Fans of the spooky season have an annual event they look forward to—and we're not (just) talking about Halloween.

The Holy Bones Festival in Ypsilanti is a shivering mix of art, performance, and vibes, with the focus being on the ghoulish and gothic with a PG-13 bent. There are also related seasonal artisan markets throughout the year, all with a similar macabre spirit: Pushing Up Daisies in the spring, Krampus in July, etc.

Ypsi visual artist Holly Bones started The Holy Bones Festival in 2019, but she had to switch things up for the 2025 edition and other seasonal markets, as stated on the fest's Facebook events page:

This year has been one of immense change for our team, marked by both life changes and the loss of loved ones. We're taking a step back from our big festival to host a series of artisan markets for the rest of 2025. It’s our way of focusing on the artists and community that started it all, and it's also a chance to spend more intentional time with all of you before we dive into 2026!

The Holy Bones Artisan Market was always the centerpiece of the Holy Bones Festival, but now it has the full spotlight, with more than 70 creators displaying their wares at the Ypsilanti Freighthouse on Sunday, October 19, 1-9 pm.

Scaling back gave Bones and her self-described "skeleton crew" a chance to reset and plan for a big 2026, all while continuing to celebrate the local artistic community, especially those creators who might not fit in with typical seasonal markets.

"My hope is that attendees for this market, and any local market, continue to support real human creativity in our communities," Bones said via email. "By supporting local artists instead of corporations, you are bringing someone's dream to life in real time."

We conversed with Bones about the 2025 Holy Bones Festival and what she has planned for 2026.

Dead media is alive and well in my house.

My husband, Brian, and I have an affinity for various types of discontinued and outdated media from the 1970s and 1980s. It’s everything from 8-tracks and LaserDiscs to VHS tapes and retro video game consoles.

There’s something fun about revisiting old media from your childhood or experimenting with now-obsolete technology that was popular before you were born.

I want to highlight some of my old media as a way to celebrate Dead Media Day, which is October 12 at Ann Arbor District Library’s downtown location.

The inaugural event pays homage to retro media, entertainment, and ephemera, and features vendors selling vintage and rare items.

It will also have exhibits, hands-on demonstrations, and crafts for fans who want to step back in time and honor all things old and once forgotten.

Here’s a look at five types of dead media that continue to thrive in the Stratton household.

The informal talk series Nerd Nite Ann Arbor hit its 100th-event milestone in July, but nobody threw a party for it.

“We talked about whether we wanted to celebrate it or not, and we decided every Nerd Nite is a neat Nerd Nite,” said Ann Arbor District Library's Emily Murphy, who co-hosts the event with AADL colleague Jacob Gorski.

“And yes, we hit 100, but we’re gonna keep going. We acknowledged it when we were there and said, ‘Here we are—wow, 100 times,’ but I feel confident that we’re gonna just keep going, and people [will] keep coming to it.”

Murphy and Gorski are hosting the 103rd edition of Nerd Nite Ann Arbor on October 9. The two-hour event, held on the second Thursday of every month at LIVE, features three speakers giving informative talks in a bar setting for 15-20 minutes on topics of their choice.

Topics often cover science, technology, health, history, and pop culture. The October 9 event features speakers Kim Williams-Guillén on the bats of Wayne County, Chuwen (Cullen) Zhong on the impacts of loneliness and social isolation on people’s health, and Jim Ottaviani on identifying and tracking asteroids in our solar system.

A record was broken at Michigan Stadium on September 7, 2013, when 115,109 people watched the Wolverines defeat Notre Dame. It's still the most attended college football game of all time.

​The Big House is ready for another record-breaking performance.

​Country singer-songwriter Zach Bryan and pop-rock singer-songwriter John Mayer are headlining the University of Michigan’s first concert at the stadium on September 27. The show is expected to have over 112,000 fans in attendance. 

​“That total means Bryan is poised to break the all-time U.S. record for a ticketed concert by a single act, which was set by George Strait at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field in 2024,” wrote Brandon Champion in a February 15, 2025, article for The Ann Arbor News.

​However, this isn’t the first time U-M has tried to have a concert at Michigan Stadium.

Pat Deneau sings about the adrenaline rush he gets from work and music on the song “Hits the Same.”

The musician-firefighter’s heart pounds as he climbs on a firetruck with the Ann Arbor Fire Department, or sets foot onstage with The City Lines and sings, “I don’t know what I’m doing here / But my heart is racing / Is this the price to feel so alive?”

“When I’m singing those lines, I’m almost picturing like I’ve got the hose line in my arm, and I've got my buddy on my back pushing me in and the fire’s pouring overhead,” said Deneau about the anthemic opener from the Ann Arbor trio’s new album, Prescribed Fires. “It feels exactly the same as flipping the standby switch on the amp, and the volume control is up and the cymbals wash.”

“Hits the Same” also sets the compelling narrative for The City Lines’ third album, which explores parenthood, career, mental health, heritage, and the environment.

Freddie Brooks wants to create a time capsule for the band Detroit Energy Asylum.

The Metro Detroit producer and label owner discovered that analog tape recordings of the group’s past studio sessions were starting to disintegrate and raced to preserve them.

