No matter where you go in Houston at night, you’ll find tons of things to do. From theater, live music, and vibrant nightlife, to games, sporting events, and family-friendly activities, there is something here for everyone to enjoy after dark!
Here are 23 of the best things to do in Houston at night, including the top 10 activities, neighborhoods with great nightlife, museums with late hours, and family-friendly nighttime fun!
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Top 10 Things To Do At Night in Houston
1. Go to the theater
Houston has an impressive performing arts scene and is one of only five cities in the nation with permanent resident companies in the major performing arts disciplines: theater, ballet, opera, and symphony. It’s easy to have a great night in Houston’s Theater District, which spans 17 blocks of Houston’s lively downtown.
The Hobby Center has Broadway hit shows like To Kill A Mockingbird and Wicked, and the Theatre Under the Stars puts on shows like Sweeny Todd, The Cher Show, and Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella. The Jones Hall is home to the Houston Symphony and the Society for the Performing Arts. The Wortham Theater Center houses the renowned Houston Ballet and the Houston Grand Opera.
Other amazing theaters to check out are the Alley Theatre, The Music Box Theater, and the Stages Repertory Theater.
2. Play an escape room
If you are looking for an exciting night activity, The Escape Game Houston is a great place to start. Race against the clock to escape uniquely-themed rooms by solving riddles and cracking codes. Each game has multiple rooms to explore and different levels of difficulty.
Head down to the bottom of the ocean to investigate menacing activities in an abandoned laboratory in The Depths. In The Heist, you must stop an evil museum curator from getting away with the crime of the century by recovering a stolen masterpiece. In Through Time, you are challenged to save the future by hopping between centuries, from the Jurassic to the Medieval, and every period in between to restore the past.
With two Houston locations, one at The Galleria Mall and one at CityCentre means you can choose the location closest to you. Large groups can be accommodated, making The Escape Game Houston one of the most fun things to do in Houston at night! Plus it’s open late every night of the week if you are looking for fun after midnight!
3. Enjoy a little bit of everything in Houston’s backyard
Discovery Green is a 12-acre urban park with loads of fun things to do at night in Houston’s downtown. It’s a green oasis among the city’s skyscrapers and has been called “downtown’s backyard”. Discovery Green is open until 11 pm every night (and midnight in the summer) and has a full roster of free events.
Enjoy free concerts and movies on the performance stage with lawn seating. There are even free yoga and fitness sessions including early evening sessions! Discovery Green is one of the very best places to go at night in Houston for free fun!
4. Cheer on a Houston Sports Team
Houston is a massive sports town with four professional teams: the Astros (baseball), the Texans (football), the Houston Rockets (basketball), and Dynamo (soccer). With four teams playing different seasons, you can find a game going on in Houston nearly every night of the year!
Basketball fans can head to the Toyota Center, football fans will love the retractable roof at the NRG Stadium and soccer fans can head to Shell Energy Stadium. Minute Maid Park is home to the Houston Astros, the 2017 World Series Champions. Night games typically begin at 7:10 pm. With a retractable roof, night games can be played on rainy nights and sweltering hot nights since the stadium has air conditioning!
Planning a work party in Houston? Taking the crew to a game is a fantastic idea!
5. Watch a movie under the stars
Other than the colder months of late November to February, Houston nights see temperate weather. Take advantage of this fact by seeing a movie under the stars! A popular venue is the Miller Outdoor Theater in Hermann Park where you can see movies (and other kinds of entertainment) for free! The schedule ranges from classic films to current blockbusters. Bring a lawn chair or blanket and your own popcorn for a great night out!
The Rooftop Cinema Club screens cult and classic films with skyline vistas all around. If you have a car, enjoy an old-school movie night at a drive-in at Showboat Drive-In and Moonstruck Drive-In. A movie under the starry sky is one of the most romantic things for couples to do in Houston at night.
6. See live music
While Houston may not be the ‘Capital of Live Music’ like Austin, Texas is, Houston has always been a part of the national music scene. Houston has a diverse range of music venues with every kind of music performed from rock, pop, blues, jazz, country, rap, hip-hop, and electronic. You name it, you can hear it in Houston!
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The massive NRG Stadium at NRG Park hosts the biggest concert events of the year welcoming bands and performers like Beyoncé, Guns N’ Roses, and Taylor Swift. The Toyota Center is another huge concert venue featuring top-name international performers.
