Hot Spots, Bites, Bevs & More: 69 Things To Do In Tulsa This Spring 

The Pickup's Culture coverage is supported by Brut Hotel, featuring a rooftop VIP after party for Tulsa Irish Fest on March 14.

After a long, weird winter, we’re so ready for spring. Tornado season be damned: how much more unpredictable can things get, really? Spring is a time for enjoying the fruits of patience, preparation, and all that work you’ve been doing on yourself while in hibernation mode. Here’s our guide to Spring Break hot spots, fresh performing arts events, spring-coded bites and bevs, and all the daffodils you can handle. 

Get Your Garden Started

• Across the Prairie: this gem of a spot at 15th and Harvard carries native plants, local art, and plenty of educational resources. From Bigtop Lovegrass (Eragrostis hirsuta) to Shining Bluestar (Amsonia illustris), you’ll find your new favorite backyard friend here.
• OSU Master Gardeners Extension is the expert resource you didn’t know you needed, with soil test kits, composting classes, workshops, and practical talks by master gardeners from across the state. 
• Speaking of, Tulsa Master Gardeners holds its Annual Plant Sale at EXPO Square, through March 16; plant pickup is April 16.
• Springfest at the Tulsa Garden Center and Native Plant Weekend at Philbrook are both happening April 10-11. Go to one on one day and the other on the other; come home with two carloads full of new plant friends. 

Let Somebody Else Handle The Flowers

• Anthousai: This local flower-power collective opens its new space in a renovated 1930s Maple Ridge house with a Spring Equinox Party on March 28. 
• Art in Bloom, Philbrook’s annual floral extravaganza (April 3-5), is a museum-wide experience that features stunning structures made by local floral designers, inspired by the architecture and art of Philbrook.
• Tulsa Botanic BLOOMS at Tulsa Botanic Garden hard-launches spring with 46,400 daffodils on one hillside alone, and even more tulips spread throughout the garden. 
• More of an indoor guy? Tyler Thrasher’s Moonbeam Conservatory is air conditioned, kid-friendly, and full of thousands of handmade glowing floral creations.  

Spring Eats & Drinks

The minute that time change hits, I start craving food that makes me feel like I’m skipping through a meadow. (Maybe that’s just called “vegetables”?) Here are a few spots to hop to for spring cuisine, fresh juices, and the first hints of patio weather. —Alicia Chesser

• Prism Cafe

• Inheritance Juicery 

• Little Belly (opening soon)

• Natsukashii (opening soon)

• Chimera

• Kai for spring rolls 

• Juniper for spring pesto risotto

• Cow & Cabbage

• Tala Matcha

• Teas at H2Oasis

• Wild Onion Dinner at Burning Cedar Sovereign Wellness

• And keep and eye out for Forno Santo, the new Italian concept from McNellie’s slated to open in April

Day Trips

• Get Out Of Town With These Four Destination Museums
• Natural Falls (1 hour)
  • If you’ve got little kids, this state park’s a slam dunk. A 77-foot waterfall is the centerpiece, but the hiking and biking trails are easy and scenic too. At minimum, it’s a pleasant stop to stretch your legs on the drive from Tulsa to northwest Arkansas.  
• Oklahoma City (1.5 hours)
  • They’ve got the best team in the National Basketball Association and the best collection of restaurants in the state. Can’t go wrong!  
• Bentonville / Fayetteville (2 hours)
  • Hitch your bike to the rack and enjoy the best riding in the region! With over 250 miles of mountain biking trails alone, the northwest Arkansas corridor is a cycling destination par excellence.
• Roman Nose (2.5 hours)
  • This little gem tucked away in a gypsum canyon in western Oklahoma is worth the drive for a scenic getaway. It’s free to explore the park’s hiking trails and fishing and golfing are both options, although the gigantic pool doesn’t open until Memorial Day.  
• Gloss Mountains (2.5 hours)
• Kansas City (4 hours)