“I had roughly three dozen of these big two-inch reels [of analog tape] and some of them were starting to shed,” said Brooks, who produced and managed the band from 1980 to 2000.

“The [tape] was falling off, and I ended up having to bake all those tapes and to transfer them for posterity. That’s when I started going through them, and that’s what happened with the ReCreation record [in 2019]. I was going through them and thought, ‘These songs are mostly finished. Most of them haven’t been released.’ I put the ReCreation [record] together, and beyond that, later on, I started listening to some of the other ones.”

Brooks realized there was a wealth of Detroit Energy Asylum material to unearth and share with fans—both past and present.

Pulp's "Hip-Hop History" series sheds light on the early days of the genre and the integral role it’s played in the Washtenaw County music scene since the 1980s. To get a better idea of what it was like back when hip-hop first emerged, we spoke to four pioneering local DJs—Will “Chill Will” Higgs, Chuck Slay, Scott “DJ Scotty D” Downer, and Jamil “DJ Jammin’ Jay” Powers—about how they got started in the music, some of their favorite memories, and where their creative journeys have taken them.

Will Higgs

In 1978, 10-year-old Will Higgs wanted to become a DJ after seeing a cousin demonstrate his skills.

Rob Millett, aka DJ Robby Rob, taught Higgs his mixing skills and dubbed him “Chill Will,” a moniker that stayed with Higgs and later became his DJ name. It stemmed from Higgs getting hyped up about learning the DJ trade.

“Instead of [being] the kid that wanted the GI Joe with the kung-fu grip, I wanted a turntable and a mixer,” he said.

Higgs’ father soon got him two turntables and a mixer, allowing him to sharpen his DJ techniques alongside Millett.

“I’m right-handed, but I’m really ambidextrous,” he said. “But I do things—in the DJ world it’s called ‘hamster’—backwards to [my cousin] because [with] my right turntable, the crossfader goes left, [and with] my left turntable, the crossfader goes right. Eventually, mixers started coming out where you [could] just flip a switch and make it hamster for you.”

Higgs also tagged along with his uncle Walter Harris to WCBN-FM since Harris knew several DJs at the station. Those early WCBN visits eventually laid the on-air foundation for Higgs, who would later DJ and host the weekly The Prop Shop radio show on Saturday nights starting in 1988.

Taylor Greenshields didn’t anticipate he'd be doing Fun Fest this long.

The Ypsilanti audio engineer, producer, and drummer started the annual event in 2021 after envisioning Frog Island Park’s amphitheater as the ideal space for an outdoor music festival.

“Yeah, it’s crazy that it’s the fifth year,” said Greenshields, who’s curating and hosting the event on August 9. “The first year was like a test run, and then seeing people enjoy the fest so much the next couple years, I had to keep it going.”

Since then, he’s featured an eclectic group of local artists performing at Fun Fest, including Travis Auckerman, Stormy Chromer, Ki5, The Macpodz, Thornetta Davis, and others.

“It’s almost like the festival is its own organism at this point,” said Greenshields, also the owner and operator of Fundamental Sound Co., an Ypsilanti-based recording studio.

“The festival has grown in many ways over the years by having different activities for kids [and] all sorts of different vendors, bands, and artists. Just the word getting around about the festival has really evolved over the last few years [as well].”

Now, he’s gearing up for the fifth edition of Fun Fest, which includes returning acts Al Bettis, Dani Darling, Ma Baker, and Violet Sol. It also features the new additions of Marcus Elliot, Peter Madcat Ruth’s C.A.R.Ma Quartet, and Jacuzzi Beach to the festival's lineup.

Despite the band’s name, J. Michael & The Heavy Burden wants to lighten the emotional load for people.

The Ann Arbor-Metro Detroit band provides a cathartic outlet for processing feelings—ranging from hope to heartbreak to euphoria—on its latest album.

“A lot of the music that I write, it all comes from a very emotional place,” said Jeff “J. Michael” Brach, frontman for the Americana-jam rock band, about Where We Belong.

“When I’m at my peak creatively and writing a lot of music, which I’m actually doing more of right now, it’s when I’m going through difficult things.”

Brach examines a spectrum of emotions while rediscovering his purpose—both personally and vicariously—across eight tracks.

“Universally, the music that I love, you can identify with it, even if you’re interpreting it differently,” he said. “We all come from our perspectives, but you can universally tap into certain things that are being said.”

In his new film, Zach Damon shares the rich history of disability advocacy in Ann Arbor.

The director explores 70 years of local advocacy in Resilience Revealed: Ann Arbor’s Disability Legacy, which highlights the city’s foundational role in shaping the broader disability rights movement.

“Honestly, disability is something I have a great deal of experience in,” said Damon, who was born with cerebral palsy and grew up in Ann Arbor.

“And as a filmmaker, when an opportunity comes along to make a film about what you know, you have a duty to make work that can give a glimpse into what that is and what came before you to enlighten others.”

Through personal narratives, historical accounts, and expert insights, the 24-minute film examines the building blocks of Ann Arbor’s disability rights legacy, emphasizing its significance within the community and its impact on future generations.