IngenuityFest 2026: America Dreams

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Our Flagship Event INGENUITYFEST
Ingenuity Cleveland was conceived as IngenuityFest - a multi-day, multi-venue event exploring unlikely places and perspectives and inviting Ohio residents and tourists to re-discover the city as alive and vibrant. IngenuityFest celebrated the post-industrial landscape and re-animated vacant storefronts & abandoned alleys that had long been ignored with a cross-pollination of arts, technology, and entrepreneurship. Over the years, the Festival moved from Public Square to Gateway/East 4th Street, Playhouse Square, the Cleveland State University campus, the Streetcar level of the Detroit Superior Bridge, and finally to Cleveland’s NorthCoast Harbor, before settling in St. Clair-Superior in our current home, a 6-acre, 100 year-old formerly dormant factory.

IngenuityFest includes immersive artwork; exhibits in technology & innovation; artisan vendors; educational offerings and half a dozen stages featuring hundreds of musicians, dancers, poets, and performances of all types.

What to Expect from INGENUITYFEST 2026?!
Each year, IngenuityFest takes place during the last full weekend in September. This year, we’ll celebrate the theme America Dreams from September 25–27, 2026, once again transforming Cleveland with art, music, technology and innovation. As we close out our 21st anniversary season of programming, we’re also celebrating a major milestone: a 100,000-square-foot expansion of IngenuityLabs, Cleveland’s home for creativity and innovation. Festival guests will be invited to explore the newly expanded footprint through 10 themed festival villages, including experiences centered around Forging & Fire Arts, Making & Technology and hands-on activities in Family Village.

I enjoy attending Ingenuity Cleveland's IngenuityFest every year!! I particularly like the theme of this year's three-day (Friday-Sunday, September 25-27, 2026) annual event -- America Dreams -- on this the 250th year of our country. I really appreciated the stories and songs told by the circus performers about the American dreamer.

 

I highly recommend that you please click on the following image to open the 2026 IngenuityFest Program Guide PDF file. Reading over the program guide as you look at my text and photos in this blog post will further explain the activities I participated in during this three-day Cleveland arts and technology festival. The guide will also show that there is a lot that I didn't have time to explore on this very full weekend featuring Cleveland creatives. Finally, and most importantly, please note (and thank if you get the opportunity) the list of financial supporters, volunteer Ingeneers, performers/participants, board members, and staff:

Open 2026 IngenuityFest Program Guide PDF file (5.8MB) in new browser window.

 

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What follows are my photos/videos from each day, along with my comments:

 

Day One: Friday, September 25, 2026 - IngenuityFest 2026: America Dreams

Thank you, Ingenuity Cleveland, for a fantastic Day One of your IngenuityFest 2026: America Dreams!! I enjoy IngenuityFest every year, and on this first day, it was great to run into friends I had not seen in a long time at this annual community celebration!

During the evening, I even talked to the drummer and singer from The Sonder Bombs, whose performance I enjoyed the previous night (Thursday, September 24, 2026) at the Akron Art Museum’s Community Opening Celebration in Downtown Akron. (Click here to see my blog post about the reopening of the Akron Art Museum's historic 1899 Building.)

I learned that PLIO Cinematics will be sharing videos from the weekend on YouTube. I will be sure to watch for them.
https://plioconsulting.com
https://www.youtube.com/@PlioCinematics

I recommend viewing videos in full screen mode.
Please feel free to pause the video to look more closely at the photos and to read any interesting facts that are in the slides!!

 

I really enjoyed “The Great American Fever Dream: A Cabaret.” In particular, I was blown away by the dance routine that I have included just before the end of the following video. I have re-watched the dance routine several times and have shown it to family members. The final "American Dreamer" song was a great way to end this cabaret show!