Other Ways To Enjoy The Outdoors

• Tulsa Parks: Playgrounds, gyms, educational activities, walking trails, weird geese!
• Gathering Place: Slide, climb, skate, make music, look at the cherry blossoms … just don’t lose your kid on the giant pirate ship. "Sakura After Sunset" (March 14-27) is the park's "peak cherry blossom" experience.
• Keystone Ancient Forest: This spot is seriously slept on. Over a thousand acres of nature preserve, a stunning cross timbers forest that’s hundreds of years old, and a chill visitors center make for a meditative day. ADA-compliant trails and all-terrain track chairs mean it’s accessible for all. 
• Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition: Want to break a sweat outside doing something meaningful and fulfilling? Join the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition! This volunteer-driven nonprofit stewards Tulsa’s wild spaces by building hiking trails, clearing out invasive species and doing maintenance that increases accessibility and sustainability. Their next trail day is coming up March 29 at Lake Bixhoma. 
• Oxley Nature Center. Over 800 acres of nature preserve and nine miles of trails await you in north Tulsa. Oxley’s calendar’s stocked with recurring spring events, from birding and plant identification walks to archery and nature journaling. 
• Downtown Tulsa Midweek Market. Returning April 15, this open-air market is moving from its old location at Chapman Green to new digs at Santa Fe Square at 415 E. Second St. Local farmers, makers, artisans and food vendors will take over the square every Wednesday evening from 4:30 to 7:30, making it the ideal post-work hang for downtowners looking to avoid the afternoon commute. 

What To Do While Your Kids Are On Spring Break

• Discovery Lab Spring Break camps—popular, crowded, excellent. The lab is open to the public during camps, but you might call ahead to check on how busy it is. 
• Botanicamp is happening at Tulsa Botanic Garden, along with an interactive exhibit called “Sean Kenney’s Nature Connects Made with LEGO® bricks.”
• Tulsa Zoo Spring Break camp—or, if you’re not into camp, just go look at the cute animal faces.
• Philbrook Spring Break art studio happens March 18, 19, and 21, with a Hot Toast Music Co. singalong and storytime March 21 at 10am.
• Tulsa Air & Space Museum & Planetarium hosts aerospace-themed shows daily, a perfect way to sit and zone out (and also learn something) after exploring the museum’s collection of vintage aircraft.
• Greenwood Rising is an essential visit for every Tulsan, kids included. 
• Tulsa City-County Library has literally hundreds of Spring Break activities going on across 25 branches, plus, you know, books!
• Pony Coffee has a sweet little outdoor area for kids so you can sit and stare into space with a delicious coffee while they play.

Big Music

Tulsa Symphony Orchestra: Stravinsky’s The Firebird
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
March 14

The original 1910 “The Firebird” was a massive success upon its premiere, launching its composer Igor Stravinsky into international fame. While originally it contained a ballet, Stravinsky’s later orchestral suites based on the work were purely instrumental; TSO will play the 1919 version, the most popular of the suites. The program will also include American Amy Beach’s Gaelic Symphony and Ravel’s “Alborada del gracioso.” —Z.B. Reeves

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
Lowdown
March 20 & 21

The hometown boys are back for their annual two-night Lowdown throwdown. We recommend grabbing tickets quick: these shows sell out fast, and they are a time. —Alicia Chesser

Pat Metheny Side-Eye III+
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
March 31

For his first-ever concert at the TPAC, 20-time Grammy Award-winning jazz guitar legend Pat Metheny brings a four-piece band to Tulsa to shred on some new work and experiment with some classics from his massive catalog. Not a jazz nerd? It’s never too late, and this would be a great place to start. —Alicia Chesser

Rei & The Moving Castle
Lowdown
April 4

Rei & The Moving Castle is a music project led by bassist Rei Wang, inspired by the anime worlds of Studio Ghibli and other creators. Band members include Rei Wang on upright bass, David Bowen on drums, Kendrik Mckinney on piano, Brian Belanus on guitar, and Collin Ferrell on saxophone. —Alicia Chesser

GWAR
Cain’s Ballroom
April 9

Yes, that GWAR: The always-costumed, spray-various-fluids-onto-the-crowd heavy metal band who once beheaded an effigy of Australian PM Tony Abbott onstage and whose albums have titles like “America Must Be Destroyed” and “Violence Has Arrived” and “Bloody Pit Of Horror.” Are you ready to rock? —Z.B. Reeves

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
Guthrie Green
April 29

These Americana legends kick off the Guthrie Green concert season with a free show full of grit and heart.

Tulsa Symphony Orchestra: Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”)
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
May 2

In five movements with names like “Funeral Rites” and “Primal Light,” Mahler’s 90-minute “Resurrection” symphony (1895) takes you on the ultimate classical music journey through the human experience. Come for the choral drama and the famous “death shriek” that closes the third movement; stay for the ravishing finale, which might restore a little of your hope for humanity. —Alicia Chesser

The Wallflowers
Tulsa Theater
May 2

The Pickup’s Becky Carman saw The Wallflowers here back in 2024, and she had this to say: 

Jakob Dylan, the creative force behind thirty-something-year-old band The Wallflowers, would be hard pressed to find a tour stop more beholden to his roots as an artist and as a human than the Tulsa Theater, which sits a couple of blocks from both the museum bearing his famous father’s name and its partner museum, named for his father’s songwriting idol.

