Tom Tom Festival

Each April, the Tom Tom Festival takes over Charlottesville's Downtown Mall for five days — talks, workshops, and competitions by day, then the streets after dark. The anchor is a New Orleans-style Block Party across eight stages along the pedestrian mall. The daytime EVOLVE Conference pairs civic leaders, entrepreneurs, and technologists around themes that shift daily. The 2025 edition was the thirteenth annual. The organizing foundation keeps much of the programming donation-based or free, the logic being that the conversation should be open to whoever wants in.