weekend event planner

Here are the top 12 things to do in Houston on New Year's Eve weekend

Shen Yun leaps into town.

Photo courtesy of Shen Yun

Hard to believe, but 2023 is almost here. Those ready to party on New Year's Eve can check out these parties and events. Folks looking for dining options can find reservations here — and nurse those hangovers at New Year's brunch here.

Other fun includes holiday magic courtesy of Trans-Siberian Orchestra and a funny Cirque romp. Shen Yun leaps into town, and plenty of NYE parties — including a sneaker-themed bash — help you ring in 2023.

Enjoy, stay safe, and have a happy new year. Here are your best bets for New Year's Eve weekend.

Thursday, December 29

Trans-Siberian Orchestra presents The Ghosts of Christmas Eve – the Best of TSO & More

Progressive rock group Trans-Siberian Orchestra comes to Houston as part of their 2022 winter tour. They will present a completely updated presentation of the multi-generational holiday tradition. The rock opera features enduring fan favorites like "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24," "O’ Come All Ye Faithful," "Good King Joy," "Promises To Keep," and "This Christmas Day." They'll also perform a second set containing more of TSO’s greatest hits and fan-pleasers, including “Wizards In Winter,” “A Mad Russian’s Christmas,” and more. 3 pm.

A Magical Cirque Christmas

In this comedic, musical, and magic-filled holiday experience, world-acclaimed performers and cirque artists take audiences back in time, immersing them in the spirit of the season and performing Christmas classics through the decades. There will be jaw-dropping magic, big laughs, holiday music, and stunning acrobatic performances. Acts returning for this season’s tour include Rola Bola performer and unicyclist Jonathan Rinney, juggler Christopher Stoinev, and foot juggling duo Ray Rodriguez Lara and Henry D’Boyd Collado Green. 7:30 pm.

Improv Houston presents Ms. Pat

Patricia Williams (aka Ms. Pat) is a comedian, author, podcaster, and actress who brings a raw, in-your-face, and hilarious perspective to her work. She has appeared on NBC’s Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central’s This Is Not Happening, Netflix’s Larry Charles’ Dangerous World of Comedy, TV Guide Network’s Standup in Stilettos, Nickelodeon’s Mom’s Night Out, was just featured in the second season of the Netflix stand-up series Degenerates, and can be seen on the Netflix series The Cabin with Bert Kreischer. 8 pm (7:30 and 9:45 pm Friday; 7 and 9:30 pm Saturday).

Friday, December 30

Shen Yun

Shen Yun’s unique artistic vision expands theatrical experience into a multi-dimensional, deeply moving journey. Featuring one of the world’s most ancient and richest dance systems — classical Chinese dance- along with dynamic animated backdrops and all-original orchestral works, Shen Yun opens a portal to a civilization of enchanting beauty and enlightening wisdom. While Shen Yun cannot perform in China today, it’s sharing this precious heritage with the world. 7:30 pm (1 pm Saturday; 2 & 7 pm Sunday).

Quippie (Queer + Hippie) Rise: New Year’s Party

Trade crowded bars for a one-of-a-kind, free-thinking NYE. Groove to conscious creatives, good eats, & love at a sexy venue. Join this 25-and-up night festival for the spiritual baes, the hippie music heads, and the holistic hotties. What should you expect? A ceremonial intention-setting circle, followed by games, light delicious bites, and an open bar to groove the night away. There will also be live tarot card readings, a $100 outfit contest, a champagne toast, live DJs, and oodles more. 8 pm.

The Doo Wop Project in concert

In their epic shows, The Doo Wop Project takes audiences on a journey featuring foundational tunes from the Crests, Belmonts, and Flamingos, through the vocal artistry of Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, and The Four Seasons, all the way to doo-wopified versions of modern hits from Michael Jackson, Jason Mraz, Maroon 5, and Sam Smith. The Doo Wop Project brings unparalleled authenticity of sound and vocal excellence to recreate, and in some cases entirely reimagine, the greatest music in American pop and rock history. 8:30 pm.