With that pressure in the air, I was happy to find Dylan onstage expressing a joyful, content ease inside the timelessness where he lurks: He is simply a good songwriter playing good rock music with a good rock band. 

Ethel Cain
Cain’s Ballroom
May 14-16

Spring has arrived, the sun is out, and you’re still going through it. Ethel Cain plays three nights at Cain's Ballroom, giving you multiple chances to feel worse, but in a cool way. —Katie Wiehe

Theatre, Opera & Dance

Heller Theatre Company: Double Feature
Lynn Riggs Theater at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center
March 12-15

After last year’s Double Feature show, I wrote that “Heller Theatre Company refuses to let me avoid reality in peace” (complimentary). Heller once again swings for the psycho-emotional fences with two original new one-act plays by local playwrights in this year’s Double Feature, tackling tough themes like grief, loss, and sexual assault in “Is, Or Was” by Hannah Gray and “Rattler” by Lindsay Kennedy.  —Alicia Chesser

Theatre Tulsa: You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
March 13-22

I could use a dose of live-action Snoopy right about now. Using actors of many ages, Theatre Tulsa reimagines this heartwarming 1967 off-Broadway musical as a multigenerational experience. —Alicia Chesser

Tulsa Ballet: Casanova
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
March 26-29

Ballet for grown folks in their Heated Rivalry era. This show—which tells the story of Europe’s most infamous rake in choreography by Kenneth Tindall, featuring lust, drama, and plenty of gorgeous sweaty athletes—is recommended for ages 16+.

Theatre Tulsa: Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead
Theatre Tulsa Studios
March 27-29

Yes to even more Peanuts-inspired theatre! This dark comedy reimagines the Peanuts characters as teenagers facing mature, troubled lives experiencing things like grief, identity, and the loss of innocence.

Celebrity Attractions: Mamma Mia!
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
April 7-12

Celebrity Attractions brings us a springtime treat in Mamma Mia!, a story of love, friendship and identity set on a sun-drenched Greek island, and, of course, ABBA. —Katie Wiehe

Riffraff Tulsa: Antigone & Ismene
101 Archer
April 8-11

Riffraff Tulsa presents an adaptation by Meagan Mulgrew that reimagines Sophocles’ tragedy. The play follows two sisters confronting grief, rebellion and generational trauma as they navigate loss, loyalty and the consequences of defiance in the wake of war. —Katie Wiehe

Theatre Tulsa: Lizzie: The Musical
Theatre Tulsa Studios
April 10-12

Based on the real-life story of Lizzie Borden, this rock musical is a riot grrl extravaganza performed with a live band, fusing 19th-century scandal with 21st-century punk.

Theatre Tulsa: Gypsy
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
April 24-May 3

Gypsy has it all: burlesque, ambition, showbiz, and the most desperate stage mother of all time. (“Rose’s Turn” has famously been sung by the likes of Patti LuPone, Ethel Merman, and Audra McDonald.) Set across America in the 1920s and ‘30s, it captures the death of one era and the start of another, with all the brassy humor and heart-tugging drama you’d expect from one of the great Broadway musicals. —Alicia Chesser

Celebrity Attractions: The Wiz
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
May 5-10

This is the one that changed the game on Broadway: a 1975 reinvention of The Wizard of Oz with an all-Black cast and music that ranges from soul to funk to gospel. If you haven't seen the film starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, go do that—then get to the TPAC to see this gem in person, with choreography by JaQuel Knight who created the moves for Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.” —Alicia Chesser

Tulsa Shakespeare Company: The Tempest
Lynn Riggs Theater / Dennis R. Neill Equality Center
May 14-16, 21-23

Shakespeare in drag? We need this yesterday. —Alicia Chesser

Tulsa Opera: Sing Me A Waltz: Celebrating Johann Strauss II at 200
German-American Society of Tulsa
May 16 

The world’s great Viennese waltz-master was born 200 years ago this year, and Tulsa Opera celebrates with an evening of piano and voices at a venue that’s charmingly paired with the concert. Will there be lager at concessions, though? —Alicia Chesser

Theatre North: The Colored Museum
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
May 23-31

Theatre North concludes a bold, brilliant season with The Colored Museum, a satirical, provocative, and hilarious tour of eleven “exhibits”—toxic narratives about Black American experiences. It’s been variously described as “a celebration” and “an exorcism,” which sounds perfect to us. —Alicia Chesser

Other Pickup-Coded Events

Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live Glow-N-Fire
BOK Center
March 14-15