After the cabaret show, I talked to one of the performers. She told me this group is the Drop It Flop It Circus of Cleveland. Later, I was able to talk to several of the performers to thank them for their great show. This is a different circus group than I have seen at past IngenuityFests (see past blog posts) -- yes, we have more than one circus group in Cleveland! I didn't know that!
https://www.instagram.com/drop.it.flop.it.circus/

I recommend viewing videos in full screen mode.

 

 

Day Two: Saturday, September 26, 2026 - IngenuityFest 2026: America Dreams

IngenuityFest 2026: America Dreams Day Two had so many incredible people to talk to and shows to enjoy! Thank you to the Ingenuity Cleveland leadership team and the many volunteers for this City of Cleveland fun!

Some of what I saw tonight included:

• The booths of the following organizations: Case Western Reserve University's Sears thinkbox, NASA's Glenn Research Center GVIS Lab, and Cleveland Public Library's TechCentral MakerSpace. I highly recommend learning more about these creative organizations.
  https://cwru.edu/thinkbox/
  https://www.nasa.gov/glenn/glenn-expertise-labs-and-test-facilities/gra…
  https://cpl.org/service/makerspace/

  See my blog posts where I have written about:
  - CWRU think[box]: https://sosassociates.com/search/node?keys=%22think%5Bbox%5D%22&advance…
  - NASA: https://sosassociates.com/blog-tags/nasa
  - Library: https://sosassociates.com/blog-tags/library

• Ghostbusters: Cleveland is an official Ghostbusters franchise! "Chasing Ghosts from the Northcoast" since 2013.
  https://gbcleveland.org/

• The Statue of Liberty provided by The Darl Center for the Arts. I first learned about The Darl Center from a past IngenuityFest, and later saw Darl Schaaff do a PechaKucha Night Cleveland talk at The City Club of Cleveland. On February 28, 2026, I attended the play Conscience and briefly toured The Darl Center for the Arts museum.
  https://sosassociates.com/search/node?keys=Darl
  https://bsky.app/profile/sosassociates.com/post/3mfxs3pdwdk2h
  https://thedarlcenter.com/

• Trash Fish CLE's trash dragon.
  https://sosassociates.com/search/node?keys=%22Trash%20Fish%22&advanced-…
  https://trashfishcle.org/

• ProtoCLE Board Games
  https://www.protocle.org/

• I ended the evening with the “The Dreams We Carry - Night Circus Show.”

I recommend viewing videos in full screen mode.
Please feel free to pause the video to look more closely at the photos and to read any interesting facts that are in the slides!!

 

For Day Two (Saturday), I watched the ending of the Drop It Flop It Circus performance of “The Great American Fever Dream: A Cabaret” a second time, and then their “The Dreams We Carry - Night Circus Show.”

I recommend viewing videos in full screen mode.

 

 

Day Three: Sunday, September 27, 2026 - IngenuityFest 2026: America Dreams

Wow, what a great weekend! Thank you to Ingenuity Cleveland leadership team, volunteers, and the many people representing the great Northeast Ohio organizations participating in IngenuityFest 2026: America Dreams!

Here is information from Day Three when my family joined me:

• I learned about Cleveland Department of Public Health's Air Quality Complaint Hotline 216-664-7442. Call if you see an issue anywhere in Cuyahoga County.
  https://www.clevelandohio.gov/city-hall/departments/public-health

• I was wearing my Cleveland Shakespeare Festival shirt today, and I had two people tell me they now want to go to productions of their Shakespeare plays. I also told both of them about Ohio Shakespeare Festival in Akron.
  https://www.clevelandshakespeare.org/
  http://www.ohioshakespearefestival.com/

  See my Shakespeare blog posts to read about watching FREE Cleveland Shakespeare Festival shows at James A. Garfield National Historic Site, and about the Globus tour of Shakespeare's birthplace that my wife and I took this year: https://sosassociates.com/blog-tags/shakespeare

• Lunch from Mama P's Pretzels.
  https://mamapspretzels.square.site/
  https://www.instagram.com/mamapspretzels/

