From October 10 to the last Sunday of December, nearly every major event on the Jacksonville Beach calendar happens at one address. That address is Latham Plaza & Seawalk Pavilion, 11 1st Street N, with the Pier just to the south. Oktoberfest, a surf festival with national headliners, the Halloween movie night, an arts market and the holiday chairs all use the same lawn and stage within about 11 weeks. That same block is also the focus of the city's downtown redevelopment plans. So a fall weekend here means knowing which event has the plaza and how you get in.
One Address, Weekend After Weekend
Lay the season out by weekend and the plaza is booked almost the whole way through.
| Weekend | What's on the plaza or at the Pier | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Sat., Oct. 10 | Buddy Walk | 10 a.m.–2 p.m. |
| Thu., Oct. 15 | Silent Piano Concert, on the beach just north of the Pier | 5:30–7:30 p.m. |
| Fri.–Sat., Oct. 16–17 | Beaches Oktoberfest | Fri. 5–10 p.m., Sat. noon–10 p.m. |
| Thu., Oct. 22 | Seawalk Sessions featuring Perry Bechtle | 5–7 p.m. |
| Sat., Oct. 24 | Jax Beach Arts Market | 10 a.m.–4 p.m. |
| Fri., Oct. 30 | Trunk-or-Treat, then Moonlight Movie | 5–7 p.m., then 7:15–8:45 p.m. |
| Sat.–Sun., Nov. 7–8 | Super Girl Surf Festival | Village Sat. 11 a.m.–10 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.–8 p.m. |
| Sat., Nov. 21 | Jax Beach Arts Market | 10 a.m.–4 p.m. |
| Wed., Nov. 25 onward | Deck The Chairs season opens | Through Jan. 1 |
| Sundays, Nov. 29–Dec. 27 | Deck The Chairs Christmas Market | 10 a.m.–5 p.m. |
The two Thursday evenings break the pattern. The Silent Piano Concert and the Seawalk Sessions show both start at sundown on a weeknight, and both take up less space than the weekend festivals. The city describes Seawalk Sessions as a live-music series that runs all season. These are the low-key nights on the plaza: free, two hours long, and over before dinner.
Halloween comes a day early. Trunk-or-Treat and the Moonlight Movie are both on Friday, October 30, and the movie is Disney's The Haunted Mansion from 2003.
Same Lawn, Different Rules at the Gate
Because the venue doesn't change, the entry rules are what set one weekend apart from the next. Getting them wrong is the easiest way to end up waiting outside an event you planned to attend.
Beaches Oktoberfest, put on by Beaches Oktoberfest, Inc., is free to walk into. Buying or drinking beer is a different matter. You need a paid Oktoberfest Experience or VIP ticket, and alcohol is 21 and up only. Prices are tiered, and the starting Experience ticket costs $17.93 for Friday, $20.07 for Saturday and $23.29 for the weekend, fees included. That ticket gets you a passport, Bier Hall access and a beverage-station wristband. The first 5,000 guests also get a commemorative stein with four passport stamps, so arriving early pays off. Visit Jacksonville lists Sister Hazel, The Hip Abduction and Coyote Island among this year's acts and promises 40-plus breweries pouring German lagers and regional craft beer. On the food side, the festival lists bratwurst, pretzels and schnitzel.
Three weeks later, Super Girl works the opposite way. The concerts are free and open to all ages, but you have to preregister online in advance. Entry is first come, first served until the venue fills. News4Jax reported that VIP entry starts at $125 per day. If you show up Saturday night for Lupe Fiasco without having registered, you're relying on the plaza not being full yet.
The city lists the Arts Market and Seawalk Sessions as free.
The Super Girl Weekend Uses Both Ends of the Block
November 7 and 8 is the only weekend this fall that fills the Pier and the plaza at once. ASA Entertainment produces the festival, and Jersey Mike's presents it. The WSL women's surf contest runs at the Jacksonville Beach Pier from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days, while the Festival Village takes over Seawalk Pavilion and Latham Plaza. The surfing is a QS2000-level contest. ASA's October 1 release also announced a new professional freestyle-trampoline contest for this year. News4Jax lists skateboarding, beach volleyball, beach soccer, beach flag football, basketball, a cheer and dance showcase and the Super Girl 5K on the same weekend.
