If you are looking for things to do on Long Island this weekend, August 22–23 is the weekend the calendar stops being polite. Two arena-sized shows land on the same Saturday night, eleven miles apart. Old Westbury Gardens turns its lawns over to caber tossers. A 33-year-old seafood festival in West Sayville has no parking lot at all. And Diana Ross closes it out Sunday in Brookville. Nothing here requires the Midtown Tunnel. Here is what is worth your weekend, and the honest parking picture for each one.

Marco Antonio Solís at UBS Arena — Elmont

Saturday, August 22, 8 PM | UBS Arena, 2400 Hempstead Turnpike, Elmont

Marco Antonio Solís brings the Tour Gratitud 2026 to UBS Arena Saturday night. Fifty years of catalog, from Los Bukis through a solo run that has kept arenas full across two generations, and a crowd that sings the whole set back at him. Tickets start around $81. This is the biggest ticket on Long Island this weekend by a wide margin.

UBS Arena has the best transit access of any big room on this island and it still does not solve the car problem. Belmont Park is a parking lot ringed by Hempstead Turnpike and the Cross Island, and eighteen thousand people leave through the same handful of exits inside twenty minutes. Parking is prepaid, the lots stage out by section, and in the wrong one you sit for forty minutes watching the LIRR crowd walk past you.

A drop at the arena entrance and a pickup at a spot agreed on before the show, away from the exit crush, is the whole play. We run Nassau County events at this venue constantly, and the pickup location is the entire game.

The Fray and Dashboard Confessional at Jones Beach — Wantagh

Saturday, August 22, 7 PM | Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater, 895 Bay Pkwy, Wantagh

The Summer of Light Tour puts The Fray and Dashboard Confessional on the same stage, with Colony House opening. If you were between 16 and 25 at any point in the 2000s, this bill was assembled specifically for you. Tickets start near $45, one of the better values of the summer for a night on the water.

Jones Beach is the most predictable transportation problem on Long Island and it has nothing to do with the show. It is the geography. Everybody funnels in on the Wantagh Parkway and back out along Ocean Parkway, and there is no alternate route because you are on a barrier island. A 7 PM start with two openers puts the whole crowd on that causeway at once around 11.

Then the second problem: this is the same night as Marco Antonio Solís. Two large Nassau venues emptying within a half hour of each other puts real weight on the Southern State and the Meadowbrook at the same time.

Long Island Celtic Festival and Highland Games — Old Westbury

Saturday, August 22, 8 AM to 5 PM | Old Westbury Gardens, 71 Old Westbury Rd, Old Westbury

The Celtic Festival takes over the lawns at Old Westbury Gardens Saturday for a full day of pipe and drum bands, Irish dance, and Highland athletics. The Empire Throwing Club handles the caber toss and stone put, worth the admission on its own if you have never watched a grown man throw a telephone pole for accuracy. Classic British cars, weaving demonstrations, and festival curling round it out. General admission is about $25, seniors $21, kids $10.

Old Westbury Gardens is a 200-acre estate with field parking, and field parking on a hot August Saturday means a long walk in and a slower one out. The Jericho Turnpike and Glen Cove Road corridor is already busy on a summer weekend before you add a festival crowd, and most people leave inside the same ninety-minute block at the end.

Drop at the gate is the answer here, particularly with older family members or a stroller. Nine hours on a lawn is enough without a half-mile walk on each end.

33rd Annual Seafood Festival — West Sayville

Saturday and Sunday, August 22–23, 11 AM to 6 PM | Long Island Maritime Museum, 88 West Ave, West Sayville | $10, kids under 12 free

The Maritime Museum runs its Seafood Festival for the 33rd year this weekend on the grounds along the Great South Bay. Fresh seafood from local shops, craft beer and cocktails, live music, antique boats in the water, and roving pirates for the kids. Ten dollars at the gate, under 12 free, cash only, so hit an ATM first.

Here is the part people find out the hard way: there is no public parking on the festival grounds. None. You park off-site at the Baymen Soccer Field at Cherry Avenue and Tariff Street and take a shuttle in. The shuttle is free and included in admission, but it is still a shuttle, which means you are on its schedule at 6 PM with everyone else leaving when the music stops.

A door drop on West Avenue skips the whole arrangement. We cover Bay Shore, Sayville, and the South Shore.

Diana Ross at Tilles Center — Brookville

Sunday, August 23, 7 PM | Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, 720 Northern Blvd, Brookville | Sold out

Diana Ross brings the Diana in Motion tour to Tilles Center Sunday night, and it is already sold out. "I'm Coming Out," "Baby Love," "Upside Down," "Stop! In the Name of Love," in a room that seats around 2,200. An artist of that stature at that scale does not happen on Long Island often, which is precisely why there are no tickets left.

Tilles Center sits on the LIU Post campus off Northern Boulevard. Campus parking is fine going in and slow coming out, because a sold-out house exits through roads that were not designed for it. A sold-out crowd is also a dressed-up crowd, and nobody putting on their good clothes for Diana Ross wants to end the night walking across a dark college lot in them. Drop at the door, pick up at the door. We run Garden City, Manhasset, and the North Shore for shows like this all season.

Who's Bad and Rock of the '80s at The Paramount — Huntington

Saturday, August 22, 8 PM and Sunday, August 23, 7:30 PM | The Paramount, 370 New York Ave, Huntington

The Paramount runs both nights. Saturday is Who's Bad, the Michael Jackson tribute that has been touring for over twenty years and is genuinely good rather than merely accurate, with tickets from about $31. Sunday is Rock of the '80s, a four-band bill with China Crisis, Big Country, The Vapors, and The Icicle Works, from around $45.

The show is never the problem in Huntington. New York Avenue is. The village fills before a single ticketholder arrives, because the restaurants on Main and New York Ave are booked by seven on an August Saturday. The municipal lots go early and the Elm Street garage empties all at once when the room breaks near 10:30. If dinner in the village is part of the night, and in Huntington it usually is, a door drop and a pickup on a side street chosen in advance removes the circling entirely.

Also on this weekend

Harbes Family Farm in Mattituck has its Watermelon Festival both days, and Waterdrinker Family Farm in Manorville runs the Honey Festival with sunflower fields and jump pads. Sound Avenue and Route 25 both crawl on a peak North Fork Saturday, and the wineries are minutes away if the afternoon turns into a tasting, which is the most common summer call we get out in Suffolk County. Closer in, Rocky: The Musical runs at CM Performing Arts Center in Oakdale through August 29, and blues guitarist Kerry Kearney plays the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame in Stony Brook Sunday for $12.

One Call Covers the Whole Weekend

Two arenas on the same Saturday night, a Highland Games on a Gold Coast lawn, a seafood festival that will not let you park at it, and Diana Ross on Sunday. One shared problem sits underneath all of it. The event is never the hard part. Hempstead Turnpike at 10:45, the Wantagh causeway at the same moment, a shuttle line in West Sayville at six, and New York Avenue on an August Saturday are where a good weekend turns long.

We have been running these roads for 20 years, from the Jones Beach lots out to the North Fork, and we plan the drop and the pickup around how each place actually fills and empties. We cover all of Nassau and Suffolk, the Hamptons and the North Fork, and if the weekend also involves a flight we handle the JFK and LGA runs too. See our Long Island car service details, or request a quote and we will take it from there. The car will be there.

Best Things To Do on Long Island This Weekend — August 22–23, 2026