Saturday, December 31

The Annie presents A Rat Pack New Year’s Eve Supper Club

Ring-a-ding in 2023 with this oh-so-swinging shindig at The Annie. This will be an evening with live musical entertainment by The Richard Brown Band featuring their Rat Pack. There will be two seatings: at 6 pm for $250 per person and 9:15 pm for $350 per person. Guests can listen to the greatest hits plus other big band tunes, while enjoying a three-course prix-fixe meal by executive chef Robert Del Grande and chef de cuisine Jose Valencia. Reservations are required. 6 pm.

Agenda Houston presents 5015 NYE Sneaker Gala

Ken Haggerty, founder and CEO of Agenda Houston, the city's premiere destination for collectable sneakers and designer streetwear, has teamed up with The Bar 5015 to host this New Year’s Eve gala. Haggerty, a true sneaker aficionado who was recently named one of Houston's 31 most fascinating and viral celebrities of 2022, will have a special customized sneaker bar and sneaker giveaways from his coveted collection. 8 pm.

Theatre Southwest presents Everybody Loves Opal

In John Patrick’s comedy, Opal, a middle-aged recluse, lives in a tumbledown mansion at the edge of the municipal dump. Opal is an optimist, for no matter how mean her lot - or how mean her "friends" - Opal responds with unfailing kindness and an abiding faith in the goodness of human nature. The December 31 performance is part of Theatre Southwest's annual New Year's gala. The show will officially run Friday, January 6 through Saturday, January 21. 8 pm.

Sunday, January 1

New Year’s Day Hangover Brunch at Urban South HTX

Urban South HTX has got the perfect cure-all day planned for your post-NYE shenanigans, Join them for a hangover brunch, as Gastro Craft cooks up a brunch menu of epic proportions. They will also be serving up Michelada Lager and Mimosa Hard Seltzer. And don’t forget sportsball on the TV, a bounce house for the kiddos, and $12 core pitchers for that extra-large, pick-me-up option. 11 am.

Sunday Funday at Chapman & Kirby

Since Chapman & Kirby has a brunch and day party every Sunday, why not spend New Year’s Day over there? At noon through four, they’ll have all the brunch goodies: chicken and waffles, shrimp and grits, steak and eggs, etc. If you can’t make it that early, there’s always the day social and late lunch after that. That’s when they’ll serve up burgers, tacos, and short ribs. There will also be DJs, games on the big screens, and more. Noon.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents The Eternal Daughter

An artist and her elderly mother confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past. Featuring a towering, deeply moving performance by Tilda Swinton in dual roles, this new film from acclaimed director Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir, The Souvenir Part II) is a brilliant and captivating exploration of parental relationships and the things people leave behind. 5 pm.

Creed concert review

Creed serve up millennial nostalgia at pyro-packed RodeoHouston concert

Courtesy of Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

Singer Scott Stapp serenades the RodeoHouston crowd.

Hello, my friend, we meet again.

I’ve had a torrid relationship with Creed. As a circa-2000s punk rocker, it was implied that I was supposed to hate them. Nevertheless, I enjoyed those hook-laden Mark Tremonti riffs and Scott Stapp’s burly, Bono-grasping vocals, with just a hint of irony deep in the mix. I had “One Last Breath” on a burned mix CD, bunched in with Fugazi, Rancid, and Sham 69. I would skip it as quickly as I could, depending on who was in the car. Driving home from a long day slinging milk in the Kroger dairy cooler? Windows down, Stapp up.

When I began my music journalism career 20 years ago (!!!), I began sticking up for them, much to the consternation of a lot of my fellow writers who were hung up on stuff that was supposed to be cooler and hipper. Creed’s pop-culture zenith came right as The Strokes and The White Stripes were thrust on us by the music press as a counter to post-grunge, which other music writers were categorically allergic to. Remember when our biggest problems in America were bands that were overtly influenced by Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains?

