Wellen Park's Fall Runs on Two Calendars. Here's Where They Collide.

"The parade is best viewed from inside the seating bowl at CoolToday Park." That line sits on the Jingle Jam page, near the bottom of the ballpark's 2026 event guide. It describes golf carts that leave CoolToday, loop through Wellen Park and finish on the field. On December 12, one parade route connects the community's two event calendars. For the rest of the season, they run separately.

Downtown Wellen posts its events on wellenpark.com. CoolToday Park posts its own on cooltodaypark.com. The two lists aren't merged anywhere, so it's easy to miss that they share dates all season. Oktoberfest and Pork & Pigskin are both on October 3. The Fine Arts Festival and the Grilled Cheese Festival are both on November 21. December 4 and 5 are busy on both sides.

Here is the useful part. Most of those shared dates conflict on paper only. The two venues usually program different hours of the same day, and once you line up the times, most of the season fits together.

The Season on One Page

This table lists every dated event from both calendars between now and the Braves' home opener. Any row with an entry in both columns is a double-booked day.

Read down the columns and a pattern shows up. Downtown Wellen spreads its events across weeknights and single afternoons. CoolToday stacks most of its events into a handful of big Saturdays and finishes the year with one long December day.

October 3 Is the One Real Conflict

This weekend brings the only shared date where the two events truly compete for the same hours. Downtown Wellen's third annual Oktoberfest runs from noon to 6 p.m., with German dancers, polka, a stein-hoisting contest and German food. At CoolToday, Pork & Pigskin starts at 11 a.m. The plaza turns into a football field, with big viewing screens, tailgate-style food, a live pregame show and a field goal kicking contest. The ballpark tells guests to bring their own tents and chairs.

CoolToday doesn't list an end time, and college football runs all day. That means these two events overlap for the whole afternoon. The ballpark's listing says the plaza transforms "once again," so Pork & Pigskin is a returning event and not a test run. The schedule gives you two ways to do both. You could catch the 11 a.m. pregame first and head downtown later in the afternoon. Or you could start at Oktoberfest and pick up whichever game is still on when you get to the plaza.

November 21 Has a Sunday Built In

On paper, the Saturday before Thanksgiving week looks like the same problem. CoolToday's Grilled Cheese Festival starts at 11 a.m. It's the sixth year for what the ballpark calls its "most iconic event," with local food trucks, a craft beer garden with souvenir mugs, live music and kids' activities. The Fine Arts Festival opens in Downtown Wellen the same morning.

The difference is that the Fine Arts Festival runs both days, November 21 and 22, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, with free admission. Wellen Park describes it as an outdoor gallery of painting, sculpture, jewelry, photography, glass, ceramics, fiber art, metalwork and woodworking by artists from Florida and around the country, and the artists are there in person. Saturday's conflict goes away if you save the art for Sunday.

One weekend earlier, on November 14, Downtown Wellen hosts its third annual Wine Festival, with more than 40 vintners and small bites from Wellen Park's restaurant partners. The two Wellen Park pages don't agree on the dates. The event archive lists Saturday, November 14, from 1 to 4 p.m., and the ticket popup on the same site says November 13 and 14. If you plan on Friday the 13th, check the ticket page before you build an evening around it.

December 4 and 5 Stack by the Clock

The first weekend of December is the busiest stretch on either calendar, and the two venues have spaced it out almost hour by hour.

1. Friday, December 4. Wellen Wonderland in Downtown Wellen has Santa visits, live music and a tree lighting. Wellen Park says more details are coming, so there's no start time yet. The Braves Beer Run at CoolToday is at 6 p.m. It's a one-mile run, walk or stroll around the concourse under the stadium lights, with a beer or soda after each lap.
2. Saturday, December 5, 7:30 a.m. The Braves Tomahawk 5K follows a flat course on the roads near the park, cuts behind the scenes through the stadium grounds, loops the warning track on the field and ends with a post-race breakfast.
3. Saturday, December 5, 6 p.m. Holiday Dueling Pianos starts on the Solis Hall stage and runs until 9.
4. Saturday, December 5, 6:30 p.m. The Glow Bike Ride sets off from Downtown Wellen.