• “Tides Of Friendship: Circus Show” by Drop It Flop It Circus.
  https://www.instagram.com/drop.it.flop.it.circus/

• It was great seeing Cleveland Game Developers at IngenuityFest 2026. Learn more about their activities at: https://linktr.ee/clevelandgamedevs

• Mike Bruckman, the founder of Spherio, showed my family his 360-degree videos.
  https://spherioapp.com/
  https://mikebruckman.com
  https://youtu.be/V2VAaaqb3w8?si=fWBZLILa76ER_g8w
  https://www.youtube.com/@glokeys

• It is always good to see the The Fighting Unicorns (FRC Team 2399) from Hathaway Brown School at IngenuityFest! If you search my past blog posts for the Fighting Unicorns, you will see them mentioned often: https://sosassociates.com/search/node?keys=%22Fighting%20Unicorns%22&ad… https://frc2399.org/

• Cleveland Public Library
  https://cpl.org/

• Permutations
  https://PermutationsGame.com

Our family enjoys Ingenuity Cleveland events every year. See our past blog posts from their events here: https://sosassociates.com/blog-tags/ingenuityfest

I recommend viewing videos in full screen mode.
Please feel free to pause the video to look more closely at the photos and to read any interesting facts that are in the slides!!

 

“Tides Of Friendship: Circus Show” was a more family oriented show, since it was a Sunday, daytime performance by Drop It Flop It Circus:

I recommend viewing videos in full screen mode.

 

 

Related Blog Posts

I always like to include in my blog posts a list of related posts that may be of interest to my readers. Since there are 23 Ingenuity Cleveland blog posts, I will just direct you to look at my two 2025 blog posts about Ingenuity Cleveland, and the "Ingenuity Cleveland" blog tag. I have also included "Art" and "Technology" tags, since Ingenuity Cleveland is known for featuring these areas of creativity in Cleveland:

• Blog Date: October 21, 2026 - Celebrating the Reimagined Akron Art Museum 1899 Building
  See the section of the blog post entitled Music by The Sonder Bombs, and learn how I talked to their drummer and keyboard/guitar/ukulele player as they were attending IngenuityFest 2026.

• Blog Date: December 27, 2025 - So Much Fun! Ingenuity Cleveland Flannel & Finery 2025!

  Within 20 minutes of arriving, on Saturday, December 6th, at Ingenuity's Flannel & Finery 2025, I was blown away by the stage show that greeted me as I entered the artistically lit cavern that is the Ingenuity Cleveland Hamilton Collaborative building. . . . I learned of this party for creatives from an invitation that Ingenuity Cleveland Executive Artistic Director Emily Appelbaum . . . [During the evening, I learned that ] Emily Appelbaum was offered a position in California, and would be leaving Cleveland. . . . This blog post is not only in honor of Ingenuity Cleveland's "20th anniversary season of programming" and Emily Appelbaum's 10 years of service.

• Blog Date: October 7, 2025 - 20th Anniversary - IngenuityFest 2025: Forging The Future

  I have written 21 blog posts about Ingenuity Cleveland and their events: IngenuityFest and Bal Ingénieux/Ingenuity Bal. We are very fortunate to have this gathering of Cleveland creatives that is Ingenuity Cleveland. On September 26 and September 27, 2025, I attended the celebration of their 20th anniversary season at IngenuityFest 2025: Forging The Future.

• "Ingenuity Cleveland" - 23 past blog posts. I have been writing about Ingenuity events since 2012.

• "Technology" - 203 past technology blog posts.

• "Art" - 110 past art blog posts.

• A search for the word "Circus" shows interesting results in eleven blog posts featuring past performers.

 

I hope this blog post encourages you to attend future fun events hosted by Ingenuity Cleveland!

Thank you for reading my blog post. You can learn about my travel journeys and the venues I explore in Cleveland and Akron at: sosAssociates.com/Blog