In 2012, I interviewed lead singer Scott Stapp along the way for the Houston Press, and I distinctly recall Stapp being confused on our call that a guy from a smug alt-weekly wasn’t asking him stupid questions or making fun of his leather pants. The band was heading to Houston for a two-night stand at the Bayou Music Center in 2012 when they played 1997’s “My Own Prison” and 1999’s “Human Clay” in their entirety.

Fun fact: “Human Clay” has sold over 20 million albums alone, besting Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and Pearl Jam’s “Ten” by only a relatively small margin. Creed moved more physical CDs when people actually bought music.

Somehow, along the way, people stopped hating Creed and Nickelback, and the hate gave way to pre-social media, millennial high school, and pre-9/11 nostalgia. The similarly maligned Nickelback sold out the rodeo in 2024.

On Wednesday, March 11, I saw junior high school kids wearing crispy new Creed shirts with their parents. Gen Alpha is beginning to get curious about what mom and dad were up to during spring break 2001, and Zoomers are rediscovering Y2K fashions. Haven’t you seen those “Mom, What Were You Like In The ‘90s?” memes?

Creed has been sold out for weeks, drawing 70,007 attendees. If you had told someone 10 years ago that Creed would sell out RodeoHouston, they would have been skeptical. And yet here we are, staring down at a sold-out Creed show. These things run in cycles. Emotions fade. Annoyance turns into wistfulness for the days of Nokia brick phones and 99-cent gas. You can even go on a Creed Cruise now.

Creed hit the stage just before 9:30 pm, an enviable bedtime for most elderly millennials, kicking off with the TOOL-chugalug of “Bullets,” with Stapp and Tremonti making the best use of their stage platforms, crucial devices for any major rock band in the 2000s. Unrelenting pyro shot from the dirt surrounding the stage every time Stapp lifted or flailed his arms like Elvis if he discovered cardio.

The dirge of “Torn” — the second single from My Own Prison — was pyro-less, likely giving the cannons a few minutes to cool off. The sweaty Stapp, at just 52, looks to be in better shape than he did 20 years ago, now sporting a conservative haircut like he stepped out of his company’s stadium suite or finished a twilight run at Memorial Park.

Stapp introduced “My Own Prison” with a preachery pep talk that wouldn’t sound out of place at an altar call at Sturgis. The crowd hung on every emphatic word. Maybe seeing two middle-aged dudes wearing Stryper shirts down on the concourse made more sense than I realized. Is Creed actually just TOOL that accepted Christ? The graphics behind the band could’ve fooled me.

Stapp introduced “One” with a speech on commonalities and love. Looking back, Creed’s lyrics were much too earnest, hitting at a time when critics were still hungover from grunge.

During “With Arms Wide Open,” the rodeo cameras would routinely cut to tattooed dads and rocker chicks in the crowd playing air guitar along with Tremonti and singing their guts out like they did the first time they heard it on 94.5 The Buzz. For a large segment of the crowd, they might have had a Gen-X parent jamming this stuff on the way to school in the morning.

“Are you ready to get higher in here, Houston?” Stapp yells. The place erupts as “Higher” starts. Stapp was in his element, pyro shooting off, his silver jewelry dangling, taking in the crowd, like he didn’t expect such a response.

Possibly the last true rock power ballad ever recorded, “One Last Breath,” got the biggest screams of the night; it might also be the Gen-Z “Don’t Stop Believing” as long as we’re making wildly controversial statements. [Editor’s note: Isn’t that Mr. Brightside? -ES]

Welcome back, Creed, from pop-culture purgatory, and props for what might have been the loudest RodeoHouston show in years.

SETLIST

Bullets
Torn
Are You Ready?
My Own Prison
What If
One
With Arms Wide Open
Higher
One Last Breath
My Sacrifice

Courtesy of Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

Singer Scott Stapp serenades the RodeoHouston crowd.

rodeohouston houston livestock show and rodeo concert review