FASHION WEEK - Designer Tad Boetcher with models.

Everyone flocks to Cleveland Heights on those nice summer nights when the Coventry Village shopping strip is closed to traffic and given over to strollers, dog-walkers, musicians, street performers, arts, crafts and fresh produce vendors, and neighbors just hanging out and shooting the breeze. The Coventry Street Arts Fairs have become easy-going neighbohood festivals, as well as a chance for those not from around those parts to see what the area has to offer with its array of unique, locally owned shops and diverse bars and restaurants. But, with cutbacks everywhere, funding the basics - set-up, security and clean-up - has become increasingly difficult. So, to ensure that these monthly events can continue, the Coventry Village Special Improvement District is hosting a benefit at the B-Side Liquor Lounge (under the Grog Shop at 2785 Euclid Heights Blvd.) at 7 tonight. Area restaurants are donating the food for the event. Tickets are $25 in advance from Coventry merchants or $30 at the door. Go to coventryvillage.org for more info. - Anastasia Pantsios

Friday May 2

Fashion Week Cleveland

In a city where the main couture consideration seems to be how to dress for the sheriff's sale of your former home, Fashion Week Cleveland invokes a different world, one of supermodels and star designers and fantasy glamour normally inaccessible to us fly-over people except via glossy magazines. This Full Cleveland fills runways and catwalks with several days of snazzy threads and fibers, kicking off today at 8 p.m. with a gratis launch party with an Italian theme, called Glam Party, at La Dolce Vita (12112 Mayfield Rd.) in Little Italy. At 8 p.m. Saturday, May 3, Sammy's in the Flats (1400 W. 10th St.) witnesses Unclothed, a centerpiece mixed-media event showcasing dance, music DJs and wearable art. Admission: $40. On Sunday the Fashion Week Cleveland models and designers and TV personalities go overboard with a Nautica Queen dinner cruise leaving from the West Bank of the Cuyahoga River in the Flats at 6 p.m. Admission: $40 (including the buffet). The grand finale next Saturday, May 10, brings in reigning Miss America Kirsten Haglund and guest designer Tad Boetcher, to a black-tie gala at the Galleria downtown. General admission is $50 for the 9 p.m. show, or $100 for a VIP pass that allows you to partake of the festivities early at 8 p.m. For info and tickets go to fashionweekcleveland.com. - Charles Cassady Jr.

Cleveland International Wine Show

The Fabulous Food Show, held every fall at the I-X Center, had a lot to drink and now sires an offspring. Yeah, sounds like the squalid origin of most people you know around here in the birthplace of Alcoholics Anonymous. But our little case study is, in fact, the first-ever International Wine Show, a spin-off of the Food Show's popular wine pavilion held by the Cleveland Wine School. The oenophile's paradise launches at the I-X Center this weekend, brewing up a cocktail (writing while sloshed = mixing metaphors; deal with it) of live jazz, wine seminars and tastings. Top chefs will be cooking up gourmet dishes complimentary with wines, and there will be more than 500 quality international wines featured. VIP guests include Keith Morris of the Cincinnati International Wine Festival and the upcoming PBS series The Corkdorks, Master Sommelier Larry O'Brien, and Gary Twining, a certified member of the Society for Wine Educators (now where was that group when you were in high school and could have used them?). Hours: 6:30-10:30 p.m. today; 1-5 p.m., then a break (hangovers) and resuming from 6:30-10:30 p.m. tomorrow. Admission: $60. For more info go to internationalwineshow.com or call 216.265.CORK. - CC

Saturday May 3

WSEM Kentucky Derby Party

You've found the perfect giant hat and oversize sunglasses, but you don't have tickets to the 134th annual Kentucky Derby. Well, don't abandon your mint julep wishes and burgoo dreams just yet. The Run for the Roses is coming to Cleveland. The West Side Ecumenical Ministry hosts its eighth annual Kentucky Derby Party to benefit the WSEM Food Centers at Brookside. Race day is today; the party is at Great Lakes Brewing Company Tasting Room (2516 Market Ave.). This is an opportunity to enjoy the authentic Derby appetizers and spirits, all while benefiting those in need. There will be a silent auction, hat contest, raffles and betting on your favorite horse. The WSEM Food Center provides roughly 750,000 meals a year and is Cleveland's largest food distributor on the West Side. Not just a hand out, the WSEM also furnishes information, referrals and outreach services to individuals to meet basic needs. The party sells out every year; tickets go for $60. For more information call 216.651.2037 or visit wsem.org. The house emcees Andrea Vecchio and Michael Cardamone of WKYC's "Good Company" kick off the bash at 4 p.m. - Jara Anton

Arthritis Walk

Chinese Spectacular Ancient dance traditions come to life at Playhouse Square.

