14:29

Right, because you can't just weave it tightly like a normal basket. Garlic needs constant air circulation to prevent rot.

Speaker 1 14:35

Right, right.

Speaker 14:35

So you have to learn an open-pwined weave with a specific tensile strength. It's an incredibly functional niche skill.

Speaker 1 14:41

And there are more of these, right?

Speaker 14:43

Oh yeah. On July 26th at the Animal Ark Wildlife Sanctuary, you have people setting up easels to paint while observing live cheetahs.

Speaker 1 14:50

Which is incredible.

Speaker 14:51

Or if you want to mix the outdoors with tech, anytime during the month, you can walk along the Truckee River walk, pull out your phone, and hunt for virtual 3D augmented reality art hidden along the physical path.

Speaker 1 15:03

The contrast between the drone show and the garlic basket perfectly illustrates the ecosystem of a healthy city.

Speaker 15:09

Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

Speaker 1 15:10

The stadium spectacle provides the communal roar. It makes the headlines. But the true heartbeat of community building often happens in the pursuit of absurdly specific shared interests. Absolutely. Think about that basket weaving class. That is a room full of people who saw an opportunity to spend hours learning the specific open weave technique for an Alleyam receptacle and said, Yes, that is exactly how I want to spend my Thursday afternoon.

Speaker 15:37

I love that.

Speaker 1 15:38

That builds a much stickier social bond than just standing in the same crowd at a concert.

Speaker 15:42

Which makes me want to ask you, the listener, directly, which of these extremes actually hooks you?

Speaker 1 15:48

Yeah, what draws you in?

Speaker 15:49

Are you drawn to the monumental, standing in McKay Stadium, looking up at military flyovers and drones? Or do you want to lean in and look at a microscopic painting of the 12.1 gallery until your eyes blind?

Speaker 1 16:02

That's quite the spectrum.

Speaker 16:03

Because I believe the underlying goal of the 2026 programming is to force you outside your standard algorithm. If your routine is usually the symphony, they want you dodging cheetahs with a paintbrush.

Speaker 1 16:15

Exactly.

Speaker 16:16

If you usually go to the museum, they want you at a whiskey tasting listening to a bluegrass band.

Speaker 1 16:20

It's an intentional disruption of the everyday schedule.

Speaker 16:23

So to synthesize the mission for you today, R Town 2026 is officially not a spectator sport.

Speaker 1 16:29

No, it's not.

Speaker 16:30

The days of passively walking through July are over. Whether you're hitting that toll booth on your habits and buying a reusable syllapine, or you're forcing your vocal cords to find that vibrating chess resonance in a Ukrainian folk song.

Speaker 1 16:42

Yep.

Speaker 16:42

Or you're insane enough to commit to the 31-day passport challenge, the festival demands that you show up. You have to leave some sweat on the canvas this year.

Speaker 1 16:51

This raises an important question. What is the ultimate value of all this exposure? We believe that knowledge and art is most valuable when it is applied. It's not enough to just know these events exist on a calendar. You have to let them act upon you.

Speaker 17:06

That's right.

Speaker 1 17:06

So as you look through the little book, my challenge to you is to pick at least one event that makes you slightly uncomfortable.

Speaker 17:13

Ooh, I like that.

Speaker 1 17:14

If you are terrified of losing control, go try the contact improv. If you think you have no visual creativity, go figure out the open weave of a garlic basket. Apply the friction to your own life.

Speaker 17:27

And that leaves us with a final thought to chew on as we wrap up this deep dive. Let's look past July.

Speaker 1 17:33

Okay.

Speaker 17:33

Think about what happens to a city on August 1st.

Speaker 1 17:36

Yeah, the aftermath.

Speaker 17:37

After an entire community spends 31 straight days rewiring their routines, carrying their own water, attempting ecstatic dance, studying the watershed in straight pins, and looking for augmented reality hidden by the river. Does the city simply wake up and go back to normal?

Speaker 1 17:53

I doubt it.

Speaker 17:54

Or does a month long physically demanding participatory festival of this magnitude permanently alter the psychological geography of the region?

Speaker 1 18:03

That's a great question.

Speaker 18:04

As you curate your schedule, we'll leave you to ponder how this July might just permanently change the math of who you are.