Clematis by Night: West Palm Beach's Free Weekly Concert Series Just Voted #1 in the Country

Clematis by Night has been a West Palm Beach institution since 1993 — a free outdoor concert series held every Thursday on Centennial Square at the foot of Clematis Street, where the waterfront park meets the city's most historically significant commercial corridor. Thirty-plus years in, it just earned the most public validation it's ever received: USA TODAY 10Best named it the #1 Best Outdoor Concert Series in the United States.

That's not a regional award or a Florida distinction. That is a national ranking, beating out concert series in cities with far larger entertainment budgets and far more obvious cultural cachet. It reflects something genuine about what Clematis by Night actually delivers: a professionally produced, free weekly event that rotates through over 25 musical genres — soul, jazz, rock, reggae, Latin, blues, country, classical — drawing a crowd that ranges from young professionals to longtime residents who have been coming since the first year.

The format is simple and deliberately accessible. Gates open each Thursday evening, there's no admission charge, and the stage faces the Intracoastal Waterway — meaning the backdrop to every performance is the water and the lights of Palm Beach across the way. The surrounding blocks are lined with restaurants and bars that fill well before the music starts, making Clematis by Night less a concert and more a weekly neighborhood ritual with a live soundtrack.

The crowd is one of the most authentically mixed in South Florida. On any given Thursday you'll find tech workers who moved here from the Northeast, waterfront condo residents who've made it a weekly habit, families from Wellington and Lake Worth who drive in for the evening, college students, retirees, and first-time visitors who stumbled onto the street and stayed. That cross-section — by income, age, origin, intention — is part of what makes it work. It's not a scene curated for any one demographic. It's just good live music, outside, for free, every week.

For people evaluating West Palm Beach as a place to live — whether full-time or seasonally — Clematis by Night is one of the most useful data points available. It tells you something about how the city thinks about its public space, about what the social infrastructure of the downtown actually looks like in practice, and about what a Thursday night can feel like when you live close enough to walk. Buildings within walking distance of Centennial Square — on or near Clematis, on Flagler Drive, in the CityPlace corridor — have direct access to this without a car. That is not a trivial amenity. It is the kind of embedded neighborhood quality that doesn't show up in an MLS listing and doesn't depreciate.

The USA TODAY 10Best Readers' Choice award is a crowd-sourced national competition. Winning it means that enough people who have attended Clematis by Night felt strongly enough to cast a vote — which is a different kind of endorsement than a jury or editorial selection. It means the people who actually experience this event consider it among the best of its kind anywhere in the country. For a free, municipal, year-round concert series, that is a remarkable outcome and a legitimate reflection of what West Palm Beach has built here.

The series runs every Thursday year-round, weather permitting, at Centennial Square on South Clematis Street at Flagler Drive. Admission is always free.