10 Best Things to Do in Raleigh in April 2025

April in Raleigh bursts with delights! It is when festival season truly kicks off. From beer bashes to Earth Day celebrations, April offers outdoor concerts, thrilling races, smokey BBQ fests, and tranquil garden tours.

April in Raleigh has a couple minor holidays to look forward to including April Fool’s Day and Earth Day.

Weather in Raleigh in April

Fear not the prospect of bone-chilling cold or sweltering heat, for temperatures hover at a delightful 73° F during the day and a crisp 49° F at night. While a sprinkling of rain may dampen the spirits for a few days, the rest of the month basks in glorious sunshine. Specifically, you can expect a total of 3 inches of rain over 10 days. If you find yourself yearning for comfortable temperatures and drier conditions, Raleigh in April might just be the place for you.

Top 10 Things to Do in Raleigh in April

1. Enjoy top notch hip hop at Dreamville Festival

When: April 5 and 6, 2025

Where: Dorothea Dix Park, 1030 Richardson Dr, Raleigh, NC 27603

Now in its final year, Dreamville Festival is an outdoor weekend musical extravaganza, masterfully curated by the illustrious hip-hop artist J. Cole and his Dreamville team.

Imagine a large park with multiple stages featuring performances from some of the biggest names in music alongside exciting new voices. Picture local food vendors, art vendors, merch tents, refreshments, free water stations, photo-ops, and all sorts of interesting people. At Dreamville Festival, there are no strangers, only new friends waiting to be made, all gathered around a shared love of music.

Tickets for the festival are available online and start at $300.

2. Act like a child at Partyology

When: April 11, 2025 from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Where: Marbles Kids Museum, 201 E Hargett St, Raleigh, NC 27601

Engaging in frivolous activities, such as those involving beverages and merriment, contributes to one’s overall amazingness. This true fact is supported by science.

At 21Marbles, one is invited to partake in these play and party activities, including, but not limited to, party games, arts and crafts, and the somewhat dubious application of scientific principles to… well, one can only speculate.

Those who survive this peculiar curriculum will emerge as certified PARTYologists!

Tickets are available for $15 in advance or $18 at the door.
Beer, wine, hard seltzer, non-alcoholic beer, soda, water, and food will be available for purchase.

3. Get fancy at Historic Oakwood’s Annual Garden Tour

When: April 12 and 13, 2025

Where: Tucker House, 418 N Person St, Raleigh, NC 27601

At Oakwood’s Annual Garden Tour, enjoy a self-guided stroll through Historic Oakwood’s fabulous gardens. Sensible shoes are a must as you will be walking approximately 1.5 to 2 miles. And a wide-brimmed garden hat is always a delightful, if not essential, accessory.

Select gardens along the route will offer a curated tea selection along with a few sweet and savory treats from local businesses.

Timed-entry tickets are $25 per person and must be purchased online.
There is also an add-on Fascinator/Boutonniere Making Experience that includes a 1-hour fascinator / boutonniere making session, supplies for one person, a special mocktail, and your walking tour ticket for $45 per person.

4. Enjoy some BBQ at North Carolina ‘Cuegrass Festival

When: April 19, 2025, from noon to 6 p.m.

Where: Fayetteville Street

‘Cuegrass is a free, family-friendly festival where the air is filled with the savory scent of barbecue. Imagine yourself in downtown Raleigh with a beer from R&D Brewing in one hand and a delicious barbecue sandwich cradled in the other while toe-tapping to the irresistible twang of banjos. Challenge your companions to a thrilling lawn game or two and then hit up the tents of local pop-up vendors.

100% of food and beverage proceeds will support beneficiaries: SAFEChild, Freedom Ride Rescue, the Boy Scouts of America’s Occoneechee Council, and Western North Carolina Hurricane Relief.

‘Cuegrass is free to attend.
A ‘Cuegrass Fast Pass is available online for $25 and allows you to skip the line at all beer and food stations at the festival and comes with a free koozie!

5. Celebrate Earth Day

When: Earth Day is April 22, 2025 but there are events all weekend

Where: Various locations

Raleigh Earth Day 2025 is Friday, April 25, 2025 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Flowers Field at Dix Park – 2105 Umstead Drive, Raleigh, NC 27603.

The details of this big event are not set in stone as I write this, but you can most likely expect activities such as garden demonstrations, a shredding and e-waste recycling event, Native American Earth Dances, movies in the park, the Raleigh Environmental Awards ceremony, a puppet parade, a drum circle, tree planting, food trucks, coral reef education and crafts, a bike course, disk golf, fishing-on-land, cornhole, hula hoops, lawn bowling, giant Jenga, and Kan Jam.

The full event schedule and parking recommendations will be available on the website.

Raleigh City Farm Bearthday is Saturday, April 26, 2025 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Raleigh City Farm – 800 North Blount Street, Raleigh, NC, 27604.

This is a dual celebration of Raleigh City Farm’s birthday and Earth Day! Connect with friends, grab a beverage, tour the expanded site, enjoy live music, get creative with hands-on art activities, connect with the Farm Team and check out their new tractor, learn something new about bees, composting, sustainable practices, and regenerative agriculture. Oh, and there will be free cupcakes.

This is a free celebration with no tickets required.
However, you can pre-order a tasty Broccoli Cheddar Soup Bread Bowl meal package or a Cochon De Lait Po-Boy meal package for $40 that includes other goodies from community partners. The menu is provided by A Place at the Table and their new food truck The Travelin’ Table & Catering with produce sourced from the farm, and your choice of beverage from Wine Authorities, Standard Beer + Food, and Tribucha Kombucha. There will also be a limited supply of meal packages available for purchase day-of. Bring your own chair and blanket to enjoy your meal with old and new friends.

