Cactus Club

Cactus Club artist-run music venue
community event space
friendly neighborhood tavern
(870)

Artist-run, queer-owned music + arts venue
Community event space
Friendly, storied neighborhood staple

Riot Fest 2026 Single-Day Lineups are here!⁠September 18-20, 2026. Douglass Park. Chicago, IL.⁠⁠1-Day, 2-Day, & 3-Day ti...
06/17/2026

Riot Fest 2026 Single-Day Lineups are here!⁠
September 18-20, 2026. Douglass Park. Chicago, IL.⁠
⁠
1-Day, 2-Day, & 3-Day tickets are on sale tomorrow at 10am CDT. Ticket prices start at $99.98 + fees. Get early ticket access one hour before public on sale by texting “hey” to 312-878-6767 or sign up at riotfest.org.

06/17/2026

Cactus Club presents Q***r Cinema for Palestine (QCP) No Pride in Genocide 2026

A global film event, co-organized by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). Our second year being part of this event and QCP’s 4th year hosting it. This year we paired the screening with our Solidarity Supper community meal Pride edition. LGBTQ+ folks (and the parents of lgbtq+* youth) are invited to join us for a free community meal at Cactus Club at 5pm, before the screening.

Community partners: Blue House Film, Healthcare Workers for Palestine MKE, Milwaukee4Palestine, Milwaukee Illuminate Film Festival, SEEN Moving Image, Water Is Life Autonomous Campaign

This screening follows our Pride month edition of Solidarity Supper a free community meal for LGBTQ+ people (parents of LGBTQ+ youth welcome!)

Q***r Cinema for Palestine began as an alternative ethical space for filmmakers who pulled or refused to show their work in the Israeli government-sponsored TLVFest LGBTQ Film Festival. Over the past six years, hundreds of filmmakers have shown their solidarity in response to the boycott call from q***r and trans Palestinians. As Israel continues its genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the West Bank, and across historic Palestine and throughout the region, we condemn this violence and the might-makes-right order, and stand in solidarity with Palestinians.

Israel continues to attempt to instrumentalize our identities as q***r and trans people to justify its genocide against Palestinians, including murdering, blackmailing, and imprisoning q***r and trans Palestinians. Accordingly, QCP will take place during June 2026, the month that marks Pride in many countries worldwide. We do so to continue our refusal of Israel’s pinkwashing. This year’s program focuses on the work of q***r, Palestinian, and allied artists, across locales, in historic Palestine and the diaspora, identities, lengths, styles and genres to highlight art’s position in resistance and the struggle for liberation.

Come spend this cool and calm Sunday with us 🌤Outside we've got a sweet spread of artists, treats, readings, and clay 🫖🦇...
06/14/2026

Come spend this cool and calm Sunday with us 🌤

Outside we've got a sweet spread of artists, treats, readings, and clay 🫖

🦇🌿 Gorgeous prints, paintings, and drawings by reese hadzima
🗝🦌 Darling little ceramics by Mud & Tail Studio
🌙🔮 Flower essences and tarot readings by Kayle Karbowski ~ Other Dust
🪶🌻 Typewriter poetry by sunshine himself Johnny Types
🧁🐁 Baked goods and sweets by abundantgatheringsproject

Wanna come chill inside? 🏡

We've got DJ LIV LIFE RUMMAGE SALE aka Olive spinning vinyl and selling garments 🎵

Artist market coordinator sindie will be giving crash courses in Riso printing with our new colors for the season ⭐️🌀 Come get familiar with sunflower and teal courtesy of our partnership with BearBear 🐾

Recess! Artist Market 🎈
12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. ☁️
Free & all ages, always 🪽

Q***r Cinema for Palestine (QCP) No Pride in Genocide 2026📽️ A global film event, co-organized by the Palestinian Campai...
06/08/2026

Q***r Cinema for Palestine (QCP) No Pride in Genocide 2026

📽️ A global film event, co-organized by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). Our second year being part of this event and QCP’s 4th year hosting it. This year we paired the screening with our Solidarity Supper trans centered community meal. Trans* folks (and the parents of trans* youth, are invited to join us for a free community meal at Cactus Club at 5pm, before the screening 🍝

Community partners: Blue House Film, Healthcare Workers for Palestine MKE, Milwaukee4Palestine, Milwaukee Illuminate Film Festival, SEEN Moving Image, Water Is Life Autonomous Campaign

🎞️ Join one of 300 global screenings. 🇵🇸

Q***r Cinema for Palestine began as an alternative ethical space for filmmakers who pulled or refused to show their work in the Israeli government-sponsored TLVFest LGBTQ Film Festival. Over the past six years, hundreds of filmmakers have shown their solidarity in response to the boycott call from q***r and trans Palestinians. As Israel continues its genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the West Bank, and across historic Palestine and throughout the region, we condemn this violence and the might-makes-right order, and stand in solidarity with Palestinians.

