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Thursday, March 28, 2024

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Aggregation No. 1Campfire. Festival throughout the Labor Day weekend, starting at 6 p.m. Friday and at noon Saturday, Sunday and Monday at Passim, 47 Palmer St., Harvard Square. Tickets are available as $25 festival passes and $10 daily passes, as well as for individual shows.

Passim’s twice-a-year homegrown folk and Americana music festival runs throughout the long weekend and brings dozens of acts and more than 100 performers to the stage. Since the goal is to develop talent and celebrate the local music scene, organizers say the shows typically blur the line between performer and audience member. The all-ages event, now in its 18th year, has a full schedule here. (Singer-songwriter Hayley Sabella, who performs Friday, is above.)

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Aggregation No. 2Starlabfest Music & Arts Festival from noon to 9 p.m. Saturday at Starlab Studios, 10 Poplar St., near Union Square, Somerville. Tickets are $12 in advance or $15 the day of the show.

This seventh annual all-day outdoor event features two stages showcasing bands and standup comedy from as close as Somerville (including Mini Dresses, above) to as far away as Montreal, as well as vendors of vintage clothing, records and knick-knacks, an upright arcade game popup and free food (including vegetarian options) from the Scott Brothers New American Meat Co. It’s an all-ages event, with plenty of cider and Narragansett beer for those 21 and older holding valid ID. Information is here.

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090116i Kids Union dance

Aggregation No. 3Kids Union’s Outdoor Neighborhood BBQ and Dance Party from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Saturday under the arbor at The Neighborhood Restaurant & Bakery, 25 Bow St., in Somerville’s Union Square. Entry is $5 for kids, free for parents.

The Kids Union – which has a goal of simply giving children “a lot of fun activities to get through the day” – offers the food the younger set wants (burgers, dogs, chicken fingers and french fries will be for sale) and a way to work off all that energy (an outdoor dance party), as well as beer and wine for parents. Information is here.

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090116i Rob Potylo birthday

Aggregation No. 4Rob Potylo Birthday Bash from 8 p.m. Saturday to 1 a.m. Sunday at Out of the Blue Art Gallery Too, 541 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Admission is $6.

After years performing as the hilariously abrasive hard rocker Robbie Roadsteamer and boosting/roasting the local creative scene with the Web video series “Quiet Desperation,” Rob Potylo took off to travel America with presidential candidate Vermin Supreme and wrestler and actor Chyna. Back in town for the fall, Potylo is hosting a show with music buddies Psychic Dog, Earth Heart and Matt Minigell and comedians Katie Baker and Kevin Harrington. Potylo will also perform – the first set of his charming acoustic kids-music-for-adults the area’s heard in two years. Information is here.

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Aggregation No. 5Bread & Puppet Theater’s “Whatforward Circus” at 3 p.m. Sunday at Cambridge Common, near Harvard Square. Free, but pass-the-hat donations are welcome.

The shaggy, 53-year-old Bread & Puppet Theater troupe is back from Vermont for its annual end-of-summer visit to remind everyone what hippies look and act like, and also what fun plus political discourse feels like. Bread & Puppet uses a visually rich, slapstick style of street theater filled with huge puppets made of paper maché and cardboard along with masked characters, political commentary and a brass band for accompaniment. In the paraphrased words of the troupe, “Whatforward Circus” aims to merrily (for the most part) explore matters that concern us all – and “even if some of the circus acts are politically puzzling to adults, accompanying kids can usually explain them.” Cheap Art, posters and banners are available for sale afterward. In case of rain, the event will be held at First Church in Cambridge, 11 Garden St., Harvard Square. Information is here.