Some excellent music venues with seating capacities of 5,000 and under with line-ups featuring both established and emerging performers are the 713 Music Hall, and the Bayou Music Center. The smaller White Oak Music Hall has an outdoor amphitheater and two indoor concert spaces for up-and-coming bands.
7. Have fun at an amusement park
Kemah Boardwalk is a great place to go for fun times at night just 20 miles from Houston, near Galveston bay. It’s much more than a boardwalk. It’s a 42-acre megaplex with amusement park rides, restaurants, and shopping.
Enjoy classic rides like the 65-foot-tall Century Wheel and the Boardwalk Tower ride, both with amazing night views of Galveston Bay. Other rides include the 140-foot Drop Zone and the Boardwalk Bullet, a one-of-a-kind wooden rollercoaster that stands nearly 100 feet tall and has a top speed of close to 51 miles per hour!
Kemah Boardwalk is open all year and stays open late (Monday to Wednesday until 10 pm and Thursday to Sunday until 11 pm).
8. Watch a bat colony head out for supper
If you are seeking a uniquely Houston experience, this is it! Houston has a mammoth colony of Mexican free-tailed bats, estimated to be at 250,000! The colony lives under the Houston Waugh Drive Bridge and is largest between summer and early fall, though there are still enough bats to entertain in winter. Note that when sunset temperatures are at 50 degrees or below or when it is raining, the bats do not emerge from under the bridge.
9. Take a Houston Ghost Tour
No need to wait until Halloween to discover Houston’s spooky side! Houston Ghost Tours takes you to locales related to the city’s dark side. The tour includes a night tour of Hermann Park to ‘meet’ some of the alleged supernatural residents. Your knowledgeable guide will take you down dark paths while sharing spine-tingling tales of the park’s paranormal happenings.
If you need something to bolster your courage to face Houston’s ghosts, take the Nightly Spirits Houston Ghost Tour Pub Crawl. This two-and-a-half-hour walking tour is exactly what you need if you’re looking for fun activities in Houston for adults at night. Hear stories of haunted locations in historic districts of the city. Along the way, you’ll stop at four pubs so you can take a break from all the scary stuff!
10. Play arcade games all night
Houston is an arcade town and Cidercade is one of the biggest arcades with over 275 games, including pinball, driving games, sporting games, and of course the best classic games are available like Super Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Asteroids, Donkey Kong, and more. You can also play pool, shuffleboard, and air hockey.
Cidercade’s name is a combination of “arcade” and “cider” as they serve 24 hand-crafted hard ciders, plus Kombucha, wine, and hard seltzer. Although they don’t serve food, you are welcome to BYOF (bring your own food), or grab food from any nearby restaurant or food truck.
It costs only $10 for admission which gets you unlimited play on the arcade games all night long! Hanging out at Cidercade is one of the best cheap things to do in Houston at night.
It’s open Sundays through Thursdays until midnight and Fridays and Saturdays until 1 am for those looking for fun things to do late in Houston. Note that Cidercade is family-friendly during the day but after 8 pm it’s 21+, making a night at Cidercade a great thing to do in Houston for adults only.
Houston Museums and Art Exhibitions With Late Hours
11. Museum of Fine Arts
The MFA is open late on Thursdays until 9 pm. Take advantage of the late hours to see this superb museum. With a massive collection of approximately 70,000 works of art spanning antiquity to the present, Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts is one of the ten largest art museums in the country and a very good one at that.
There is art here for every taste, from Italian Renaissance paintings and French Impressionist paintings to European and American ornamental arts. The incredible collection of modern art has its own wing to keep you enthralled all night! If you are a solo traveler in Houston, an evening at the MFA could be right for you!
12. Seismique
This 40,000-square-foot art museum located on Houston’s west side offers an incredibly creative and entertaining interactive experience with immersive exhibits and astonishing displays. Siesmique has more than 40 brightly colored, mind-bending exhibits using projectors, holograms, augmented reality, light mapping, motion tracking, and 9 million LED lights! A visit to Seismique is open until 9 pm on weeknights and 11 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.
13. Color Factory Interactive Art Museum
Color Factory is an interactive art museum where guests are invited to feel the joy that color brings. Spread across a 20,000-square-foot maze are 14 The immersive installations are inspired by 30 of Houston-specific colors like the dark blue shade of the NASA logo and the vibrant green of Hermann Park. It’s one of the most uplifting places to spend a night in Houston. The Color Factory is open until 7 pm weekdays and 8 pm on weekends.