06/02/2026

🌞Sail into our summer Book Club selection starting this week🌞

🌻COMING UP THIS WED 6/3 - Led by Cream City Foundation ()
Book: “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” by Alison Bechdel
Recommended bookseller: Boswell Book Company () *Mention Cactus Book Club at checkout to receive a 10% discount

🌻Wed 7/1 - Led by Comité Sin Fronteras ()
Book: “Unbuild Walls” by Silky Shah
Recommended bookseller: La Revo Books ()

🌻Wed 5/6 - Led by Milwaukee National Lawyers Guild ()
Book: “Crashing the Party: Legacies and Lessons from the RNC 2000” by Kris Hermes
Recommended bookseller: Lion’s Tooth ()

ABOUT US: Cactus Book Club (CBC) meets on the first Wednesday of the month from 5:30-7:30 in the back room at Cactus Club. Each month a different community organization, collective, mutual aid group, or business chooses the book & recommended bookseller then leads the discussion. We read sociopolitical fiction and non-fiction, with a focus on works by women, LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and/or otherwise under-published groups. You don’t have to finish reading the book to attend. All book club meetings are free. No registration required. 18+. CBC is part of our ongoing programming. Contact [email protected] with questions 🌱

🎟️ Don't forget to grab your tickets 🎟️ASCO: Without Permission 🌛 June 3rd 8pm 🌜This documentary about the revolutionary...
06/01/2026

🎟️ Don't forget to grab your tickets 🎟️
ASCO: Without Permission
🌛 June 3rd 8pm 🌜


This documentary about the revolutionary Chicano arts group ASCO, moves across decades and genres putting together original footage, interviews, and works of current artists inspired by the groups works like their No Movies.

Performance Art, Social Justice, and Cinematic Expansion are just some of the key components to ASCO's work and legacy. Their work was often site specific to East LA, but this project shows cases and expands their reach

🌵 Cactus+ is honored to be facilitating the only regional screening of this transformative film.

🌵 Cactus+ Moving Image‘s vision is to create an environment conducive to critical engagement by showing work that takes risks, challenges norms, and opens conversations by showcasing a wide range of artist-driven independent media.

🌵 To keep a flow of new perspectives, the monthly programs are curated by Cactus+ as well as visionary guest programmers. We have hosted installations, video jockeys, workshops in stop motion, teen film-making, hosting screenings, and cinema studies. Additionally we have worked with local filmmakers, organizations, and spaces within our community networks.

05/29/2026

🍭🍭The Lollipop Generation (2008) Presented by Cactus+ and QZAP w/ shorts curated by SEEN 🍭🍭

✨ Returning to Milwaukee for the first time in 18 years! Screened in its first year at the Milwaukee LGBT Film and Video Festival of 2008. Milwaukee’s Q***r Zine Archive Project was the community partner then and bringing it back to Milwaukee, this time with short films curated by Milwaukee originated q***r film coalition SEEN.

📹 Filmed piece-by-piece for over a decade and a half, The Lollipop Generation is a loose narrative that pays homage to the grungy, life-on-the street subculture of writer-director G.B. Jones. Shot on grainy Super 8 with spurts of jarring video, the fast cuts and simplistic dialogue belie the subject matter of social deviants, hustlers and s**t peddlers who revel in defying society’s norms of decency.


🚫 This film is 18+ because of language and sexual themes including sexual violence. There will be a more contextual introduction at the start of the event.

📑 Q***R ZINE ARCHIVE PROJECT
The Q***r Zine Archive Project (QZAP) was first launched in November 2003 in an effort to preserve q***r zines and make them available to other q***rs, researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest DIY publishing and underground q***r communities.