For a high-octane family outing, Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live Glow-N-Fire returns with glowing trucks, stunts, and plenty of noise at the BOK Center. —Katie Wiehe

Global Gatherings: Japan
Gathering Place
March 21

Art, anime, and cherry blossoms come together with live demonstrations, interactive panels, and serene outdoor installations perfect for taking spring photos. —Katie Wiehe

Harlem Globetrotters: The 100 Year Tour
BOK Center
March 27

Maybe if Marty Supreme had stuck around with the Harlem Globetrotters, he’d have come to a place of self-acceptance a little sooner. But who am I to say? I’m neither a world-class ping pong player nor a member of a legendary century-old b-ball comedy stunt squad. —Alicia Chesser 

“Math In Nature” Exhibit Opening
Gathering Place
April 1-June 30

How many petals does a coreopsis flower have? What’s the angle of that tallgrass bending in the wind? Don’t even get me started on canopy span vs. root depth of that aspen tree by the boathouse. This outdoor exhibit tracks the ways math shows up in the natural environment at the Gathering Place. Just hit me and every kid I know in the special-interest sweet spot, why don’t you? —Alicia Chesser 

Philbrook Wine Experience 2026
Philbrook Museum of Art
April 23-25

If you’re not in a place to pony up for the “gala” part of Philbrook’s biennial fundraising event, you can still get in on the good stuff. The nationally-acclaimed Wine Experience weekend includes tastings, seminars, and a talk by master sommelier André Mack. —Alicia Chesser

Holidays & Festivals

St. Patrick’s Day 

• March 13-15: Tulsa Irish Fest at Cabin Boys (1717 E 7th) 
• March 14 and March 17: McNellie’s St. Patrick’s Day Block Party (409 E. 1st)
• March 17: Arnie’s 70th Annual St. Patrick’s Day (318 E. 2nd) 
• March 17: Kilkenny’s Block Party (1413 E. 15th) 

Easter, April 5

• Where to hunt for eggs
  • The county’s biggest Easter egg hunt is Saturday, March 28, at Chandler Park’s ball fields. The Spring Carnival Eggstravaganza involves 30,000 eggs and a full day of activities. Registration is required! 
  • Easter EGGstravaganza at Gathering Place is another big dog on the Tulsa scene, happening throughout the park on April 3.
  • Bring your pets to the PAWS Egg Hunt at Whiteside Park on April 11.
• Where to get Easter brunch
  • Are poached eggs more up your street than plastic ones? Our go-to brunch recs include Bramble, Oren, Prossimo, SOMA, Sisserou's, The Tavern, and Prism Cafe.
• Where to get raised up (aesthetically)
  • Easter is a perfect time to sneak a peek at Tulsa’s spiritual architecture, even if you’re not religious yourself. We recommend visiting Boston Avenue Methodist Church and Christ the King (both of which bear the fingerprints of Bruce Goff), First Presbyterian, Trinity Episcopal, or (for a more early American vibe) All Souls. 

Cinco de Mayo, May 5

• Elote has the lock on downtown's Tulsa's Cinco de Mayo celebrations, bringing lucha libre, puffy tacos, and kids' activities to the 5th and Boston block for three straight days.
• Cinco de Fuego brings DJs, mariachi bands, and fire shows to Guthrie Green.

Mother’s Day, May 10

• Where to get flowers:
• Where to make her feel like $1M dollars: schedule that spa day at Poppi’s Spa + Lounge downtown, a long steam at Wolf Mother Wellness in Kendall Whittier, a facial at the 1820 Spa at the Brut Hotel, or a float at H2Oasis in The Farm.

Route 66 Centennial

Listen, we have a lot of thoughts about Route 66 and Tulsa’s part in this centennial blowout, and we’re going to give them to you in due course. In the meantime, take a look at this list of events, on which we’re pleased to see bangers like a Hop and Shop Extravaganza in Yukon (April 4), a Big Band Hangar Dance in Weatherford (April 25), and El Reno’s 38th Annual Famous Fried Onion Burger Festival (May 2). The Route 66 Capital Cruise on May 30 will attempt the largest classic car parade in history. And there are two new Mood Bru flavors launching in collaboration with Buck Atom’s Cosmic Curios. It’s not all frankensteined nostalgia! —Alicia Chesser

Mayfest

Tulsa’s beloved springtime arts festival is currently blowing in the wind a bit, but we’re assured it does still exist, just in a different form than you remember. This year’s Mayfest events will be threaded through Tulsa’s Route 66 celebrations all month; we’ll let you know what we know about “Mayfest: Road Trip” as we get closer. —Alicia Chesser