14. Twilight Epiphany Skyspace
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One of the coolest things to do at night in Houston is to experience the stunning “Twilight Epiphany” Skyspace by artist James Turrell. This unique venue is part of Rice University’s campus. Although it is known for hosting music events, it also boasts a light show that occurs just before sunrise and just after sunset (every day except Tuesdays). You can stroll through the space and sit inside to watch the performance. The Skyspace is open Wednesdays to Sundays until 10 pm.
15. Cullen Sculpture Garden
This lovely garden was created by renowned sculptor Isamu Noguchi as a space where art and nature meet. It’s fairly small but the collection of sculptures is impressive. There are masterworks of 20th and 21st-century artists Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Auguste Rodin, and Louise Bourgeois. There is also a smaller version of Chicago’s famous massive Bean (real name Cloud Gate) created by the same artist. The Cullen Sculpture Garden is open until 9 pm on Thursdays.
Neighborhoods with Great Nightlife in Houston
16. Downtown Houston
The Downtown district is one of the best neighborhoods to experience Houston’s nightlife. It’s buzzing with energy at night and offers a cosmopolitan experience. There are many fine bars from cocktail bars like the 806 Lounge to The Flying Saucer Draught Emporium catering to beer connoisseurs. Music venues and theaters dot the area’s streets, and dining options are plentiful. Looking for things to do on a Girls’ Night Out in Houston? Head straight to Downtown!
17. Market Square Historic District
This enclave within Houston’s downtown is so special that it is on the National Register of Historic Places! Some of the oldest buildings in the city are here. The neighborhood is as lively as it is charming. The district has lots of pubs and bars, restaurants, and entertainment options within walking distance of each other.
At the heart of the district is Market Square Park, a laid-back green space to hang out, dine on the grass, and enjoy a full roster of events from movie screenings and festivals until 11 pm nightly.
18. Montrose
West of Downtown is the somewhat arty neighborhood of Montrose with a diverse nightlife scene. It’s a very walkable neighborhood so bar-hopping is simple. One nice spot is Rudyard’s British Pub, a laid-back pub with a fantastic selection of beers, pool tables, and dart boards. Another, Avant Garden, has a community feel about it, as well as an outdoor patio illuminated overhead with sparkling lights.
Family-Friendly Things To Do In Houston At Night
19. Houston Funplex
There are so many things to do at this enormous indoor entertainment complex the fun never stops! It’s a perfect place to go for the evening if you are traveling with teens and younger children in Houston. Funplex has more than 200 arcade games plus other activities including a bowling alley, go-kart tracks, virtual reality games, roller skating, trampolines, and much more. While the adults can pop into the sports bar to check on the score, the kids can run around in the two-story PlayPort.
20. Children’s Museum of Houston
The fun Children’s Museum of Houston has late hours on Thursdays from 5 pm to 8 pm. A visit here is one of the most entertaining things to do for young kids, toddlers, and even infants! This excellent children’s museum has more than a dozen interactive exhibits divided into age-appropriate groups. Children’s imagination and curiosity are stimulated by the museum in interesting ways. On exhibit, FlowWorks teaches children about water while Kidtropolis how a city functions.
21. Speedy’s Fast Track
Speedy’s Fast Track is a great attraction at night in Houston that’s family-friendly. There are four types of go-karts to ride: super karts, regular karts, F1, and two-seat karts. Speedy’s also has a two-story, state-of-the-art laser tag arena. You can also play mini-golf on an 18-hole course as well as table games, air hockey, foosball, pinball, and pool.
Speedy’s Fast Track is open 365 days from Sunday to Thursday from 12 pm to 11 pm and Friday and Saturday from 12 pm to 1 am.
22. Main Street Theater
If you have young children who would enjoy a night out at the theater, the Main Street Theater will make them quite happy! Past shows have included Cinderella, Charlotte’s Web, and The Cat in the Hat. While many performances are during the day some shows start at 7 pm.
23. Downtown Aquarium
Houston’s Downtown Aquarium is one part amusement park, one part aquarium, and one part restaurant! Keep the kids engaged at your family supper in a dining room that has a floor to ceiling 150,000 gallon aquarium with over 100 species of aquatic life!
Besides having a meal, you can see the exhibits in the aquarium that feature marine life in their natural habitats. Plus there are amusement park rides like a Ferris wheel that overlooks the city and an aquatic-themed carousel.
The Downtown Aquarium is open until 8:30 pm on Sundays through Thursdays and until 10:00 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.
Explore more of Houston with our article, 30 Fun and Interesting Things To Do In Houston.
For suggestions on how to organize your time in Houston, see our Houston 2-day itinerary!
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