Following the success of last year's inaugural event, the Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat in Wheatland, Iowa invites enjoy an afternoon of music and family fun in the second-annual PrairieFest, the September 24 happening that boasts a quartet of live-music acts within the bucolic splendor of these grounds located a mere 40 miles from Davenport.

With September 16 officially Batman Day, the annually celebrated recognition of DC's hallmark superhero, Davenport's Putnam Museum & Science Center will host two screenings of writer/director Christopher Nolan's landmark Batman film The Dark Knight, the two-time Academy Award-winner that – until the recent advent of Barbie – held a 15-year record as the highest-grossing domestic release in Warner Bros. history.

One of the most significant events in the history of American travel will, on September 19, be explored at the Rock Island Public Library's Watts-Midtown Branch when the venue hosts a special free screening of the documentary East Meets West: The First Railroad Bridge to Cross the Mississippi, an event in the library's Rock Island History series exploring the construction and legacy of the first bridge to connect the city with Davenport, Iowa in 1856.

Offering visitors the chance to experience what it's like being in the front row of Spartan athletics, the University of Dubuque's Bisignano Art Gallery will house Photo Finish: Sports Photography at UD through September 29, this special exhibit timed to coincide with the beginning of the new school year and, of course, the start of collegiate football season.

Original works from more than 80 juried regional and national artists will be on hand at the September 16 and 17 Riverssance Festival of Fine Art, with the 35th Lindsay Park event, hosted by Quad City Arts, boasting a children’s art-activity tent, a wine tasting, artist-painted wine glasses, food vendors, live music, and the presentation of the prestigious Harley Award to Dee Schricker, the honor given to an individual whose affected the arts and artists in the Quad Cities during their lifetime.

With award-winning, Billboard-charting, internationally touring artists performing on the banks of a mighty river, the Mississippi Valley Blues Fest returns to Davenport for its 37th incarnation on September 15 and 16, the LeClaire Park event – hosted by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society – featuring nine thrilling Main Stage concert sets, nine additionally incendiary sets on the neighboring Tent State, and the return of the MBVS' popular blues-education and -appreciation initiative Blueskool.

Venerated rockers who achieved chart-topping Billboard success in the 1990s and are still going strong today, the hard-driving and critically lauded musicians of Skid Row and Buckcherry team up for a special co-headlining engagement at Moline venue The Rust Belt, their September 19 concert sure to boast hits from their most recent, respective albums The Gang's All Here and Vol. 10, as well as iconic smashes such as Skid Row's "18 and Life" and Buckcherry's "Sorry."

Their musical experiences having collectively earned them Grammy Awards, Chicago Music Awards, and opening sets for some of the biggest names in reggae, the Midwestern world-music artists of Gizzae headline a September 15 concert event at Davenport's Redstone Room, these talents having previously collaborated with the legendary likes of Ziggy Marley, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Carly Simon, and Talking Heads.

Touring together again for the first time since their initial 2018 disbandment, the punk-rock talents of Elmhurst, Illinois' The Orwells headline a September 20 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the group's 2017 album Terrible Human Beings lauded by New Noise Magazine as a work in which the musicians "maintain the same high caliber of energetic indie rock, and churn out a host of catchy anthems."

With the group's 2023 album Villagers hailed by Treblezine as "a richly layered record whose graceful arrangements land with a particular nuance," the experimental rockers of Califone headline a September 21 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, their latest release inspiring Beats Per Minute to rave that "Each minute of Villagers feels like home."

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