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo was recently in the headlines for the discovery of what was first thought to be a rare turtle in Southeast Asia. Turned out to be just an old guy with arthritis; that's why he was moving so slow. Prevent such mistakes from happening again by joining the Arthritis Walk at the Zoo (3900 Wildlife Way), taking place today under the auspices of the Arthritis Foundation. Teams participate in a fundraiser and stroll for a good cause through the lush zoo setting in either 1K or 5K walks, and there will be live entertainment, refreshments and family fun. Note that unlike previous such walks, dogs are not allowed to come along, for fear of antagonizing the zoo fauna. The walking starts at 9 a.m., but show up early at 7:30 a.m. to pre-register on-site. Call to pre-register or learn more at 216.831.7000, or go to arthritis.org. - CC

Cocktails & Art Benefit

Yet another benefit in a season where they're cropping up as prolifically as daffodils, the Tremont West Development Corp. is holding theirs in one of Tremont's cool galleries, Asterisk Gallery (2393 Professor St.), where partygoers at Cocktails & Art will revel among owner Dana DePew's distinctive and colorful lamp-like hanging sculptures as well as work by area artists that DePew is assembling for the auction. With Tremont restaurants providing the food to go with the cocktails from the open bar, this event should give patrons a nice sampling of what the neighborhood is all about. It's at 8 p.m.; tickets are $60. The money benefits the group's Adopt-a-Senior and community organizing programs. For info call 216.375.0484. - AP

Chinese Spectacular

Conquer Your Heart. Come on, you know you're all thinking that, but you'd be a little hasty to joke about the Chinese Spectacular coming to Playhouse Square's State Theater (1501 Euclid Ave.). A presentation of Divine Performing Arts, it purports to specifically celebrate and revive the exoticism of old China that was quashed by Mao's Cultural Revolution; this actually distances it from the Communist Party jackboots. Just PR for the Olympics? Maybe. Or maybe not, as you relish the sumptuous sights and sounds of orientalism unleashed. Enjoy the splendor of song-and-dance choreography, costumes, pageantry, agility and stagecraft - 5,000 years of Chinese history come to life in a dazzling multimedia presentation that combines Western instrumentation with traditional Asian folk arts and music. Afterwards you can buy actual made-in-China products at the gift shop. Or any Wal-Mart or convenience store. Or anywhere, dammit. Curtain time is 7 p.m., and tickets are $25-$200. For info, call 216.241.6000. - CC

Sunday May 4

Cemetery Trolley Tour

Cleveland's largest cemeteries such as Lake View Cemetery are well known as major repositories of regional history. But Cleveland has many smaller cemeteries too, maintained by churches that served the various ethnic groups that built the city. Vicki Blum Vigil has written Cemeteries of Northeast Ohio, and she'll make her book come to life, so to speak, on a trolley tour of some of these lesser known burial grounds. She'll take tourists to half a dozen Parma and Brooklyn cemeteries and talk about some of the residents and their back stories, as well as what the headstones reveal about religious and ethnic customs. The tour takes off from the Powerhouse (2000 Sycamore St. in the West Bank of the Flats) at 1 p.m. and returns at 4. Vigil will be selling and signing books for those interested. Reservations essential; call 216.771.4484. Tickets: $30. - AP

Monday May 5

Walk + Roll benefit

Regardless of whether you qualify as a change-maker, mover or shaker, you might want to get thee to Pickwick and Frolic (2035 E. 4th St.) from 5:30-7:30 p.m. where you can schmooze people who do fit that description. A benefit networking event for Walk + Roll Cleveland promises an impressive list of bicyclists who also move and shake, and you might just get a chance to slip one of them your business card. Walk + Roll is the street-closing event that allows cyclists and pedestrians to walk and roll in peace on summer Sunday afternoons in Rockefeller Park and - for the first time this year - in Lakewood. They'll have special drink prices, healthy food and prize drawings. Tickets: $25-$100. Go to walkroll.com to register or get details. - Michael Gill