The surf contest ends at 4 p.m., and the headliners don't start until evening, so the crowd moves from the Pier to the plaza over the afternoon. The official concert schedule has the closing sets here:
- Saturday: Mckenzi Brooke 5–5:45, Hello Sister 6:15–7, Gym Class Heroes 7:30–8:30, Lupe Fiasco 9–10
- Sunday: Emily Zeck 4–4:45, B.o.B 5:15–6:15, Switchfoot 6:45–8
Local acts fill the earlier slots. Grom and the Jacks plays Saturday at 2:30, and Flailing Idiot plays Sunday at 2:30. One warning if you're checking details online: the festival's surf-contest page lists a longboard event on "Sunday, November 10," which doesn't match this year's November 7 and 8 dates. Use the October 1 release for this year's schedule.
The Saturday Market That Stays Off the Plaza
One weekly event isn't on the plaza at all. The city calendar lists the Beaches Green Market every Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Penman Park, 321 Penman Road. It runs every Saturday through December 26.
The market also overlaps the plaza schedule in useful ways. On October 24 and November 21, it shares its hours with the Jax Beach Arts Market, so you can do produce on Penman Road in the morning and the arts market on First Street before it closes at 4. The Arts Market is run by founder Jon McGowan through Soft Sand Consulting, and those two Saturdays are its only 2026 dates. On November 7, the market's hours overlap the Super Girl village's first morning, so Penman Road is the calmer place to be.
The weekend of November 14 and 15 is the only one between mid-October and the holidays when none of the events in this guide are on the plaza. The Green Market still runs at Penman Park that Saturday.
December Belongs to the Chairs
Deck The Chairs opens November 25 at Latham Plaza & Seawalk Pavilion and stays up through January 1. Students In The Arts Alliance runs it as its flagship program. The 2026 event guide calls November 25 the Opening Week Celebration, with a stage performance from 7 to 8 p.m. that night, and runs the opening week through December 1. The guide also says dates and times may change.
The Sunday Christmas Market brings December's foot traffic back to the plaza on a set schedule. It runs on November 29 and December 6, 13, 20 and 27, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. That gives the plaza a Saturday market across town at Penman Park and its own Sunday market on First Street for five straight weekends.
What the City Has Planned for This Block
The plaza hosting all of this is already slated for a rebuild. Jacksonville Beach's capital improvement plan for fiscal years 2026 to 2030 includes a goal to "redesign Latham Plaza and Seawalk Pavilion area to be more inclusive and functional year round." The Community Redevelopment Agency hired Dix Hite + Partners to prepare plans and construction documents for that work. The plan sets aside $4,000,000 for the Latham Plaza Master Plan and $750,000 for pier parking lot improvements in FY2026. It also budgets $350,000 for Ocean Front Park in FY2027 and $9,000,000 for a First Street redesign from FY2027 through FY2029. The plan said construction on Latham Plaza Phase 1 was expected to begin in FY2026. The city records we reviewed don't show a construction award or start date yet. The full fall calendar on the existing plaza fits with that.
The city-owned parking lot just south of the plaza, between First and Second Streets, is on a separate track. On March 18, 2026, the city issued a request for proposals for a public-private partnership to redevelop it as a mixed-use project with new public parking and commercial space. The RFP gives examples of possible uses: structured public parking, public amenities, ground-floor shops and restaurants, upper-level commercial space and rooftop dining. The city's notice expected a tentative ranking of proposals in late July, followed by public meetings to present the top candidates to City Council. As of today, the city's bid page still lists the solicitation as "Pending Council Award." It doesn't name a selected partner.
Organizers still list Oktoberfest, the Super Girl Festival Village and Deck The Chairs at Latham Plaza & Seawalk Pavilion this fall. The city's public updates, including the RFP section of its website, are the place to watch for the next step.
Once this fall's schedule is settled, keeping an eye on the plaza redesign and the parking lot proposals will help you plan next year. If you'd like to talk through how downtown projects like these play into a home you own near First Street, Meredith Rowe is glad to meet over coffee. Schedule a Free Consultation and bring your questions.