For more information please visit our main site at QZAP.ORG

👀 SEEN
SEEN is a q***r coalition of moving image makers, researchers, and curators who aim to disrupt the system of pay to show festivals and censored q***r spaces. Through collaboration with other community driven and alternative art spaces, SEEN highlights self defined and nonconformist works to build a foundation for the rise of the Cinematic Gaze/Gayz. Our approach tries to make moving image art accessible to all, while making it sustainable work for ourselves as working class artists and programmers. More information at our website.

🌵Cactus+
Our mission is to create an artist-centered model for multimedia arts education and community building that champions accessibility, inclusivity and sustainability. Founded in 2022, Cactus+ is our effort to formalize and broaden the reach of our arts education and

Friday, May 29th ˚ ⟡˖ ࣪Force (Album Release) • Poison Hand • Mindharvester▪️▫️ $15 • 6:30pm • All AgesMilwaukee heavy me...
05/29/2026

Friday, May 29th ˚ ⟡˖ ࣪Force (Album Release) • Poison Hand • Mindharvester
▪️▫️ $15 • 6:30pm • All Ages

Milwaukee heavy metal rockers Force celebrate the release of their first full-length album "We Carry Heavy Blood." The group is joined by Poison Hand, a punk and hardcore group that meld elements of street punk with lyrical emotional depth. Mindharvester opens with pure crust punk.

Transport v. 18 • whorl • Honeyboy • Language Models
▪️▫️ $10 • 10pm • 18+
Spinning out from a moving center, turning into whatever’s out there: air and relationships and happenstance and happy dance in a techno trance.

10-11 Honeyboy [live PA & visuals] drifts at the corners of dance floors between shadows cast by speakers stacks, patiently absorbing hectic vibrations – taming them and entertaining them – only to redirect them back at the freak bodies who need them so bad.

11-1230 whorl [vinyl] is traipsing through Milwaukee for a night of trippy pads and percussive synths. whorl brings a tinkering artist’s mentality to the decks and, subsequently, to your soul.

1230-2 Language Models [vinyl] stomps home through the warm darkness to wrap you in a hug effervescent with healing spells. Open up! You can trust this Language Model.

𝔘𝔭𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔖𝔥𝔬𝔴𝔰Death Valley Girls: CC Presents at Anodyne • Saturday, July 18 • 7:00pm▪️▫️ $17 ADV // $20 DOS • All AgesM...
05/28/2026

𝔘𝔭𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔖𝔥𝔬𝔴𝔰

Death Valley Girls: CC Presents at Anodyne • Saturday, July 18 • 7:00pm
▪️▫️ $17 ADV // $20 DOS • All Ages
Mystic rockers from the West Coast bring their scrappy enchantments to the Anodyne stage. With more than a decade of releases, these magical spirits are adept at conjuring elemental powers with savvy composition, catchy riffs, and careful songwriting: music for the alchemy of the self. Transform us into spiritualized gold!

Brotherkenzie • Tuesday, July 28 • 7:00pm
▪️▫️ $16 ADV // $20 DOS • All Ages
Lead guitarist and singer of band Hippo Campus further elaborates his indie rock inclinations with poppy experimentations and folk distillations. Adventurous, 'verby leads and vocal harmonies will sparkle on the Cactus PA.

Buffalo Nichols • Friday, August 14 • 6:30pm
▪️▫️ $20 ADV // $25 DOS • All Ages
Fuzz and distortion contribute a signature texture to Carl Nichols’ contemporary take on the blues. From The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to NPR’s Tiny Desk series, Nichols has been adamant in spreading the word with personal, political lyrics and sonic missions into the void. Wherever he leads, curious minds will follow.

🌵 Tickets live now on the Cactus Club website 🌵

The Riot Fest 2026 Lineup is here.September 18-20. Douglass Park. Chicago, IL.Tickets on sale now at www.RiotFest.org
05/28/2026

The Riot Fest 2026 Lineup is here.
September 18-20. Douglass Park. Chicago, IL.
Tickets on sale now at www.RiotFest.org

Address

2496 S Wentworth Avenue
Milwaukee, WI
53207

Opening Hours

Tuesday 6pm - 12am
Wednesday 4pm - 2am
Thursday 4pm - 2am
Friday 4pm - 2:30am
Saturday 1pm - 2:30am
Sunday 11am - 2am

Telephone

+14148970663

Website

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