Friday is the only open question. Until Wellen Wonderland posts its start time, nobody can say whether the tree lighting and the Beer Run overlap. Saturday has none of that uncertainty. It can be a 5K in the morning and pianos at night, with the whole day free in between.

December 12 Is When the Calendars Meet

CoolToday has redesigned Jingle Jam for 2026 as "A Merry & Bright Night," a new nighttime take on the annual event, and it's free. The Sip, Shop & Sleigh Holiday Market opens at 10 a.m. with local vendors, food and drink. At 4 p.m. the pre-parade party starts. Drivers check in and finish decorating their golf carts, and the Jingle Bell Bar runs happy-hour specials. North Palm Plaza has photos with Santa in the Visiting Clubhouse, story time with Mrs. Claus, Holiday Glow Golf and rides on the Palmer Express.

The Thoroughbred Golf Cart Parade of Lights starts at 6 p.m. Lit-up carts leave CoolToday, travel through Wellen Park and finish on the field. Awards for the best-decorated carts are handed out on the plaza afterward. At 7 p.m., the Jesse Daniels Band plays the first-ever Drive In Concert. Golf carts can drive onto the plaza, and there's a separate area for lawn chairs and blankets.

Downtown Wellen hasn't scheduled anything that day. It's the one night of the season when the community's own streets carry the ballpark's event, and the CoolToday seating bowl is the official best seat for watching it.

The Weekly Rhythm Under the Big Dates

Between the big weekends, each venue runs its own weekly lineup, and the two lineups barely compete.

• Thursday: Music Bingo at 6 p.m. at the Superior Pools Tomahawk Tiki Bar & Grill, run by Suncoast DJ Bingo. On second Thursdays, the Wellen Park Night Market fills Downtown Wellen with independent makers from 6 to 9 p.m. In October it's paired with Dueling Pianos on the 8th.
• Friday: Friday Night Live puts a band on the Solis Hall stage from 6 to 9 p.m., and no RSVP is needed. Live music at the Tiki Bar also starts Friday and continues through Sunday.
• Sunday: The Fresh Harvest farmers market runs in Downtown Wellen from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., selling produce, plants, seafood and flowers.

The October one-offs fill in around those regulars. The Night of Worship Concert is on October 23. The event list shows 6 to 8 p.m., but the event's own page gives 7 p.m., so confirm before you go. The Spooktacular runs October 30 from 4 to 7 p.m., with trick-or-treating, music and costumes.

Where to Eat Between Events

Downtown Wellen's restaurant lineup is still filling in, so don't count on any of these new spots being open on a particular event day yet. Sarasota Magazine's September South County roundup put Grain & Berry on track for an October 2026 opening at 6106 Wellen Park Blvd., serving açaí and pitaya bowls, smoothies and toasts, but it didn't give a date. Agave Bandido, the Mexican restaurant and tequila bar from Lakewood Ranch, is expected to open this fall at 19830 Wellen Park Blvd., Suite 6108, also with no exact date.

Two others don't have dates at all. Easy Does It Comfort Kitchen is chef Spiros Stogiannis's third restaurant, planned for smashburgers and loaded "monstah" tots. La Maison is a French pâtisserie from Darel and Stephanie Albin, the family behind Sassy Tarts Bakery in Englewood. Both were expected by summer in an earlier forecast. Our earlier look at Downtown Wellen's Phase II covers what is already open.

After New Year's

Downtown Wellen ends the year with a free outdoor concert by Crossfire Creek on December 31 from 7 to 10 p.m. Bring lawn chairs or blankets. The Luminescence Festival follows on January 8. Guests decorate luminary bags with New Year's wishes or in memory of loved ones and set them along the lake, and the evening includes projection art, live jazz and a drone show.

Spring training is next. The Braves released their 2027 schedule on September 4, and the home opener at CoolToday is February 21, 2027, against St. Louis. The ballpark's spring training overview says single-game tickets are available, but the Cardinals game page says they "will go on sale soon." Check the game page before you plan around opening day. For more on the trails and town center between events, see our guide to everyday life in Wellen Park.

If family coming for Jingle Jam or the Braves opener starts asking what it's like to live a golf-cart ride from CoolToday Park, Kelly Pankiw is glad to talk through Wellen Park village by village. Let's Connect.