Live Wire x Portland Art Museum

Live Wire is taking over the Portland Art Museum on Thursday, November 5, for a full day of performances that starts in the galleries and ends with a live recording in the Sunken Ballroom. The afternoon kicks off with pop-up performances from 4:30 to 6 PM, scattered through the museum's galleries, and then moves into the ticketed taping at 7 PM, with doors opening at 6:30. The whole thing is hosted by Luke Burbank with announcer Elena Passarello, and the recording is later edited into an episode broadcast to more than 200 public radio stations across the country.

The bill runs the gamut from music to writing to comedy. Dessa brings the singer, rapper, and writer side of the Doomtree collective, and she'll be appearing alongside her memoir, My Own Devices. Mac Barnett is the 2025-2026 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and a New York Times bestselling children's author. Ed Park is a Pulitzer Prize finalist whose books include Personal Days, Same Bed Different Dreams, and Three Tenses. And Mx. Dahlia Belle is a Portland comedian known for her performance on the Netflix special Hannah Gadsby's Gender Agenda.

The timing is a bit of a double-dip: the date falls on the museum's monthly Free First Thursday, and it also lands within the Portland Book Festival's expanded schedule. If you're already planning to be downtown for either, it's an easy add. General admission tickets for the evening recording are $15, and preferred seating is $40, with a 10% discount for Portland Book Festival passholders. The museum is at 1219 Southwest Park Avenue.