The Laurel of Asheville’s Community Events Calendar
If you would like to submit an event to appear in our online Community Events Calendar, please visit our submission page.
The Laurel of Asheville is a lifestyle magazine focused on the arts, culture, and communities of Western North Carolina, and submitted events should fall within this context.
All submissions are subject to editorial approval and edits for clarity and style before being published online. If you are going to include a photograph, please be certain that you have the rights to utilize that image. If there is a question about image rights, we may remove the image. Also, images should be no larger than 2000 pixels wide. Large images will prevent the event from being submitted.
Please allow up to 5 days for your event to be posted. If you encounter difficulties submitting an event, please email amy@thelaurelofasheville.com.
Vulnerability Olympics
You’ve done ‘the work’. Now, prove it.
whimsyLab presents a satirical sporting spectacular where personal growth finally comes with rankings. Contestants compete in Competitive Curiosity, Trauma Dumping, Speed Repair, Reflect-Offs and Anger-Translating. Enter the arena or watch from the audience. The stakes are ridiculous; the feelings may be entirely real.
Thursday, November 19, 2026, 6:30 to 9:30 PM. Doors open at 6:00 PM. Blank Space, 701 Haywood Road, Asheville, NC 28806.
Spectators: $15 lower-barrier or $30 contributing. Contestants: $15 lower-barrier or $35 sponsoring. Maximum 25 contestants across both contestant tiers. Spectators will be invited to participate in a few open events, optionally.
Contestants must be 18 or older. A minor may attend as a spectator only when accompanied by an adult. Late arrivals may spectate but cannot compete. Refunds may be provided at the discretion of whimsyLab.
This is the trigger warning.
Triggers will be triggers. Tears will be cried. Expletives will be uttered. Emotional capacity will be objectified, judged, and scored.
This event will test emotional resilience. There will be opportunities to fail, public judgment, uncomfortable interactions, and potentially harmful or triggering emotional content. Spectating does not exempt you from exposure to that content.
This is participatory satire: not therapy, a support group, or a promise of healing. We are making fun of competitive vulnerability and performative emotional evolution. That does not mean the feelings brought up will be pretend.
Please attend because this particular combination of absurdity, exposure, and emotional challenge is something you actively want to experience, not because you feel you have something to prove.
This is the competition your therapist warned you about. That was not intended as encouragement.
Access note from the organizer: Blank Space is ADA accessible, and has two bathrooms on site. Parking can be found on the street or in a paid lot directly across the street from the venue out front of the church.