6. Laugh out loud at Dogwood Comedy Festival

When: April 23 to 27, 2025

Where: ComedyWorx, 3801 Hillsborough St # 121, Raleigh, NC 27607

Dogwood Comedy Festival features 5 days of longform improv comedy performances from teams around the Southeast, each bringing their unique brand of merriment to the stage.

And in addition to the general hubbub, Bianca Casusol, a veteran teacher and performer, will be conducting four distinct workshops, each requiring a ticket.

A weekend festival pass can be purchased online and allows access to all of the shows and costs $80 before April 1, or $90 from April 1-15.
Tickets for individual shows range from $5 to $15 per show.

7. Sample some beer at Brewgaloo

When: April 25 from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and April 26 from 12;00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., 2025

Where: Raleigh City Plaza, 400 Fayetteville St, Raleigh, NC 27601

Brewgaloo is a 2 day festival featuring over 110 craft breweries from around NC and partnering with local food trucks, local vendors, and local bands to bring you North Carolina’s largest craft beer festival!

Friday night is a sampler event from 6 to 10 p.m. featuring limited releases, barrel aged, and sour beers.

A Friday ticket gets you admission into the tasting event with unlimited 3oz sample size pours. Tickets are $45 online or $55 at the door.

Saturday’s street festival spans the length of Fayetteville Street and fills Downtown Raleigh. Over 110 breweries and cideries from across the state will be setting up shop, offering a staggering 300 unique craft beverages for your tasting pleasure. Stroll from tent to tent discovering hidden gems and familiar favorites from North Carolina’s vibrant craft beer scene. Grab dinner from one of 50 local food trucks, shop dozens of local vendors, and enjoy live entertainment on two stages while you sample craft beverages from all over NC!

The Saturday street festival is free to attend but drink tickets are required to sample the beer and cider by the taste or pint. Drink tickets can be purchased in advance online or at the event.
Bundles of 25 tickets are available for $30 through April 16, $35 through April 25, or $40 at the event. Bundles of 15 will also be available at the event for $24.
2 tickets = 3 oz sample | 5 tickets = full pint

8. Stop and smell the roses at Raulston Blooms!

When: April 26, 2025 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Where: JC Raulston Arboretum, Ruby McSwain Education Center, 4415 Beryl Rd, Raleigh, NC 27606

Come kick off the spring season at Raulston Blooms! The garden will be packed with nature inspired activities, a makers market, food trucks, and outdoor fun for everyone to enjoy. Look for a birdhouse competition showcasing avian architecture, gardening talks, educational displays and demonstrations, NC State Howling Cow ice cream cups, a used gardening book sale, and hands-on fun for families to create lasting memories.

One things that stands out is the JCRA Spring Plant Sale, which has a reputation for including hot new introductions, hard to find specialty plants, and also reliable performers.

Tickets for Raulston Blooms are only available the day of the event at the entrance of the JC Raulston Arboretum. Tickets are free for members and college students with identification; $5 for nonmembers; $10 per family.
Free parking is available along Beryl Road.

9. Watch some short track racing at the Wake County Speedway

When: Friday nights from April to September

Where: Wake County Speedway, 2109 Simpkins Rd, Raleigh, NC 27603

Get your adrenaline pumping at Wake County Speedway, a quarter-mile asphalt race track located about fifteen minutes south of downtown Raleigh. It has earned the nickname, “America’s Favorite Bullring,” due to its tight corners and intense Friday night races, where stock cars battle it out in a door-banging frenzy.

Check for exact prices, but generally, regular adult admission is $15; seniors, military, students get in for $12, children 6-12 are $5, and children 5 and under are free. Tickets are available online or at the door.
The full season schedule including theme nights and special events is available here.
Gates open at 6:00 p.m., Qualifying races are at 7:15 p.m., and the main races are at 8:30 p.m.

10. Visit the Dueling Dinosaurs at NC museum of Natural Sciences

When: Any Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Where: North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, 121 W Jones St, Raleigh, NC 27601

Dueling Dinosaurs at North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

The Dueling Dinosaurs is an incredible fossil that contains the intertwined skeletal forms a tyrannosaur and a triceratops. What happened to these two dinosaurs? Did the tyrannosaur, emboldened by hunger, meet his match in the triceratops’s horns? Or perhaps a mudslide buried them both? It’s a 67-million-year-old mystery, just waiting to be solved.

Your visit starts with a behind-the-scenes exploration of this prehistoric puzzle. In this interactive and immersive exhibit experience, you can examine the evidence firsthand, ponder the possibilities, and formulate your own hypothesis. In the Dueling Dinosaurs exhibit, every detail, every scratch, every mark on a bone is a potential clue.

Then enter a real working paleontology lab where the fossils are being prepared and studied. You’ll have the opportunity to talk directly to the brilliant scientists digging into this mystery.

Learn how paleontologists know what they know about dinosaurs; how they know what dinosaurs looked like, what colors they displayed, or how their muscles moved. Learn how do they obtain all that information from a jumble of rocks and bones.

In the immersive science lab, you’ll find the very tools and technologies that the paleontology team is using that unravel the mysteries of the Dueling Dinosaurs. Practice extracting information from fossil evidence. Design your own dinosaur using comparisons to living animals. See and touch fossils of all shapes and sizes. Inhale the musty scent of ancient bone mingling with the sharp tang of cleaning chemicals. Use CT scan data to figure out what sounds a dinosaur could hear.

All ages are welcome but the scientific content provided is best suited for middle schoolers and older. Strollers are not allowed.

What are you most excited for in Raleigh in April?